After Savonarola’s death in 1498, Piero de’ Soderini was placed at the head of the Government as Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, whilst Piero’s brother, Cardinal Giovanni, took up the leadership of his discredited party. The terrible sack of Prato in 1512 was an opportunity for the Medici, which they did not neglect to use to their advantage. In terror the Florentine Government paid 140,000 gold florins to the Spanish Viceroy and commander, who made it a condition of his evacuation of Tuscany, that the Medici should be recalled as private citizens, and be granted permission to purchase back their forfeited property. On 12th September of the same year, Giuliano, the third son of Lorenzo il Magnifico, with his young nephew, Lorenzo, Piero’s son, entered Florence, attended by a small following. He was one of the noblest of his race, but he was wholly lacking in initiative and energy. He made no claim to political eminence, and his self-abnegation led to the return to Florence of his more pushful brother, the Cardinal, who was accompanied by Giulio de’ Medici, the bastard son of the murdered Giuliano. They installed themselves in the restored palace, assumed much of the wonted state of their family in bygone days, and were accorded public recognition and honour.
The following year Cardinal Giovanni was elected Pope as Leo X., and, at the same time, Giuliano was created Duke of Nemours—a dignity bestowed by Francis I. of France—and Lorenzo became Duke of Urbino. The conferring of these titles stirred the rancour of a considerable number of ambitious Signori, and intrigue and plots to upset the rising fortunes of the Medici were rife. The very next day after the death of Pope Julius II., Bernardo de’ Capponi and Pietro Papolo de’ Boscoli were condemned to be hung within the Palace of the Podesta, for an attempt upon the lives of Giuliano, Lorenzo, and Giulio de’ Medici. Eighteen accomplices were tortured and many others banished: Niccolo Macchiavelli was implicated in the conspiracy, but he appears to have escaped punishment.
Quietly but persistently the power of the great family was recovered. “The Pope and his Medici” became a proverb throughout Italy: all men noted their rising fortunes and their bids for power. Giulio was preconised Cardinal, Giuliano appointed Gonfaloniere of the Papal army, and Lorenzo became the virtual Head of the Florentine Republic. Giuliano died in 1516, Lorenzo in 1519, and Pope Leo X. in 1521. The first left no legitimate offspring, and the second only one daughter, Caterina, besides a natural son, Alessandro.
Upon the death of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici hastened to Florence, where he was permitted to assume almost autocratic control of State affairs. Possibly he was regarded in the light of Regent for Lorenzo’s only legitimate child, Caterina. He had undoubtedly personal fitness for the post of Chief of the Republic. During the brief period, barely five months, of his administration, he did very much to place public interests upon a firm and practical basis.
Very adroitly he played off the “Ottimati,” under Pietro de’ Ridolfi, against the “Frateschi,” led by Giacopo de’ Salviati, without identifying himself with either party. Recalled to Rome on the death of Leo X., he left Cardinal Silvio Passerini of Cortona his deputy: a man useful as a tool but of no ability or judgment. Adrian VI., who succeeded to the Papacy, was a weak pontiff, and Rome became a hot-bed of intrigue and villainy.
A plot to assassinate Cardinal de’ Medici failed, and, in 1523, he was, after many weeks of wrangling, elected Pope, with the title of Clement VII. In the Vatican, that “refuge for bastards and foundlings,” room was found for two boys, cousins, each the offspring of a Medici father, but illegitimate. They were brought up under the immediate eye of the Pope, indeed one of them, the younger, was said to be the son of Clement.
Ippolito, just fourteen years old, was the bastard son of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours. His mother was a noble lady of Urbino, Pacifica Brandini, but she permitted her child to be exposed in the streets, in a basket, where he was rescued, and taken into the foundling ward of the Confraternity of Santa Maria di Piano d’Urbino. There the kindly Religious gave him the name of “Pasqualino,” indicative of the Church season of Easter, when he entered surreptitiously upon the world’s stage.
When the child was less than two years old the nuns of Santa Maria were removed to Rome, and they took with them, along with other unfortunates, little Pasqualino. Upon a visit, which Pope Leo paid to the convent, he noticed the young boy, and as he smiled and tried to get at his Holiness, Leo was struck with his good looks and made enquiries about his origin. In the end, Leo undertook the little fellow’s education and maintained his interest in him, and, moreover, ordered his name to be changed to Ippolito.
Alessandro—the younger boy—twelve years old, was the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, created Duke of Urbino in 1536, when the Pope annexed that principality to the pontifical estates, upon the excommunication of the rightful sovereign. His mother was a woman of colour, a Tartar slave-girl, who passed for the wife of a vetterale or courier, in the pay of the Duke. He was a native of Colle Vecchio, near Riete, in Umbria, and went by the name of Bizio da Collo, whilst the girl was simply called Anna. Alessandro, later on, was made to feel the baseness of his origin, for he was greeted contemptuously as “Alessandro da Colle Vecchio!” His supposed father, Bizio, died in 1519, but Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici adopted him.