How disagreeable all these matters were to the Florentines, and above all to Lorenzo, may be imagined. A dangerous flame was being kindled. Towards the end of August the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, made to the Signoria, on behalf of the king, the first announcement of the outbreak of internal hostilities, but without owning their real importance. Before the middle of September it became known that the Pope was causing troops to march over the border. On October 3 the deliverance of Aquila from the garrison placed there by the Duke of Calabria became known. Thereupon Ferrante sent his eldest son’s confidant—Giovanni Albino—to Lorenzo, who had long been intimate with this learned and accomplished man, at once a politician and a historian:[280] ‘You shall tell Lorenzo,’ such were Ferrante’s instructions,[281] ‘that we turn to him as the best friend we have in Italy, and one for whom, in case of need, we would risk our State, our children, and our own person. Beg him not to leave us in the lurch; he and his house shall be rewarded for their services to us.’ Then followed negotiations with Lodovico il Moro, to whom Albino proceeded on leaving Florence. It was ill speaking of Lodovico at the latter city, because his intrigues with Girolamo Riario kept up a constant fear of disturbances in Romagna; nevertheless, in the present conjuncture, it was necessary to try to keep at peace with him. The Duke of Bari’s policy was evidently to put the Florentines forward and watch the moment when he himself could most fittingly appear. He proposed that the Florentines should hinder Sanseverino’s passage through Umbria; but they answered that it would be far simpler for him to prevent his crossing the Po, whence he would doubtless skirt the Adriatic coast and not turn inland at all. Next, Ercole d’Este gave notice that by a brief of October 1 the Pope had commanded him to grant a passage through the Duchy of Ferrara to Roberto da Sanseverino, who was leading 600 men-at-arms to his Holiness, and who, added the Duke, was expected to set out on the 10th from Cittadella, in the Paduan territory, cross the Po at Ficcarolo, and take the road through Romagna and the Marches—which showed that the Florentines were right in their answer to Sforza. Soon after news came from Siena that the Pope had asked that Republic for a body of 120 men-at-arms and 300 picked mercenaries.
The Florentines did all they could to prevent the Sienese from yielding to the Pope’s demand. As the armed force of Florence was small, they took the Count of Pitigliano into their service and decided to await the course of events. But there was no real feeling of security, from the impossibility of trusting to the little neighbouring state. ‘The Sienese,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador,[282] ‘being by nature at once frivolous and suspicious, and perpetually stirred up by the Pope, are in a violent fever, lamenting over the danger to which they would be exposed if the king got the victory over the Pope, as he would then employ their natural enemies—the Orsini—to avenge himself for the revolution of 1480. Their ambassador plagued the illustrious Lorenzo for two hours to-day with this nonsense, and it will cost a great deal of trouble to keep them neutral, for they are always getting troublesome.’ On October 10, the day on which Sanseverino began his march, Lodovico il Moro wrote to Lorenzo.[283] He represented to him the danger that would threaten the king if the enemy appeared on the frontiers of the already excited country. ‘As your Magnificence sees, prompt proceedings are necessary. The best way to help the king will be to break at once with the Church, as the Pope has done with the king. It appears to me necessary that you should induce the Signoria to consent to a declaration of war, that while awaiting reinforcements from hence they may set their armed force in order and despatch it to the frontier without minding the unfavourable season, which hinders neither the Pope nor the lord Roberto. What the foes think their troops capable of, ours can surely do. But there is no time to be lost in coming to a decision.’
When this new complication arose, Lorenzo was at the baths of San Filippo in the Siena territory. The Morba waters had greatly benefited him in the spring, and in May the Anziani of Siena sent a special envoy to congratulate him on his recovery;[284] but it was not lasting. The position of affairs was such as to embarrass even as practised a politician as Lorenzo. He thought it needful to support the king, but he was too clear-sighted and knew his native city too well to give way to illusions as to the feeling about Naples. The king and the duke were hated; to enter on their behalf into a war, which would entail certainly great expenses and possibly serious complications, was pleasing to no one. When Lorenzo proposed to the Council to give support to Ferrante of Naples he met with vehement opposition. ‘At first,’ relates Niccolò Valori,[285] ‘the majority were decidedly against the proposal. In the midst of this long-wished-for peace, said they, did he want to kindle the flame of a fresh war? Had he forgotten in what danger they had been placed by arms and the censures of the Pope? What if Venice should take part in the contest? How were they to help the king, hard-pressed at once by internal feuds and external war? Let him beware of turning aside the war from Ferrante, and drawing it upon his own home. Notwithstanding, Lorenzo urged the necessity of taking a side with so much eloquence that those who doubted were encouraged, and at last all were brought over to his view. I never read anything more earnest and impressive or better put together than this speech, which was taken down at the time.’ But while Lorenzo held it a political necessity to side with Naples, he clearly perceived the reason of this fresh disturbance of peace. The bad condition of the Neapolitan finances and army was no secret from him. ‘I regret,’ he wrote on November 3 to Albino,[286] after informing him of the proposals made by the insurgents in case of the neutrality of Florence, ‘that the king is no longer reputed to have a rich treasury and a good army as of old, when he was regarded as the arbiter of Italy. That the contrary is now the case I regret on account of my devotion to his Majesty; but, however matters may stand, I shall always fulfil my obligations. I am most deeply grieved that my lord the duke is denounced as cruel; though it be a false accusation, yet his Excellency should do all in his power to rid himself of it, for it can only be to his advantage to do so. If the taxes are hateful to the people let them be abolished, and let the former contributions suffice; one carlino willingly and gladly paid is better than ten gained by compulsion and with ill-will; for no people willingly endures the imposition of fresh burthens.’ He also recommended keeping the soldiers in good humour; never had this been more needed. If the king had faith in himself he would conquer; the Signoria would be true to him. Ferrante thanked Lorenzo for his wise counsels, but remarked that he did not altogether understand them.
CHAPTER V.
REACTION AFTER THE BARONS’ WAR. THE STRUGGLE FOR SARZANA.
Lorenzo’s position was anything but enviable. The Florentine merchants at Naples complained that the Duke of Calabria did not fulfil his obligations, and, moreover, treated them insolently, so that they found themselves compelled to leave the city.[287] The Pope, who on November 1, 1485, had issued a bull enumerating all the charges of the Holy See against the King of Naples, and threatening with excommunication all who should support the latter, exerted himself to prevent the Republic from taking part in the quarrel. The authority of the Medici even might receive a blow, for the position of affairs in the kingdom was considered bad in the extreme. Lorenzo was visibly full of cares. He proceeded very slowly. Towards the end of November Innocent sent the Archbishop of Florence to his cathedral city to try if he could change the mind of his brother-in-law. Rinaldo Orsini was a prelate of a type then but too common; from his youth up he had held benefices without spiritual functions, and so he treated his archbishopric as a sort of garrison, the revenue of which was sufficient for him. He was generally in Rome; leaving his vicar to look after the church affairs. Being in the habit of getting into debt, he afterwards tried to do a profitable piece of business with his see. At last, when things in Florence were altogether changed, and the powerful support of the Medici failed him, the universal dissatisfaction reduced him to resign for a pension and a title in partibus. Before this, during the persecutions that broke out against his family in the time of the Borgias, his insignificance as a mere man of pleasure had saved him from the tragic fate of his cousin Cardinal Orsini, with whom he had been placed in the castle of St. Angelo. It may easily be imagined that he was not the man to make any impression on Lorenzo, more especially as the latter well knew that he was entirely a creature of the Pope, in daily anticipation of obtaining the cardinal’s hat. Rinaldo declared that Innocent was determined on war. For months past he had been warning the king, through the now deceased Cardinal of Aragon, through his brother Don Francesco, even through the Florentine ambassador; but Ferrante only went on more recklessly, and now at last allowed things to take their own course.[288]
Meanwhile, November 10, Sanseverino arrived at Rome, and was solemnly received at the Porta del Popolo by the governor of the city, the papal court, the ambassadors of the Kaiser and of King Maximilian, and others. Twenty days after, in the Vatican basilica, he took the oath to the Pope as gonfalonier of the Church.[289] Innocent showed to the Florentine ambassador money and jewels to the value of 150,000 ducats, all of which, he said, was to be spent in carrying out the war. All recruiting and sales of horses in and around Rome, except for the service of the Church, were forbidden. But in Naples it was resolved not to await the attack. Alfonso of Calabria marched into the States of the Church, and was soon on the nearer side of the Alban hills, with the Campagna and the city lying before him; on the north-west the Orsini were taking up arms in alliance with him; Florentine troops were advancing under the Counts of Pitigliano and Marsciano and the lord of Piombino, and 100 Milanese men-at-arms under the Count of Cajazzo—for that was all Lodovico sent after all his assurances! Soon the Neapolitans and the Papal troops attacked each other in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, by the bridges over the Anio. The whole city was in tumult. Monte Giordano, the Orsini stronghold in the Campus Martius, was burnt down; King Ferrante’s ambassador, who with his colleagues of Florence and Milan had remained in Rome after the fighting began, had his house plundered and wrecked, and fled to the Vatican. The greatest distress and insecurity prevailed; cardinals and others brought their valuables to the Pope’s palace and to the castle of St. Angelo for safety. But the duke proved himself a wretched general. He could not manage to effect a junction with the Orsini, and Sanseverino pressed the latter hard, compelled some of them to accept a compromise, and obstructed the road into Tuscany. Within the kingdom itself matters were taking an unfavourable turn; Alfonso, seeing himself in danger of being hemmed in within the Campagna, decided to make a diversion against the Pope and gain breathing-time for himself by coming to a personal understanding with Lorenzo and Lodovico. On January 17, 1486, the news reached Florence that the heir to the Neapolitan throne had left the army in a dangerous position, and with only 300 horsemen taken the road through the lower part of the Viterbo territory. After riding sixty miles a day, like a fugitive, he arrived at Pitigliano, the little capital of the Orsini territory, on the west of the lake of Bolsena; from thence he intended proceeding to Florence and Milan.
The surprise in Florence was great. Negotiations had never ceased between the Pope and Lorenzo. It was said that the latter was trying to facilitate an accommodation; but there was a suspicion that he was playing a double game, that he had no confidence in the Neapolitan affairs, and that he had a hand in the defection of some of the Orsini, which put the Duke of Calabria into difficulties; and that now he wanted to hinder the Duke coming to Florence, in order to escape his reproaches. The Signoria immediately sent a special messenger to the Duke to prevent his coming to the city; Piero Capponi followed the messenger, to have an explanation with Alfonso, and to remain with the army as Florentine commissioner.[290] For some time past Lorenzo had been suffering severely; an affection of the bladder was now added to his old complaint the gout. He was not in a happy humour. He said he would have nothing more to do with business, for everything was going contrary to his desires and expectations; he meant to spend his time more agreeably. He begged Ercole d’Este and the Marquis of Mantua to send him falcons, and it was said that he was going to Pisa for change of air. His ill humour was visible. Sometimes he was in the city, sometimes at Careggi. The Duke of Calabria was urgent to see him at Pitigliano, in Florence, anywhere he liked; but he was not to be persuaded. Pier Filippo Pandolfini and Giovanni Serristori went in January to Pitigliano to agree upon the necessary arrangements.