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

by Alfred von Reumont

TROUBLES IN ROMAGNA. TUSCAN AND UMBRIAN NEIGHBOURS.

The same year 1488, which brought to Lorenzo’s family festivals and family mourning, involved him in political complications with the Republic of a very serious character. The territory on the side nearest Romagna was threatened, and the amicable relations of Florence with her allies, and especially with Milan, was thereby greatly endangered.

After the death of Sixtus IV. Girolamo Riario retired within his own little state, and for a time his grand political schemes remained in abeyance. He had forcible reason to congratulate himself on being able to retain possession of his territories, hemmed in on one side by the Pope, Venice and Florence, and on the other weakened by the dominion of Faenza, which divided them asunder. At the beginning of his reign Innocent VIII. showed himself very unfavourable to Riario. When Lorenzo, through Guid’Antonio Vespucci, confidentially suggested a project for an undertaking against him, the Pope appeared to have no objection, but to prefer to keep aloof himself and let others act for him. The execution of the project was delayed, partly on account of its difficulty, for Girolamo was on his guard, and there was a fear of encroachment from Venice; and also because of the doubt as to who should be enfeoffed with the two cities. Later on, the Pope and Florence being in difficulties, the project was entirely given up.[349] When it is remembered that in the lifetime of Sixtus, Lorenzo had made use of Girolamo’s mediation to procure tokens of favour and even benefices for his young son,[350] this intrigue throws no favourable light on his character.

During the four following years the lord of Forlì kept on tolerably terms with the Florentines. The latter had not forgotten their old grudge against him for the events of 1478 and 1479; and the Count had but one genuine ally—Lodovico il Moro, who upheld him, first, on account of the ties of blood between them; and, secondly, because of his constant dread of the extension of Florentine sway on the north side of the Apennines. Confined within a narrow circle, Girolamo pressed the more heavily on his subjects. Indulging in splendour and expense when the inexhaustible funds of Rome were at his command, he still endeavoured to continue living in the same way; he embellished his two cities, Forlì and Imola, with many fine buildings, and kept up a military force far too oppressive for such a small state; and to cover the expenses of all this he was obliged to have recourse to levies and imposts, thereby strengthening the disaffection towards himself, already nourished by the old attachment to the Ordelaffi, which was not yet extinct in Forlì, and increased by his harsh arbitrary rule and cruel punishments. Under such circumstances, it was not difficult for a people accustomed to deeds of violence and to taking the law into their own hands, to form a conspiracy. At its head was Cecco dell’Orso, the captain of the guard, who was at enmity with the Count on account of arrears of pay and other private matters, and having been threatened by him, resolved to be beforehand with him. On April 14, Cecco, with two accomplices, entered the chamber of the unsuspecting Riario, and a few minutes afterwards, before the eyes of his own attendants, threw him from the window into the street below, a naked, bleeding, still quivering corpse. That was the signal for a rising. While the people, shouting for liberty, dragged the corpse through the streets, the murderers struck down the chief of the municipality as he was hurrying to the spot, took possession of the wife and three sons of the Count, and hastened with their followers to the citadel to take immediate possession of it. But the commandant declared he would surrender to no one but the Countess, and not even to her if she were a prisoner. Thus repulsed at this important point, the heads of the conspiracy could not attain their object in the city either; for as a security against betrayal, they had admitted only a few to share in their secrets. The new ruling family had not many adherents; some favoured the old dynasty; the majority desired the direct government of the Church. The Papal governor of Cesena, Monsignor Savelli, was called upon to take possession of the city. Without the fortress this possession was incomplete, and as the negotiations fell to the ground, Riario’s widow took advantage of the difficulty and made herself mistress of the situation. Urged by the prelate and the insurgents to come forward as mediatrix, she promised, on condition of receiving compensation, to induce the castellan to surrender if she was allowed to speak to him. Her sons remained as hostages in the hands of the citizens. The gates were opened to her, and she raised the standard of the Sforza. A threat to kill the boys if she did not surrender was received with a defiant answer. The brave woman reckoned that every hour’s delay was in her favour, while the disunion among the opponents strengthened her hope that they would not proceed to extremities against her helpless children. She was not mistaken. On all sides there was a stir. Lodovico il Moro wrote to Florence, appealing to the Republic to guard the endangered rights of the sons of Riario. At the same time, without consulting the allies, he despatched Galeazzo da Sanseverino with horse and foot, while Giovanni Bentivoglio and Galeotto Pico della Mirandola set out towards Forlì with numerous troops. The Florentines, as soon as they heard of these military movements, sent part of the troops which they still kept in the Lunigiana to the frontiers of Romagna, under the Count of Pitigliano and Ranuccio Farnese. In Forlì no one knew what to do. The enemies of Riario hoped for active support from the Pope; but Innocent, though he caused a few troops to advance from Cesena, was either unwilling or unable to take part in their favour.

The heads of the movement turned their eyes to Florence, well knowing the inward dislike in that city between the Medici and the Riari. The Ferrarese ambassador wrote that in Florence nothing had been known of the conspiracy; but the people rejoiced at the misfortune which had befallen the Count, and, mindful of the past, were not in a frame of mind to grieve if in the course of events his family should be destroyed root and branch. A letter addressed to Lorenzo by the perpetrators of the deed, four days later, sets forth their motives and proceedings, as well as the resolve of the citizens no longer to submit to a single ruler, but to give themselves up to the Church, on whose assistance they reckoned. Lorenzo, the letter added, must rejoice at an event which freed him and the Republic from a crafty foe, and avenged his innocent brother’s blood; and therefore the citizens hoped for active support from Florence. There was nothing, however, to indicate a previous understanding. Lorenzo sent to Forlì a confidential agent, Stefano da Castrocaro, who described the circumstances and state of the city, its confidence in Florentine help, and its idea of remaining under the direct government of the Church.[351] From expressions afterwards used by Lorenzo about this matter, it is clear that this very inclination of the majority of the people would have cooled his ardour to help them against the Riario party, if, indeed, he had ever felt any. Moreover, the progress of events was more rapid than was probably expected in Florence. Before the twisted threads of propositions and negotiations could be disentangled, the advance of the Milanese and Bolognese troops settled the matter. Those who were most deeply compromised betook themselves to the neighbouring Florentine territory, and on April 29, Girolamo’s little son Ottaviano Riario was proclaimed lord of Forlì and Imola. Caterina Sforza, who assumed the regency, took bloody vengeance on those within reach of her hand, for the murder of her husband and the danger of her children. This affair, however, brought upon Florence a difficulty which shows how uncertain were her relations both legal and political. In a rugged part of the Apennines, north-east of the road from Florence to Bologna, lies Piancaldoli, now a village of less than a thousand inhabitants. In the war of 1478, Girolamo Riario took possession of it, and the Florentines had never been able to make him give it up. Now they thought the time had arrived to obtain justice and avenge the insult. Their troops marching towards Romagna, in the direction of Imola, received orders to secure Piancaldoli. At this Lodovico became highly excited, not so much for the sake of the unimportant town as because he suspected that it might be the commencement of greater acquisitions. Giovan Pietro Bergomino, his commissioner with the troops sent against Forlì, came to high words with the Florentine commissioner Averardo de’ Medici. Both sides grew so excited that Ercole d’Este thought it necessary to step between them. Lorenzo showed not the slightest disposition to yield. He told the Ferrarese ambassador that things must be bad indeed if the Republic could not seek to recover her own property by means of her own people without asking leave of Milan, which at that very moment had sent her troops against Forlì without any agreement with Florence, this being an expedition of far more importance than that against Piancaldoli, and one which ought to have been carried out only in alliance with the Republic.

Lorenzo’s conversations with the ambassador show the ill-will and distrust on all sides. He avoided stating plainly whether the Republic aimed at extending her dominions on the Romagna side, though it was observed to him that she would thereby become involved in a disastrous conflict with Sforza, who regarded the Forlì affairs as his own and thought his honour at stake in them. Lorenzo only promised to wait and see how events would develop themselves. He thought the Pope had the best prospect, as he considered it impossible that Forlì would again submit to the Riari; but he did not conceal the fact that a family dynasty, whether of Riari or any other, seemed to him a less evil than direct Papal government or an increase of the influence of the Sforza. Still, the aggrandisement of the latter would be less injurious than that of the Church, as they would probably be more willing to confer fiefs in Romagna on family dynasties, than the Church, which had long treated her barons with increasing disfavour and would not give up what she had once secured within her own grasp. The Church, he once observed, was at present more to be feared than even Venice, and this had chiefly induced him to support King Ferrante against the Pope.[352] Such were Lorenzo’s views at that time, when his chief care was to keep on good terms with the Pope—views which were always shared by the Neapolitan king. Piancaldoli was taken by the Florentines two days before Forlì came to terms with the Riari. But a few years after Lorenzo’s death an event happened to which he was most averse; all the small lordships of Romagna, whose interests were bound up with those of the Republic, came to a violent end.

The ill-feeling against Milan remained even after this vexed question was settled and after Florence, from consideration for Lodovico, had refused to receive Riario’s murderers, who thereupon applied to Rome. Lorenzo declared that if the Duke of Bari’s demands were reasonable, Florence would always be willing to please him, but he must not come upon her with anything against the honour of the state; he also begged the Duke of Ferrara not to support such demands. About this time, towards the middle of May, he went to the baths, and his representative in politics, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, replied to Lodovico’s urgent demands for the restitution of Piancaldoli that it was in vain to ask for anything against their honour; Florence was no Pavia or Cremona, where the Duke of Milan could command. Scarcely had these first vexations passed off when a similar case occurred in which the Republic became still more deeply involved. The cause of the dispute this time was Faenza, the only state yet left to the Manfredi, and to which, as has been previously described, Florence stood in the relation of a protecting power. Galeotto Manfredi was married to Francesca Bentivoglio, one of the many daughters of the lord of Bologna; and in arranging this marriage Lorenzo had had a considerable share.[353] Her husband’s unfaithfulness excited the passionate woman to such a pitch of revenge that on May 31, 1488, she had him killed in their sleeping-chamber by hired assassins. She then, with her two sons, of whom the eldest was only three years old, hastened to the citadel and informed her father of what had been done. Giovanni Bentivoglio lost not a moment. He set out with the troops collected at the Forlì disturbances, and sent to Bergomino, the Milanese commissioner who was still in the latter town, directions to join him. At first all went well. The lord of Bologna and his troops were peaceably received in Faenza, and it seemed as if the proclamation of little Astorre Manfredi would settle everything; but some disagreement between the inhabitants and the rude mountaineers of the Lamone valley who had rushed into the town, caused a riot in which the Milanese commissioner and more than fifty of his men lost their lives, and Giovanni Bentivoglio saved his own with difficulty. When the worst of the tumult was put down, Astorre was proclaimed under the protection of the Republic of Florence, to whose commissioner Antonio Boscoli the more reasonable of the two parties had at once applied for mediation and support.

The news from Faenza caused great excitement in Florence. There was a suspicion abroad that the Milanese and Bolognese intrigues were at the bottom of the whole affair, and it was at once resolved to grant the desired protection both to the people of Faenza and to the young Manfredi, and to send the desired troops; measures which, in consideration of the old protecting relation of Florence to Faenza, could not justly be taken amiss by anyone. Faenza was occupied; Bentivoglio taken prisoner and transported to Modigliana, the neighbouring capital of Tuscan Romagna; Madonna Francesca was sent to her mother at Bologna; and a regency was established consisting of certain inhabitants of Faenza and of the Lamone valley. Bentivoglio, who had only the Florentines to thank for not having escaped unhurt from the mountaineers, thought it hard that he was kept in confinement on Florentine ground. Lodovico Sforza, King Ferrante, and Ercole d’Este all interceded for his release; his wife was loud in her lamentations, Bolognese troops assembled on the frontier, and the city of Bologna sent an embassy to Florence. But Lorenzo, knowing that the frontiers were sufficiently secured, replied that Messer Giovanni must have patience till things were settled in Faenza.

At last the commissioner at Modigliana, Dionigi Pucci, received orders to release the prisoner and send him to Cafaggiuolo, where Lorenzo awaited him; this was on June 14. Lorenzo declared himself perfectly satisfied with his interview with Giovanni, and appeared to believe in a re-establishment of their former good understanding. But after a while the lord of Bologna sought to obtain the consent of Florence for his daughter’s return to Faenza, and at the same time offered the hand of another daughter for Giuliano de’ Medici. Both propositions were decisively refused, at which Bentivoglio was so angry that the Florentines began to consider Lorenzo’s residence at Poggio a Cajano unsafe, as the villa lay exposed to a raid from Bologna. Lorenzo himself was uneasy though he tried to hide it. When Giovanni appealed to him to procure the Pope’s absolution for Madonna Francesca that she might either marry again or enter a convent, he fulfilled the request in the hope of making friends again. His letter to Innocent VIII.[354] reminding him of the willingness he had displayed, proves that he was anxious about the matter. He ‘most earnestly besought,’ he said, ‘these tokens of favour.’