She was not only the Head of the Tuscan League and the chief Republic in Europe, but also the first of modern states. If the spirit of the Greeks inspired the physical prowess of the Romans, the enlightenment of the Florentines brought forth the renascence of the arts and crafts of Italy and of the world.
Cosimo, “Il Padre della Patria,” laid the foundation-stone of Medici renown in the iron grip of his powerful personality, and Piero, his son, maintained unimpaired its eminence by his urbanity and good sense. To Lorenzo, however, was reserved the distinction of placing upon that mighty column its magnificent copestone, and he adorned it with the sevenfold balls of his escutcheon, whilst on the summit he held unfurled the great Red Cross Oriflamme of Florence.
Lorenzo left three sons and three daughters to uphold that ensign and to exhibit the glory of their house. To the first-born, Piero, came the great inheritance of his father’s place and power, and no man ever entered into a greater possession,—a possession, so firm, so unquestioned and so portentous, that nothing seemed likely to disturb its equilibrium or to sully its triumph.
But, “the son of his father is not always his father’s son,” and this quaint saying is perfectly true of Piero de’ Medici—a youth of twenty-one years of age—the exact age of his father on his succession to the Headship of the State. Physically the young prince was well favoured, he was cultured and, like his unfortunate uncle Giuliano, he was an adept in all gentlemanly exercises.
Alas, he took not the slightest interest in politics, nor in the business affairs of his house, and the proverbial urbanity and pushfulness of the Medici were alike absent. Whilst he lightly handed over to Piero Dorizzi di Bibbiena, his Chancellor, the conduct of public affairs, he listened to the proud persuasions of his mother, to whom anything like commercial pursuits were abhorrent. Clarice d’Orsini’s forbears had all been soldiers, Lorenzo’s merchants, that made all the difference in Rome’s degenerate days.
Of course there was no Florentine girl good enough to be the bride of young Piero de’ Medici—at least, Domina Clarice, his mother, decided so. She was the proudest of the proud, and as ignorant and prejudiced as she was haughty. Her son could only wed a Roman princess, and, by preference, a daughter of the Orsini; consequently Alfonsina, daughter of Roberto d’Orsini, Clarice’s cousin, entered Florence in state on 22nd May 1488, for her magnificent nuptials with the young Capo della Repubblica.
The same year the Domina died. Her influence had not been for good, and her want of tact and her unpopularity caused Lorenzo much anxiety. Perhaps, however, a prince of his conspicuous and, in many ways, unique ability, was better mated with an unsympathetic spouse than with a woman who could, from parity of gifts, enter into his feelings and aspirations. He lived for the magnanimous renown of Florence—she for the selfish prominence of her family.
Francesco de’ Guicciardini wrote of Piero de’ Medici thus: “He was born of a foreign mother, whereby Florentine blood got mixed, and he acquired foreign manners and bearing, too haughty for our habits of life.” The prince gave up most of his time to pleasure and amusement with the young nobles of his court, and encouraged the aims and ambitions of the self-seeking scions of his mother’s family. At a single bound the immense personal popularity of Lorenzo, his father, disappeared. Florentines took the young ruler’s measure, and he was found wanting.
The imprisonment and threatened execution of his cousins, Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, was a flagrant mistake. The three had quarrelled about Lorenzo il Magnifico’s pretty daughter, Luigia, but it was a baseless rumour that she had been poisoned. Bad blood was made always in Florence by such romances and such interference.
In September 1494, Charles VIII. crossed the Alps, and, whilst Savonarola fanatically hailed his coming to Florence as “God’s Captain of Chastisement,” politicians of all parties looked to Piero to show a bold front and resist the French invader as commander-in-chief of a united Italian army.