Standing in the Long Gallery, she poured forth a torrent of scornful words upon the base-born scions of her family. “My Lord,” she cried, “my Lord, to what a pass has my family sunk. Do you think that any of my great ancestors would have borne you so long. Alas! that my race has none but female legitimate offspring.” Then turning to the astonished lads she continued: “You had better both look out for yourselves and go away before the Cardinal here destroys you and Florence!”
Some of the suite tried to interfere and to pacify the enraged woman, but to no avail, she went on vehemently to denounce the intrusion of the two bastards.
“Begone, you who are not of the blood of the Medici, both of you, from a house and from a city to which neither of you, nor your patron, Clement—wrongfully Pope and now justly a prisoner in Sant Angelo—have any legitimate claim, by reason of birth or of merit. Go at once, ye base-born bastards, or I will be the first to thrust you out!”
Her hearers quailed under her invective, and Passerini humbly promised to quit the palace, but when Clarice had gone, he sent for Filippo negli Strozzi and expostulated with him. Filippo’s apology was as quaint as it was effective. “Had she not been,” said he, “a woman and a Medici, he would have administered to her such a public chastisement as would have gone bad with her!” He, nevertheless, strongly advised the Cardinal to depart, and he conveyed the intelligence that the lives of the two lads were by no means secure, and that should anything happen to them, the Pope would demand them at his hands.
On 29th May 1527, Cardinal Passerini, with Ippolito and Alessandro and their suite, accompanied by Filippo, rode out to Poggio a Caiano, amid the execrations of the populace. Thence they departed for Rome, where the young men lived more or less quietly for two years in Clement’s private apartments at the Vatican.
In spite of Ippolito’s superiority of appearance, manners and attainments, the Pope made no concealment of his preference for Alessandro. He created him Duke of Citta di Penna—a fief within the Papal States—and decided that the riches and greatness of the House of Medici should be continued in Alessandro and not in Ippolito.
“Ippolito,” wrote Varillas, “was seized with incredible grief and indignation, and it seemed to him, that being older, a nearer relation to the Pope, and better endowed by nature, so rich an inheritance should rather be his ... either not knowing or not believing the rumours that Alessandro was Clement’s son.”
Goaded by what he conceived to be a legitimate ambition, Ippolito posted off to Florence with the idea of seizing the executive power. Clement despatched Baccio Valori after him, with entreaties and promises, and finding that he had no welcome among the Florentines, Ippolito returned quietly to Rome.
The Pope immediately, and without consulting him, preconised him Cardinal—greatly to his disgust. He had no wish for ecclesiastical preferment, he was a soldier at heart, and meant to be ruler of Florence. Clement noted the young man’s partialities—he was only just twenty years of age, and he encouraged him in his extravagant tastes by liberally endowing his Cardinalate. A Brief “In commendam” was bestowed upon him, whereby the revenue of all vacant benefices and Papal dignities, for six months, were transferred to his account. Moreover, in 1529, he was appointed Archbishop of Avignon, Legate of Perugia, and Administrator of the See of Casale. These fat endowments very considerably affected Ippolito’s position. In Rome he had a Court of three hundred notable personages of all nations; his most intimate friends were soldiers and statesmen of renown, and writers and artists of the highest abilities and fame.