The doctor who, though a learned man, certainly seems to have blundered in his judgment as to Lorenzo’s illness, put an end to his life next morning as has been related above (p. 461), by jumping into the well at the Martelli villa at San Gervasio before Porta Pinti.
Sannazzaro’s poem in terza rima (in Roscoe, Ap. lxxviii.) on the death of Piero Leoni attributes it to the instigation of Piero de’ Medici. The fragment beginning: ‘Fu trovato essere stato gettato in un pozzo’ &c., published in Fabroni (l. c. ii. 397) as being from some anonymous author in the Magliabecchiana, is borrowed from the Ricordi of Alamanno Rinuccini (p. cxlvi). Petrus Crinitus and Valerianus (De literatorum infelicitate) take it for granted that the doctor in his agitation took his own life; and Cerretani certainly indicates that Leoni, who a short time before had been in good hopes, lost his head. He states, moreover, that the Medici’s grooms threatened the life of the physician, who was, therefore, taken to San Gervasio, and that the report of his death by the violence of others was immediately spread, but was unfounded. Burcard in his defective report (p. 175) alludes to Piero de’ Medici’s complaint by saying that the fatal termination of the illness was to be attributed to wrong medical treatment, and raises a supposition that at Rome there was believed to have been a murder.
In May, Demetrius Chalcondylas wrote from Milan to Marcello Virgilio Adriani: ‘Thou hast announced to me two sad events; the flash of lightning which has struck the principal church of the city, occasioned so much ruin, and presaged so great evils; and the death of Lorenzo, the most famous man of our time, who was distinguished in so many ways. His decease causes me deep sorrow, not merely on account of the loss, which touches us all in no slight degree, but also on account of what I personally lose, who have always found him a kind patron. And to all this is added the sad and fearful death of Piero Leoni, which has shocked me more than anything for a long time past. Believe me, Marcello, this end casts a shadow over Lorenzo’s death, and is a dishonour to the family and to the whole city. For although thou, like others, writest that he threw himself into the well, yet it is difficult to convince thoughtful people that such a wise and learned man, who, as thou thyself also tellest me, treated Lorenzo in his illness with so much care, could have been seized with such madness as to choose so shameful a death.’ (Bandini, Collectio, &c., p. 22).
In Fabroni, l. c., and Roscoe, ‘Life of Leo X.’ (Ap. No. xxii.) will be found the letters written by Cardinal Giovanni to his brother after their father’s death. The first may be given here. The original is in the curious mixture of Latin and Italian sentences which was then still in vogue.
‘My beloved brother, now the only support of our house. What shall I write to thee, when only tears are left me? For when I consider that our father of blessed memory is taken from us, I am nearer weeping than speaking. What a father! None was kinder than he to his children; of this facts are witness. Therefore it is no wonder that I lament and can find no rest; and my only consolation is that I have thee, my brother, in our father’s place. It is for thee to command, for me to obey, and thy commands will always give me the greatest pleasure. Try me; nothing shall find me backward. But I beg thee, my Piero, be towards all, especially towards thine own people, as I wish thee, beneficent, kind, courteous, gracious; thereby all is obtained, all is preserved. Not because I mistrust thee do I remind thee of this, but because it is my duty. I am consoled and sustained by the concourse of mourners to our house, the universal sympathy, the mourning of the whole city, and other things which help to alleviate sorrow. But what consoles me above all is that I have thee, whom I trust more than my words are able to express. As to what thou wishest arranged with his Holiness, nothing has been done, as it seemed better to take another way, on which the ambassador will report to thee, and which seems as if it must lead more easily to the object. Rome, April 12, 1492.’
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] The collection of Italian poetry made by Lorenzo de’ Medici for Don Federigo is to be found—not, indeed, in the original, which was lost probably during the French invasion of Naples in 1495—but in a copy made either at the end of the fifteenth or in the sixteenth century, and now in the Florentine National Library (Magliabecchi), to which it passed with the Palatine MSS. (Fr. Palermo, I manoscritti Palatini di Firenze, Flor. 1853 seq.; i. 353 seq.). This MS. belonged to Marco Foscarini, with whose library it went in 1800 to Vienna, and later to the Archduke, afterwards Grand Duke, Leopold, when he collected and published the poems of Lorenzo (Opere di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence, 1825, 4 vols. i. p. xxvi., where occur also Apostolo Zeno’s remarks on the MS. in question). On the MSS. and printed copies of Lorenzo’s poems, compare the same edition, i. p. xiii.-xlv., and Gamba, Testi di Lingua, pp. 648-660. For a complete critically revised text much is still wanting, even after the splendid edition of 1825, which came out under the auspices of the della Crusca Academy. A large and well-arranged selection, Poesie di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Flor. 1859, has an introduction by Giosuè Carducci, which has been a guide to much of what is said here of Lorenzo as a poet.