Lorenzo’s advice was that the Papal envoy should not proceed to Milan. But the Pope insisted, and Lorenzo, with his permission, drew up for Gherardi’s benefit fresh instructions which would prevent any real engagement, however much Sforza might wish to meddle. These negotiations continued till the end of the first week in October. Who would believe that while the bow was so tightly strung and the danger of a rupture was hovering nearer and nearer, the king, who was openly defying the Pope and seeking to defend his own conduct by embassies to all the allied courts, proposed to this same Pope a special alliance, which was to put an end to all differences? Yet so it was, and the Bishop of Carinola came to Rome with such a proposition. The Pope informed the Florentine ambassador of it, and gave him a copy of the bishop’s instructions. Lorenzo already knew of the matter, but was in doubt as to the views of Innocent. He spoke out plainly, in his answer to Lanfredini, intended for communication to the Pope,[321] his own opinion—that the king only intended to mislead the Pope and keep him occupied, while he himself kept to the course he had begun; and all the more so, because the instructions contained nothing but generalities. Secondly, Ferrante might be trying to separate the Pope from him, Lorenzo, well knowing that then he could do as he pleased with the former. Lastly, his object was to make sure whether the Pope stood firm to his resolves and counted on foreign support. ‘As for me,’ he continued, ‘you know I will never advise his Holiness to do anything unworthy of him, or which may disturb the peace of Italy. But as I warned the holy father through you, only a little while ago, not to build on hopes of foreign help, so I am now of opinion that he must not let himself be turned by what seems to me fair words and figures of speech from a design which he considers reasonable. If his Holiness is minded to come to terms with the king, in order to put out this spark which may light a great fire, then I think it can be done by means of a general Italian alliance. From such I should expect three results. First, a vindication of the agreement between the Pope and the king, so that the first would appear to postpone his own interest to the general good and the tranquillity of Italy. Secondly, greater security for the king’s fidelity to the treaty, which the Pope must require after the experience he has had. Thirdly, a confirmation of the good understanding with the other Italian powers, particularly with Venice; which understanding would be endangered if the Pope should close with the king alone.’ The whole despatch is a clear proof how little confidence the writer felt, on the one hand, in the Pope’s firmness, and on the other in Ferrante’s honour, and how his own desire to preserve peace outweighed everything else. He requested the ambassador to do all he could with Innocent, at whose court there was no lack of intrigues and counter-intrigues, that the king might not be led to suspect him, Lorenzo, of opposing an accommodation, which suspicion would damage his own position with Ferrante; but this was the fruit of oft-repeated experience. That he should try to keep in the Pope’s good graces was only natural. ‘My first desire,’ he wrote, ‘is to agree with the views of the holy father. This is my duty, rather than to give him advice. For I believe the Pope to be more conversant with the things of this world than the king’s instructions seem to assume; and he has reigned long enough not to need directions from the king as to his bearing towards us and others.’
During all this negotiating backwards and forwards, Lodovico il Moro, who was a person to be considered in the matter, had fallen seriously ill. In August 1487, he was seized with such an alarming disorder of the stomach that the Duke of Ferrara expressed a wish that Lorenzo would send to Milan his own physician, Piero Leone, who was considered the most skilful man of his time. In November, Sforza’s condition was so much worse that the friends of the family summoned his only living brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, in order to be prepared to take his place if he died. On November 18, the Cardinal came through Florence incognito, with a few horsemen, and in such haste that he changed horses at every post. Lorenzo and he had not always agreed well together; but now he said that he would, in case of need, support him, and try to go hand in hand with him and the Pope. The danger in which Lodovico lay passed slowly by. The Papal affair made no progress at all. Venice, having made peace with Sigismund, threatened war against Naples; Milan let King Ferrante know that he must not reckon on her alliance if he did not alter his conduct towards Rome; the king persisted in his defiance and in his measures against the barons; the Pope tried to make money, and threatened him with an interdict. Lorenzo, highly displeased at the whole state of affairs, did all in his power to restrain Innocent from taking the extreme steps he meditated.
CHAPTER VII.
FAMILY EVENTS. MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.
The marriage of Maddalena de’ Medici with Franceschetto Cybò took place about this time. When her journey to Rome was partially decided on, Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini,[322] without making any positive statement on the subject: ‘Clarice, my wife, is partly minded to visit her relations there, and at the same time to try the effect of the Roman air, as you know that of our neighbourhood does not suit her in winter. You formerly mentioned a desire that Maddalena should go to Rome. If this is still the case, she might conveniently accompany her mother. These are our own present plans, which you can communicate to the Pope and Signor Francesco. If they are pleased with them, the thing shall take place, but not otherwise.’ On November 4, 1487, Madonna Clarice set out for Rome with her daughter the bride, her eldest son, the Bishop of Arezzo, Jacopo Salviati, and a numerous suite. Lorenzo did not omit to give his daughter on her departure from home precepts and advice such as he knew how to give wisely and well. He reminded her of her own descent and family, as well as of the position she was about to take; of the consideration due both to the Roman people and to the Pope, with whom she was to be so nearly connected; of her duty towards her husband; of the precepts of honour and obedience, and of respect to her elders and superiors in rank. On arriving near the city the travellers were met by the bridegroom, with some prelates of the Pope’s household, several ambassadors and members of the Florentine colony at Rome, amid whom they were conducted to the Leonine city. Here Franceschetto dwelt in a house built by his uncle Maurigio, near that in which Charlotte de Lusignan, queen of Cyprus, had died after a long exile, on June 12 of that same year. The servants of the prelates and those of the ambassadors and the Medici rode foremost. On Franceschetto’s right rode his future brother-in-law, Piero, on his left, Jacopo Salviati, with whom he was to be similarly connected. The bride rode between the Archbishop of Cosenza and the Bishop of Oria, her mother between the Milanese ambassador (the Bishop of Roveredo) and the Bishop of Volterra. Prelates, jurists, ladies and others followed.[323] On the Sunday before the 24th, the day on which the Venetian envoys Sebastiano Badoer and Bernardo Bembo were received in a secret consistory, the Pope gave a banquet at his palace to Clarice and her daughter, at which the bridegroom, the Florentine ambassador, and several prelates were present. To the bride he presented jewels to the value of about eight thousand ducats, to Franceschetto, one of two thousand.[324] On January 20, 1488, the marriage contract was signed.[325] Franceschetto was in his thirty-ninth year; his bride was yet in her girlhood, gentle and bashful. One of those sent by her father to accompany her always calls her la fanciulla. Her dowry does not seem to have been large; four thousand ducats, part in cash, part in state bonds. From a letter of Lorenzo to Lanfredini,[326] it appears that this sum was not ready at the time of the wedding. ‘You know how many holes I have to fill up.’ But Franceschetto was no loser. In the days of Paul II. the countship of Anguillara had been taken from its ancient lords, on account of their repeated rebellions, and given to the Apostolic Chamber. The relatives of Everso of Anguillara had never ceased to protest, and we have already pointed out that after the death of Sixtus IV. Deifebo regained possession of the castles. Lorenzo made terms with the claimants by means of a considerable sum, and offered the county to Cybò as an addition to Maddalena’s dowry; whereupon, on February 21, 1490, Innocent VIII. conferred on Franceschetto the fief of Anguillara, without mentioning the transaction, so as not to call in question the rights of the Chamber. In 1487 Franceschetto had bought of Bartolommeo della Rovere the Roman castles of Cerveteri and Sta. Severa.[327] These places, alienated after the Pope’s death to the Orsini of Bracciano, were, at the beginning of Alexander VI.’s reign, near kindling a war which threatened to set all Italy on fire. This was not all the wealth that the Cybò gained by their connection with the Medici. In Tuscany they acquired property. The palace of Jacopo de’ Pazzi passed to Lorenzo’s son-in-law, whose descendants long possessed both it and the country-house of the Pazzi at Montughi.[328] The Medici’s estate in the Volterra district, which also passed to the Cybò, has been already mentioned. The intended acquisition of the unfinished Pitti Palace came to nothing.
Lorenzo, who always knew how to combine his love of splendour with useful aims, and judged others from the same point of view, had no very high opinion of his son-in-law. ‘As you have before heard from me,’ he wrote to Lanfredini before the marriage on November 4, 1487, when Franceschetto had got himself made captain-general,[329] ‘I think Signor Francesco should not pursue mere smoke; things without moderation do not suit me. A captain ought to have seen service and made himself a reputation. I wish he had rather sought to secure a maintenance, and I wonder it does not strike him that the day after the Pope dies he will be the poorest man on earth, and I shall have to provide for him and his wife. Endeavour to make this clear to him if you see that he hankers after titles and vanities; I must speak to him freely and then help him, however he may take it. I hear he keeps aloof from frivolous people and those of evil report, and that he avoids play. We must support him as much as possible, and lovingly point out to him what is becoming, if we are to fulfil our duty.’ Lorenzo did not wish his son to remain in Rome longer than was absolutely necessary. On December 9, he wrote to his wife desiring that Piero should return with the bishop and Jacopo Salviati as soon as he had despatched certain business of his own, of which more will be said hereafter. Piero returned to Florence, the bishop remained. Lorenzo wrote repeatedly to Clarice leaving the length of her stay to her own decision, but expressing a wish, towards the end of the winter, that she might stay somewhat longer.[330] Everything did not go according to Lorenzo’s wishes. The elevation of his son Giovanni to the cardinalate, undoubtedly one of the motives for the match, was delayed; Clarice was ill; and the home arrangements of the Cybò seem not to have suited Florentine and Medicean ideas. ‘I have received,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini on April 11, 1488,[331] ‘your information about Clarice, and am grieved at it, though her ill-health is nothing new to me. I have informed her of the cause which will somewhat delay Piero’s departure from here, but let her not trouble herself about it if she wishes to return here sooner, though I should be glad if she could wait for Alfonsina [Piero’s bride]. I wish Maddalena might come with her, for the latter is still quite a child, and Signor Francesco’s household is badly managed; and, besides, she would be a comfort to Clarice. But I should wish this to be done with the full consent and without the slightest dissatisfaction of his Holiness or Signor Francesco, and I should take it as a favour.’ And after recurring to the insecure position of his son-in-law, he adds: ‘His Holiness seems to me to go to work with great lukewarmness in all these things. Independently of Signor Francesco I also regret that my daughter should find herself in unfavourable circumstances, and I am in a kind of despair over this and other matters when I hear of the slowness and carelessness yonder.’
Madonna Clarice stayed in Rome till May 1488, when her son Piero came with Giovanni Tornabuoni to fetch her back. From a letter written to Lorenzo by their companion Poliziano, on May 2,[332] it appears that on that day Piero set out from Acquapendente to Viterbo, and that the travellers were all in good health and spirits and did not forget to celebrate the merry month of May with songs and various amusements on their journey. Piero’s expedition had also another object, he was going to bring home his own bride. On April 16 Lorenzo wrote to Lanfredini:[333] ‘My Piero starts in a few days to go and fetch his wife, and also to help Clarice. If the latter is able to travel I shall be very glad.’ As well as an unknown son-in-law Lorenzo had chosen an unknown daughter-in-law; but she came of a family which had long been intimately associated with his and had many relations with the Republic, at the same time enjoying the special favour of the ruling house of Naples. Alfonsina Orsini was the daughter of a man who had preserved and displayed his loyalty to the house of Aragon when most of his own people were in the enemy’s camp. Roberto Orsini was a younger son of that Carlo from whom sprang the line of Bracciano, afterwards the principal branch of this wide-spreading race. He had fought for King Ferrante against the Angevins, and for the Florentines against Bartolommeo Colleone, and died of sickness at Siena in 1476. One of his children by his second marriage with Caterina da Sanseverino was Alfonsina, thus named in honour of Aragon. She was married by proxy at Castelnuovo towards the end of February 1487, in presence of the royal pair and other members of the reigning family. Ferrante laid aside his family mourning on this day, and after supper there was a festival and a ball. The bridegroom was represented by Bernardo Rucellai; the bride’s next of kin by her cousin Gentil Virginio, lord of Bracciano. Alfonsina brought a dowry of 12,000 ducats, which popular belief magnified to 30,000.[334] A whole year passed before Piero brought her home. Her entry into Florence was to have taken place on May 22, 1488, but the Medici family were in mourning for the death of the third daughter, Luigia; so, instead of coming to the city, the young couple went to Careggi. About ten days afterwards Lorenzo gave, in honour of his daughter-in-law and her suite, a grand banquet, at which the chief men of the city and the foreign ambassadors were present.[335]
There was no lack of festivities in Florence, and the Medici contributed not a little to their splendour. Maddalena Cybò came with her mother and sister-in-law; Franceschetto followed her on June 22. He was accompanied by Giorgio Santacroce of an old Roman family, Girolamo Tuttavilla, son of Cardinal d’Estouteville, and many others. ‘We received him,’ wrote Lorenzo to Lanfredini two days after,[336] ‘heartily rather than splendidly. Yesterday he made a visit to the Signoria; his appearance, bearing, and mode of speech give general satisfaction. As yet I have been little alone with him. I will endeavour to fulfil the Pope’s wishes; you will then report to me what he thinks of us on this first meeting. I will take care that he finds occasion to come to us often.’ The Florentines helped Lorenzo in this. In honour of his son-in-law’s presence numerous diversions for the people and magnificent spectacles were arranged. It was long since Florence had beheld such triumphal processions, such improvised buildings, arches, and other decorations, though they had long been customary there. Franceschetto, who had been presented with the freedom of the city, did all he could to make himself popular, and succeeded. When he rode through the streets on the feast of St. John the children shouted, ‘Cybò and Palle!’ From the piazza of the Signoria to that of the cathedral there was such a throng that great wax candles and other consecrated gifts could not be carried to the Baptistery; and when the street officials tried to clear a space, the people cried out that they wanted to see Lorenzo’s son-in-law, the Pope’s son. Franceschetto occupied the place of honour next to the Gonfalonier at the public banquet given by the Signoria to the distinguished nobles who were in the city and the foreign ambassadors, among whom, besides those of the friendly Italian powers, the Turkish envoy was present. Giovanni Tornabuoni, Bernardo Rucellai, Lorenzo, son of Pier-Francesco de’ Medici, and others, gave banquets and festivities; the latter gave one at his villa at Castello, situated to the west of the city on a gentle slope overlooking the valley of the Arno where it spreads out into a beautiful plain. Lorenzo saw his daughter and son-in-law daily. But throughout all the rejoicings of which his house was the centre, he was not free from cares of all kinds. The bad state of affairs in Romagna will be mentioned presently; in his own home there were other causes for discomfort and anxiety.