Embassies had always been important to the Florentines in a political point of view, as well as a means of obtaining personal distinction. In the first jubilee year, when twelve of them appeared before Pope Boniface VIII. as the representatives of various states, he called them the fifth element. They always preserved their reputation as good diplomatists. Not only did clergy, statesmen, and scholars take an active part in diplomacy, it was a career open even to the Grandi, the real nobility who were excluded from all the offices of state. In the fifteenth century the splendour with which the embassies were conducted corresponded with the importance of the state and the personal rank of the ambassadors. Their posts, however, were not lucrative; for if, as was the case in 1483, each ambassador received about ten gold florins a day, the expenses in excess of those which he could charge for were very heavy. Besides the solemn embassies on special occasions, there were resident envoys at Naples, Rome, Milan, and Venice. The former were numerous and brilliant, and comprised, besides the actual ambassadors, younger men (who, according to a later regulation, were not to be under the age of twenty-four), who went to learn the business of diplomacy and see foreign lands; there was also a chancellor and other officials. Only two examples need be referred to for the high honour in which Florentine embassies were held—Neri Capponi’s famous embassy to Venice during the war of the Visconti, and that to Louis XI. on his accession. ‘Never,’ says Macchiavelli, ‘did that Signoria receive a prince with so much honour as they did Neri.’ King Louis, with the Duke of Britanny and a suite of about forty horsemen, advanced two leagues from Tours to meet Monsignor Filippo de’ Medici, Piero de’ Pazzi, and Buonaccorso Pitti (Luca’s son), envoys of the Republic, and kept his hat in his hand because the first-named would not be covered.[428] Travelling was slow; the embassy had left Florence on October 27, and reached Tours on December 23. With what splendour Piero de’ Pazzi returned home has been mentioned already.
CHAPTER III.
THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI.
The house of the Medici had not its equal in Florence, probably not in all Italy. Its inner arrangements corresponded with its outward stately and beautiful architecture. Three generations, with the whole world open before them, of highly-cultivated, art-loving owners had ruled in it. No other family ever existed in which the love of collecting, combined with a hearty appreciation of the value and importance of the most various objects, retained its ardour and thoroughness through so many centuries, as in the case of these Florentine merchants, who gradually developed and grew into a princely house, and intermarried with the royal houses of Hapsburg, Lorraine, Wittelsbach, and Bourbon. As in other great historical families, the same traits were noticeable in all the Medici. Even in the days when several members of the house fell victims to the curse that eventually destroyed many of the ruling families of Italy, when the Medici as a distinct family were fast perishing, though mourned for by thousands—even then the surviving members of the race preserved the many brilliant qualities which had made their ancestors famous. In every direction they had relations with grand-dukes and princes; beautiful, curious, and rare objects of art were sent to them from all quarters of the globe by their agents, diplomatists, scholars, artists, and merchants; and in their own country they constantly employed those who displayed talent, learning, or skill. The colossal wealth of the Florentine collections, chiefly inheritances from the Medici, proves this; and the sudden bankruptcy which occurred in all these things at their extinction gives a striking example of the contrast which was brought about by years.
The history of art and literature from Cosimo’s days shows what a treasury of paintings, sculptures, coins, engraved stones, manuscripts, gems, and antiquities of all kinds were collected together in that house in the Via Larga. Commines, describing the shameless plunder of the Medici’s houses begun in November 1494 by the French and continued by the Florentines,[429] estimates the value of the objects destroyed in one day at 100,000 crowns;—‘the most beautiful rings, specimens of agate, admirable cameos, and near three thousand gold and silver medals, such as no other collection in Italy could equal.’ Galeazzo Maria Sforza once said that he, too, could show treasures; but the finest things in all the world were collected in the house of a private man—Lorenzo. And what a quantity had been gathered together there since the visit of the Milanese Duke! ‘Lorenzo,’ says Niccolò Valori,[430] ‘took the liveliest interest in all things antique. I have heard from Marsilio that on receiving from Girolamo Rossi of Pistoja a bust of Plato, found amid the ruins of the Athenian Academy, his delight was exceeding great, and he always held that bust in high honour. Those who wished to do this great man a pleasure vied with each other in bringing him coins and bronze works distinguished by their value and workmanship, and antiquities of all sorts, from all parts of the world. When I came home from Naples I sent him busts of the Empress Faustina and Africanus and several beautifully chiselled marbles. I cannot describe the manner in which he received them. What he had collected from all quarters he carefully preserved in his house. He did not show them to just anybody, but only to those who understood them, and at festive banquets he adorned his table with works of art to do honour to his guests. When the excellent Duke Federigo of Urbino saw these treasures of Lorenzo, he admired not only the materials and skilful workmanship, but also the almost incredible number of the objects. He is said to have thus addressed Lorenzo: ‘How much can love and perseverance accomplish! I behold, here, a royal treasure-house; yet one such as no king is able to gather together, either by money, or power, or rapine.’
These treasures were collected in the most various ways. Sellers of antiques brought them to Florence or sent them from a distance. When Paul III.’s rich collection of engraved and precious stones was sold after his death, a considerable part of it passed into the hands of the Medici for a moderate sum, by means of Giovanni Tornabuoni. Lorenzo himself in his memoirs mentions the marble busts of Augustus and Agrippa, gifts of Sixtus IV., and the vases of chalcedony and engraved stones bought in Rome. In 1484, 1488, and 1490, Luigi Lotti of Barberino, Giovan Antonio of Arezzo, and Andrea of Fojano were commissioned to make purchases in Rome and Siena.[431] On Giuliano da Sangallo’s return from Naples, King Ferrante gave him a bust of Hadrian, a nude female statue and a sleeping Cupid, for Lorenzo, who had sent him to the king.[432] Messer Zaccaria Barbaro, grateful for the sympathy shown to his son, sent a precious Greek vase. Carlo de’ Medici bought antiquities, coins, &c., in Rome. Besides the manuscripts and objects of art, there were a quantity of curiosities and handsome household furniture of all sorts, porcelain and majolica, given by the Malatesta, and, as Lorenzo wrote,[433] more highly prized by him than if they were of silver, because they were excellent, rare, and, till then, unknown in Florence. Much of what now adorns the great Uffizi collection came to Florence in those days. Most of the sculptures and larger works of art, however, were not placed in the house in the Via Larga, where there was no space for them, but in the neighbouring garden of San Marco. Opposite the left aisle, near to where the long street joins the large conventual and other gardens, the Medici had a casino, to which were attached grounds and plantations extending as far as the Via San Gallo. Casinos of this kind, intended for social purposes and walks, were usual among the great Florentine families even down to the last century. The whole place has been altered; a century after Lorenzo’s time, Bernardo Buontalenti built a grand but heavy palace, which has been lately used for various purposes, and after the extinction of the Medici, part of the ground was cleared for the pretty house called Casino della Livia, after a favourite of the Grand-Duke Leopold I. About the same time the appearance of the adjoining Piazza San Marco was completely changed by the new façade of the church, the new front of the convent, and the building of the Academy of Arts on the site of Lemmo Balducci’s hospital.[434] Here, in the alleys of trees, were set up the antique sculptures, and in the house were kept the cartoons and pictures which had been collected in the course of years; here young artists studied from old and new models. Lorenzo, most eager of collectors, knew how to appreciate love of art in others. Not only to allied princes did he give great assistance in this respect. When Commines returned from his embassy in 1478, he brought home several beautiful medals of which the ‘Seigneur Laurens’ had made him a present.[435]
The Medici did not confine their splendour to their town houses. Lorenzo divided his time between the city and the country. His appreciation of the beauties of nature made a sojourn at his villas particularly agreeable to him; and following the example of his father and grandfather, he frequently went to stay at Careggi, whose nearness to the city facilitated the transaction of business; in the hot season he went up to the more retired and cooler Cafaggiuolo or Trebbio. After Careggi, however, his favourite abode was Poggio a Cajano. Half way between Florence and Pistoja, ten miles from either city, on a low hill, the last on the north-eastern slope of the Monte Albano, which separates the plain of Pistoja from the valley of the Nievole and the lower part of that of the Arno, stands Sangallo’s handsome building, overlooking the green and fruitful valley watered by the Ombrone, and made famous by Lorenzo’s poem of ‘Ambra.’ Travellers may now wander through the well-cultivated grounds of the farm, and the park, twenty or thirty years ago still full of gold pheasants, the descendants of those procured by Lorenzo from Sicily; or cross the stream by means of a suspension-bridge. The beauty of the place, and the admirable arrangements made for purposes of husbandry by the owner of the villa, were described by Poliziano at the end of his ‘Ambra’ (composed in 1485), and by Michele Verino in a letter to Simone Canigiani. An aqueduct brought water from the neighbouring height of Bonistallo. Besides the vegetable and fruit gardens there were large mulberry plantations for rearing silk-worms, still a profitable business in that district. On the low uplands were large stalls, paved with stone for the sake of cleanliness, and with their four turrets resembling little fortresses; here was kept a whole herd of fine cows which fed on the rich pasture-lands and supplied the city of Florence with cheese, an article which hitherto had had to be fetched from Lombardy. There were plenty of calves and sheep; a breed of uncommonly large pigs had been got from Calabria, and a breed of rabbits from Spain. Birds of all kinds abounded, particularly water-fowl and quails. The quantity of water made the soil fruitful, but there was ample provision for manure.[436] It is interesting to see the statesman and patron of literature and art occupied with agricultural interests, a liking for which he had inherited from his grandfather, and to which he was specially attracted by his strong feeling for nature.
Down to our own time the villa of Poggio a Cajano has kept up these traditions side by side with its historic reminiscences. The very ancient and noble family of the Cadolingi of Fucecchio had property here which passed to the powerful Pistojan family of the Cancellieri, and in 1420, by sale, to Palla Strozzi.[437] How and when the Medici came into possession of it is unknown. That it should have changed hands twice in a century is nothing astonishing, considering the vicissitudes of families in those eventful times. Nowhere is one so vividly reminded as here of Lorenzo il Magnifico, who actually built the place as it is now. When his second son had mounted the Papal chair, he caused the great hall to be decorated with frescoes representing scenes from the old Roman world, and containing allusions to home events. Paolo Giovio, a client of the Pope and of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, chose the subjects; the animals bringing tribute to Cæsar were painted by Andrea del Sarto; the triumph of Cicero, which Poggio Bracciolini had compared to the return of Cosimo, by Franciabigo; and some mythological representations by Jacopo da Pontormo. Leo’s death interrupted the work, which was completed in 1580 by Alessandro Allori. In a Pietà forming the altar-piece of the village church Giorgio Vasari placed the two patron saints of the Medici beside the dead Saviour.[438]