When Lorenzo wrote that letter to his son his condition might be called hopeless. From his youth up he had suffered from hereditary physical ailments. The attacks had increased with age, till they weakened his originally strong constitution. Gout made its appearance in various forms, and the waters, tried frequently and one after another, failed to give lasting relief, partly because he never gave them time to produce their full effect. He often joked about his sufferings. ‘Pain in my feet,’ he wrote to Lanfredini in August 1489, ‘has hindered my correspondence with you. Feet and tongue are indeed far apart, yet they interfere with each other.’ Towards the end of August 1491, he was so ill that he had to be carried to Spedaletto in a litter.[561] The waters of Morba had only a passing soothing effect; and at the end of the autumn a slow fever set in with grave symptoms. His whole system seemed attacked at once—bowels, limbs, and nerves. To the arthritic pains were added pains in the bones, which robbed him of rest by night and day; gout had attacked the higher organs: the physicians were at their wits’ end. When the year 1492 opened, he could see no one; all grave political business had to be set aside; a Milanese ambassador waited more than a fortnight for an audience. An improvement permitted him to leave the house again, but it was not lasting. ‘The illustrious Lorenzo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador on February 11,[562] ‘has been again for some days greatly tormented with pains which attack the whole of his body except his head. At times he suffers so acutely that it is hard to understand how he can hold out. The doctors do not indeed consider the illness mortal; but his condition is getting very bad, because he enjoys very little rest. God grant him health again; for the accounts of his state are really such as to excite sympathy.’ On the 8th of the same month, King Ferrante wrote to his ambassador, Marino Tomacelli:[563] ‘We have received many letters from you, but now we only reply concerning the long-continued sufferings of the illustrious Lorenzo, which have grieved and do grieve us to the depths of our soul. Would God we could procure him recovery, or even alleviation! Exhort his Magnificence to arm himself with patience and thus overcome the evil; more especially as we may now expect better weather, after these last days which have indeed been bad. Inform his Magnificence also that we congratulate him on the settlement of the dispute with his Holiness, which must be as pleasing to him as to ourself, he having had so great a share in it, as is known to us and all. May he, by God’s help, the advice of good doctors and prudence on his own part, recover his health, so that we may both enjoy peace, and especially peace of mind.’
The king was not deceived in his estimate of how much depended on Lorenzo’s life and activity. In the middle of February an improvement set in, but again it was but transitory. The weather continued bad, and at the beginning of March the pains returned; no one was admitted to the invalid with the exception of his family and a very few intimate friends. We remarked before that he was unable to take part in the solemnities attending the proclamation of his son’s cardinalate; his most ardent wish was now fulfilled, and his life was on the wane. He seems to have been aware of his condition, when the young Cardinal set out on March 12. He spoke thus to Filippo Valori, brother of his biographer, and Andrea Carubini, the former of whom was to accompany Giovanni to Rome, and the latter was attached to his household: ‘I entrust my son’s youth to you; me you will never see again.’ Who can tell what were his feelings as he wrote that beautiful letter!—There was again a slight improvement; but it was the last. The disease made rapid progress. On the 21st the invalid was taken to Careggi, his favourite abode, where he had planned and done so much, and where he could get more air and sunshine than in the city. Towards the end of March a physician was expected from Naples. At the beginning of April, Duke Ercole of Ferrara came to Florence[564] on his journey to Rome, whither he was going ostensibly for purposes of devotion, in reality for political objects, and to try to obtain the cardinalate for his son Ippolito. The boy was only thirteen, but he had already been Archbishop of Gran for six years; and if a Medici had won the purple at fourteen, why not an Este, a scion of one of the oldest families of Italy? If Innocent VIII. had lived longer he would have been unable to avoid giving this nomination also. The duke could not see Lorenzo, but the latter had already promised him his son’s vote in the future Consistory.
The sufferer’s days were numbered. He made himself ready for the worst, set his house in order, and made what arrangements he could to secure for his son the position he had himself held. But he was too clear-sighted not to perceive the dangers which the old love of freedom and impatience under the long and ever-strengthening supremacy of a single family, together with Piero’s inexperience and haughty character, must bring upon him. Poliziano indeed relates that Lorenzo had cherished an intention of retiring, and handing over the direction of affairs to his son. ‘About two years before his death,’ he says, ‘I was sitting with him in his bed-chamber, and we were talking, as usual, of philosophy and literature. He then said that he intended passing the rest of his days with Ficino, Pico, and myself, in study, far from the bustle of the city. To my objection that this would be impossible, as the citizens needed his counsel and authority more and more every day, he answered smiling: “I shall provide a substitute in the person of thy pupil, and entrust the burden to his shoulders.“‘ Then on Poliziano’s expressing a doubt whether Piero’s age was sufficient to render him competent, he praised his son’s mind and bearing, and the good foundations which Poliziano had laid. The story may be true, notwithstanding the writer’s visible tendency to over-rate his friend’s actions and sayings. But doubtless Lorenzo’s sole object was to hear what would be said to such an intention. He can hardly have had serious thoughts of retiring from public life, least of all at such a time.
Looking back upon his own short but eventful career, he could see more clearly than ever what unceasing care and trouble, what knowledge of characters and calculation of humours and circumstances, had been necessary to govern parties, keep down opponents without driving them to extremity, and make use of and direct adherents without letting them outgrow his control. He knew but too well that a single false step might upset everything. In the depths of his own mind he felt the discords that ran through the general tone of thought and feeling in the state. He measured the force of the hardly-concealed moral and religious currents that were threatening to break forth. When he, the experienced statesman, looked around him and surveyed the political condition of Italy, he was alarmed at the weak foundations of the edifice which it had cost him so much exertion to support by his counsels and actions. But just now he had put an end to the long and dangerous strife between the Pope and the King; and who was to answer for the future? And when the unstable Pope and the unprincipled King were gone, who could predict the former’s successor—who dared flatter himself with the hope that the latter’s heir, in every respect worse than himself, would keep even his own disaffected land at peace, and not foster the seeds, sown long ago, of dissensions with other countries? Perhaps Lorenzo’s death-bed was haunted even more by the consciousness of the preponderance of evil elements in the College, by the thoughts of Alfonso of Naples, of Lodovico il Moro, and of the hostility of Venice, than even by the dread of attempts at a change in Florence.
In his religious views and his mode of expressing them Lorenzo had always been a true child of the age, which combined a secular temper with a tinge of unfeigned religious feeling, and amid all its grave intellectual errors was not without moral consciousness. That Lorenzo possessed this moral consciousness is proved by many of his expressions through his latter years. He had gained from his excellent and pious mother something more than a literary acquaintance with religious matters. He had inherited from his forefathers the traditions of a close and active connection with ecclesiastical foundations and ecclesiastical interests, which he furthered in a manner that cannot be attributed solely to political motives. His sensuous temperament, his early elevation to such authority as perhaps no private man has ever enjoyed in a city so full of genuine life, led him into many moral errors. But as he was at the same time the author of the lays of the Carnaval and the poet of philosophical and spiritual songs, even so, amid all his errors and notwithstanding the great influence exercised over him from his youth up by antique philosophy, he still adhered to the faith of Christianity practised and taught by his teacher Ficino and his friend Pico della Mirandola. All his life he had been attentive to the observance of religious ordinances; and he continued so when that life was near its close. His sister Bianca de’ Pazzi had accompanied him to Careggi; and it was she who told him of his imminent danger. ‘Brother,’ said she, ‘thou hast lived as a man of lofty mind; thou must quit this life not only bravely but piously. Know that all hope is over.’[565] He seemed somewhat distressed that hope had been encouraged too long; then he asked for the aid of the Church. It was late when the priest who was summoned from San Lorenzo reached the villa. The dying man would not receive him in bed: in spite of the remonstrances of those about him, he got up and had himself dressed: then, supported by his attendants, he entered the room, where he sank on his knees before the ciborium. Seeing how weak he was, the priest insisted that he should lie down again; and he was with difficulty induced to do so. He then received the viaticum with a devoutness which made an impression on all present.[566]
His eldest son, his sister, and Angelo Poliziano were almost constantly near him. After the religious ceremony Piero remained alone by his bedside. Lorenzo comforted him, and gave him warnings and good advice as to his conduct in the city and the state when he himself should have departed. ‘The citizens,’ said he, ‘will, I believe, acknowledge thee, my son, as worthy to fill the position which I have occupied; and I doubt not that thou wilt have the same authority in the commonwealth as I have enjoyed until now. But as this commonwealth is, according to the common expression, a body with many heads, and it is impossible to please them all, remember that in all the varied circumstances of life the way to be kept is that which appears most honourable; and always prefer the general good to personal and party interests.’ Wise counsel this; if he who gave it had but followed it more strictly, it would have saved him from much bitter and but too well-founded reproach! He charged Piero to take a father’s place towards his young brother Giuliano; to the Cardinal he commended his nephew Giulio, then aged fourteen, and for whom he seems already to have had visions of an ecclesiastical career. He also spoke to his son about his funeral, ordering that it should be arranged after the pattern of his grandfather’s, and that the limits usual in the interment of a private man should not be overstepped.
Meanwhile a famous Lombard doctor, Lazaro of Pavia, sent by Lodovico il Moro, had arrived at Careggi. The invalid asked the attendants what he was doing, and on being told that he was composing a draught of pulverised pearls, precious stones, and other costly substances, he exclaimed with eager voice and cheerful look to Poliziano, who was standing near the bed: ‘Dost thou hear, Angelo, dost thou hear?’ Then, stretching out his enfeebled arms, he seized his friend by both hands and held him fast, while the latter sought to turn away to hide the rising tears; at last Lorenzo, seeing his emotion, let him go, and he rushed to his own rooms to let his grief take its course. When he came back, Lorenzo asked why Pico did not come to see him; and being answered that probably Pico feared to trouble him, he remarked that he rather feared it was the distance from the villa to the city that troubled Pico. The latter, thus called for, came; and the invalid received him with the old cordiality. He begged him to excuse the trouble he was giving him, adding that it must be attributed to his affection, for he should die more content after having seen him once more. Then he spoke on many subjects, both general and particular, and said, looking at the two: ‘I would that death had spared me till I had been able to complete your libraries.’ Poliziano knelt down beside the bed to catch the words, which were already becoming indistinct.
Scarcely had Pico left Careggi when another man entered the chamber of death.[567] If Lorenzo summoned Girolamo Savonarola to him, it must have been because he was not easy in his conscience. The several versions of the interview, as related by those who were connected either with Lorenzo or the Dominican Prior, differ so widely as to the circumstances that only greater or less probability can decide between them. This is Poliziano’s story: Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, a man distinguished by his learning and godliness, and an excellent preacher of the Divine Word, entered the room, and admonished the invalid to hold fast to the Faith; to which Lorenzo replied that he continued immovable therein. Hereupon he exhorted him thenceforth to lead a virtuous life; to which the reply was that he would endeavour himself so to do. Thirdly, he recommended him to meet death, if it needs must be, with firmness. ‘Nothing,’ replied the invalid, ‘is sweeter to me, if it be God’s will.’ The monk was departing, when Lorenzo said to him: ‘Give me thy blessing, father, before thou partest from me.’ And with bowed head, and in the attitude of religious earnestness, he responded correctly, and with full consciousness to Savonarola’s words and prayers, undisturbed by the no longer concealed mourning of the household.
So reports the friend of many years—he who knew the dying man better perhaps than anyone else. But another story stands in opposition to his. According to this version, Lorenzo wished to make one last confession to the Dominican. He accused himself of three things: the sack of Volterra, the squandering of the dower-moneys, and the blood shed at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy. The dying man’s agitation was distressing. ‘God is gracious, God is merciful,’ said the monk to soothe him. Then, when he had done, Savonarola spoke. ‘You have need of three things. First, true and lively confidence in the Divine grace.’ To this the invalid replied, ‘I am penetrated therewith.’ ‘Secondly, you must restore what you have wrongfully appropriated, and make restitution a duty for your sons.’ Lorenzo reflected a moment, then assented by a movement of the head. ‘Lastly, you must restore to the people of Florence their freedom.’ The invalid turned away his head without answering, and the monk left him unabsolved.
Lorenzo’s death—to resume Poliziano’s report—was peaceful. It seemed that it was not he who was about to undergo the fate of all mortals, but rather those who stood around his bed. He did not refuse what the doctors prescribed, though he expected no effect from it. Even his old cheerfulness had not altogether deserted him. When after taking some food he was asked how he relished it, he answered: ‘Like a dying man.’ He embraced his relatives and friends and begged them to forgive him if he had offended them or shown impatience during his long illness. When he asked to have read to him from the Gospel the history of the Passion and Death of our Lord, at first he repeated the words of Scripture, then, getting weaker, only moved his lips and at last his fingers, in token that he still followed the sense. When death drew near, a crucifix was held out to him; he opened his eyes, kissed it and departed. This was on Sunday, April 8, 1492, about the fifth hour of the night.