A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2 / Described in a Series of Letters by a Lady

by Augusta Macgregor Holmes

The duke had hardly departed, when he broke away a tooth with his chisel, and hollowed the gum so that it appeared to have dropped from age.

On Lorenzo’s return, noticing the alteration, and admiring the youth’s intelligence, he assigned him apartments in his palace, treated him as his own son, and continued to protect him till he died. During this time, four years, he had profited by the society of learned men and artists, who frequented the Medici palace, and by the instructions of Angelo Poliziano, then entrusted with the education of Lorenzo’s son, Pietro, who, profiting by them less than his young comrade, was the puerile successor of a great father.

Michael Angelo was eighteen years of age when his friend died. Feeling his loss deeply, he quitted the Medici palace, and returned to his own home, where he shut himself up, alone and inactive, during several days, and then, finding by chance a block of marble, which had long lain exposed to wind and rain, he produced from it a Hercules. During the severe winter which ensued, he yielded to the childish wish of Pietro, and lost his time by making statues of snow, not through the complaisance of a flatterer, but such feeling of love to the dead as excuses the failings of the living representative. He was again lodged in the Palazzo, now Riccardi; but the Medici family, in consequence of Pietro’s conduct, was driven from Florence, and the artist thought it wise for a time to depart also, and did not again inhabit the palace, which had been the home of his boyhood.

In the year 1715, Francisco Riccardi enlarged the palace considerably, without altering its architecture—enclosing within its walls the Strada del Traditore, so named from Lorenzino de’ Medici, the murderer of Duke Alessandro. On the site his house had occupied were constructed the stables. The close of Alessandro’s life forms one of the darkest portions of Florentine history.

An instrument in the hands of Charles the Fifth, the emperor; by him chosen to rule Florence, to prepare its possession by Austria; a bastard of the Medici, as being son of Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, and an African woman, whom it is said he poisoned that she might no longer witness to his base birth; he was one-and-twenty when, accompanied by the emperor’s delegate and the imperial decree, which named him chief of the state, he entered Florence.

Gay and clever, popular for a time with the people on account of these qualities, and losing their favour through a depravity of conduct which did not even respect the barrier of their convent walls, he excited the indignation of the republican party, as well by his vices as by his tyranny and system of espionage, which in their houses, as well as in the streets, made it dangerous for the citizens to hold communication by word or sign.

Louisa Strozzi, the young daughter of Filippo, chief of this powerful family, had not escaped insult from Alessandro’s companions: he himself, it was thought, had singled out, as another victim, this noble lady, who shortly after died poisoned. It was in the father’s palace that the discontented assembled nightly.

Lorenzo, named, from his slight figure and delicate features, Lorenzino, belonged to the legitimate branch of the Medici and the republican party of Florence. He was a poet, and had written works which ranked among the best of his time,—but still more a politician; and devoted to the study of antiquity, his admiration centered on those who had freed their country from a tyrant; and resolved to imitate them he confided his intentions to none, resting on the strength of his single arm.

To become more surely the intimate and friend of Alessandro, he plunged into all kinds of dissipation with more ardour than himself. The young student, with his pale features and melancholy habits, became the minister of the duke’s pleasures, and day and night his companion; till Alessandro, the most suspicious of princes, placed in the traitor who dogged his steps a confidence so boundless, that he replied to one who, noticing the strange change in his flatterer’s character, bade him beware: “If I were obliged to leave Florence, I would confide the care of mine interests to Lorenzino.”

Near the houses of the duke and his confidant, lived a fair lady, the wife of Leonardo Ginori, who as yet had evaded stratagems and resisted bribes. Alessandro confided his love to Lorenzino, and said that his last hope rested on him; and Lorenzino promised to serve him, and assured him of success.