What a strange abundant variety of cares and pleasures, of labour and enjoyment, of thought and action, of poetry and realism, of danger and success, of evil and good, had been crowded together into that life of barely forty-three years!
The tidings of his death naturally put all Florence in commotion. Almost simultaneously with it came the news that the physician Piero Leoni had thrown himself into a well at Francesco Martelli’s villa at San Gervasio by the Porta Pinti, whither he had been secretly taken because his life was threatened at Careggi, as he was suspected of an intent to poison. It was not known whether the unhappy man really perished by his own resolve or by another’s hand.[568] As usual, prodigies were believed to have presaged the event with which all minds were occupied. In Sta. Maria Novella a woman had started up in the middle of the sermon, crying out that she saw a raging bull, with burning horns, overthrowing the church. Three days before Lorenzo’s death a flash of lightning had struck the lantern of the Cathedral and hurled down some heavy blocks of marble on the north-west, the side towards the Medici’s dwelling; one fell in through the roof, another crushed the house of Luca Rinieri. On the night of the death a meteor was said to have been seen to shine over Careggi and then vanish.[569] Three hours after death the body was taken from Careggi to San Marco; there it remained in the chapel of a lay-brotherhood till the following evening, when the clergy of San Lorenzo came in solemn procession to fetch it away and carry it to the sacristy of the Basilica. The ceremony at church was simple, as he had wished it. The mourning was general. The upper ranks, almost entirely attached to the Medicean interest, felt deeply the loss of the man whose firm and practised hand had guided the helm for so long, and whose vices had been outweighed by his brilliant qualities. Who should tell them what might happen now? On April 10, wrote Bartolommeo Cerretani, the whole city went to Piero. The people lamented the loss of him who, at whatever cost, had procured them peace and comfort.[570] There were indeed some who rejoiced at his death and expected good from it; there is no lack of testimony to such feelings in memoirs not intended for the eyes of strangers. ‘As I know,’ writes Alamanno Rinuccini, when describing the merits and demerits of the Medici, ‘that many falsehoods about him have been spread, in eye-service and deceit, by flatterers and perverters of the truth, mostly bought and corrupted by him by means of honours and enrichment at the public expense. I intend to give a brief account of his life and manners, with both of which I was intimately acquainted: not by way of detraction, nor from hatred towards him, from whom I have received divers marks of distinction, to which I had no claim, but in compliance with truth. The multitude regarded the signs before his death as prognostics of great evils; they would have been prognostics of great good, had the citizens known how to use their opportunity.’[571]
On April 13, three days after the funeral, the assembled councils and the people, in conjunction with the Signoria, issued the following decree:[572] ‘Whereas the foremost man of all this city, the lately deceased Lorenzo de’ Medici, did during his whole life neglect no opportunity of protecting, increasing, adorning, and raising this city, but was always ready with counsel, authority, and painstaking, in thought and deed; subordinated his personal interest to the advantage and benefit of the community; shrank from neither trouble nor dangers for the good of the State and its freedom; and devoted to that object all his thoughts and powers, securing public order by excellent laws; by his presence brought a dangerous war to a conclusion; regained the places lost in battle and took those belonging to the enemies;—whereas he furthermore, after the rare examples furnished by antiquity, for the safety of his fellow-citizens and the freedom of his country gave himself up into his enemies’ power, and, filled with love for his house, averted the general danger by drawing it all upon his own head; whereas, finally, he omitted nothing which could tend to raise our reputation and enlarge our borders; it hath seemed good to the Senate and people of Florence, on the motion of the chief magistrate, to establish a public testimonial of gratitude to the memory of such a man, in order that virtue may not be unhonoured among the Florentines, and that in days to come other citizens may be incited to serve the commonwealth with might and wisdom. But whereas the memory of Lorenzo needs no outward adornments, as it has struck deep root, and blooms fresher every day, it hath been determined to transfer to Piero, the eldest son of the deceased, the heir of his father’s dignity and successor to his fame, the public honour due to his father and his ancestors. So much the more, as Piero has already in his youth displayed the endowments of his father and is in some degree his image, and has already shown himself such that we may hope he will, by God’s assistance, tread in his father’s steps.’
On April 10, before break of day, a special messenger brought to the Cardinal the fatal tidings which had been expected for several days. Giovanni, his attendants and servants, at once put on mourning, the house was hung with black, and all the Cardinals, headed by Francesco Piccolomini, paid visits of condolence to their youthful colleague. Four days after, a Requiem was sung in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva; Franceschetto Cybò and the Count of Pitigliano were present in coarse black mantles reaching to the ground, and also Onofrio Tornabuoni, the Medicean agent at the Roman Curia, and many prelates and gentlemen. The next day Innocent proclaimed the appointment of Giovanni de’ Medici to be legate in Tuscany, whither the boy wished to return in consequence of his father’s death, that he might consult on the condition of affairs with his brother, to whom he had already written many letters. The young Cardinal was so much moved that he had to retire for a while during mass.[573] Nothing is known of the remarks made by the Pope (who sent an orator to Florence) on the loss of the man with whom he was so intimate, although throughout his pontificate he had never personally seen him. The case is otherwise with regard to King Ferrante. On the morning of April 11, being then in the neighbourhood of Palma, he learned from a letter of Marino Tomacelli that all hope was abandoned. He thereupon wrote to Gioviano Pontano at Rome that he should offer the Pope all the means at his command to prevent a disturbance of the peace of Italy, and place at his disposal the troops commanded by Virginio Orsini. To Virginio he wrote the same evening, after receiving news of the death (‘which has grieved us to the depths of our soul’), charging him to act without further orders from him according to the disposition of the Pope, in case the latter should have need of him.[574] To those around him the King is said to have thus spoken: ‘That man’s life has been long enough for his own deathless fame, but too short for Italy. God grant that now he is dead, that may not be attempted which was not ventured on during his life.’[575]
That Innocent was entirely of one mind with Ferrante in considering the maintenance of the house of Medici in the position it had hitherto occupied as necessary for the preservation of the existing political system, may be judged from the answer addressed to the Pope, from Vigevano on April 20, by Lodovico il Moro in the name of his nephew Gian Galeazzo.[576] Whatever might be the real feeling of Sforza, who had already two months ago drawn up the instructions for that embassy to Charles VIII. which was the first step towards the ruin of Italy—at all events, his letter throws a favourable light on the Pope’s views of the matter: ‘Your Holiness could have written me nothing more welcome than what you have lately communicated to me as to your desire to keep Italy in peace, and maintain the sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici in their position. For I have nothing more at heart than the preservation of the peace of Italy, for which I have not shrunk from subjecting myself to intolerable burdens and struggles; and between me and the Medici family there is a bond of friendship both public and private. My memory recalls how the illustrious prince my grandfather (Francesco), aided by the pecuniary means of Cosimo de’ Medici, regained the state of our forefathers, which after his father-in-law’s death had been, so to say, lost. I likewise remember how since then Florence and the house of Medici have never been in a position to need our help without our placing arms and money at their disposal. I am therefore glad that amid the deep mourning occasioned by the death of the illustrious Lorenzo, your Holiness’s letter calls upon me to do that to which my own inclination prompted me, and which is as interesting to me as if it concerned my own personal welfare. For not only your Holiness, to whom my attachment to the Medici family is known, but all who know anything of Italian affairs must be convinced that I shall continue to act towards the sons of Lorenzo as my predecessors acted towards his father and grandfather. No one can imagine that I shall not tread as heretofore in the footsteps of my ancestors; for this friendship with the Medici has always been cultivated and confirmed by practical proofs on both sides, up to the present hour, and has not only never experienced a disturbance, but has been constantly strengthened, to the advantage and pleasure of both parties. Perseverance in this mind is made doubly my duty, by old and new relations with the Medici, and by the circumstance that I shall thereby suit the views of your Holiness.’
Lorenzo de’ Medici was buried in the sacristy of San Lorenzo, the resting-place of his father, uncle, brother, grandparents, and other relatives. When Giovanni, who left Rome on May 11, 1492, to return home, stood here at his father’s grave, he little thought that more than twenty-three years later, on Advent Sunday, 1515, he was destined to kneel there in tears as the spiritual head of Christendom.[577] Amid all the splendour and greatness to which the Medici afterwards rose, not one of them seems to have thought of raising a monument to the most famous man of the family, though the greatest sculptor of the age helped to immortalise on their monuments two of its insignificant members. In 1559 Duke Cosimo I. caused the mortal remains of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano to be laid in the porphyry sarcophagus which they had erected for their father and uncle.[578]
The following poem,[579] set to music by Heinrich Isaak, was written by Angelo Poliziano on the death of the man to whom he had been through life so deeply attached:—
MONODIA IN LAURENTIUM MEDICEM.
Quis dabit capiti meo
Aquam? quis oculis meis
Fontem lachrymarum dabit?
Ut nocte fleam,
Ut luce fleam.
Sic turtur viduus solet;
Sic cygnus moriens solet,
Sic luscinia conqueri.
Heu miser, miser;
O dolor, dolor!
Laurus impetu fulminis
Illa illa jacet subito;
Laurus omnium celebris
Musarum choris,
Nympharum choris,
Sub cujus patula coma,
Et Phœbi lyra blandius
Et vox dulcius insonat.
Nunc muta omnia,
Nunc surda omnia.