By far the most formidable opposition to Cosimo’s rule came from Venice, whence the Florentine exiles, under the command of Filippo negli Strozzi’s two sons, Piero and Roberto, who had married Lorenzino’s sisters, Laudomia and Maddalena, raised, with the assistance of the King of France, a strong force, and invaded Tuscany.
It needed not the persuasion of Madonna Maria to urge Cosimo to action, although her active representations to the Emperor—which obtained the Imperial sanction and promise of co-operation—were important factors in his resolution. Cosimo gathered together what men he could rely upon in Florence, and when once his battle-banner was unfurled with the black pennon of his redoubtable father, numbers of old campaigners hastened to his support.
On 31st July, 1537, the opposing forces met in the valley of Montemurlo. Cosimo displayed much of the daring and ability of his father, and victory was never in doubt. The Strozzi and Baccio Valori were taken prisoners to Florence, bound upon broken-down farm-horses, and their forces were dispersed. It was reported that in the heat of the battle Otto da Montanto, an Imperial officer, riding past Cosimo, lowered the point of his sword as he shouted, “Forward, Signore, to-day the fortunes of the Emperor and of Cosimo de’ Medici will prevail!”
Cosimo wore no velvet gloves in dealing with his enemies, secret and pronounced. Arrest, confiscation, torture, banishment, and execution thinned once more the ranks of the noblest families of Tuscany. Filippo negli Strozzi, who was regarded as the leader of the anti-Cosimo party, was taken prisoner and cast into the fortress of San Giovanni. Apparently his aim was not a restoration of a Papal nominee to the Headship of the State, but his own advancement to that position. He was put on the rack, and eventually done to death by Cosimo’s orders.
The years 1538, 1539 and 1540, are deeply dyed with the blood of victims. Florentine vengeance again proved itself satisfied only with wholesale annihilation. It has been computed that in the latter year alone, nearly five hundred men and women, chiefly of good family and high distinction, came by violent deaths. Of these, one hundred and forty-six were decapitated by Cosimo’s express orders!
Perhaps “The Terror” was inevitable, but it revealed in a lurid light the revengeful and implacable temper of the young ruler. If he had inherited, through many generations, the craft and pushfulness of the Medicis, he had also become possessed of some of the brutality of the Sforzas, through his grandmother Caterina, natural daughter, by the lovely but dissolute Lucrezia Landriani, of Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan. This prince possessed all the worst points of a Renaissance tyrant, and was “a monster of vices and virtues”: perhaps he was insane, at all events, Caterina was accustomed to speak of him as “Uno Fantastico!”
There was at least one ray of sunshine in that year of swift, dark deeds, for, in less than a month after poor little “La Bia” had flown back to Heaven, as lovely and as precious a gift as ever came to gladden the hearts of young parents was vouchsafed to Cosimo and Eleanora, in the birth of their first-born, a girl.
In the Registri dei Battezzati dell’ Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore is the following record: “On April 13th, 1540, was baptised a female child of the Duke of Cosimo, born on the third day of the same month, and she was registered in the name of Maria Lucrezia.” Alas, the joy of that natal day was marred by the solicitude which the delicacy of the frail infant caused her father and mother. No one thought she could live, but Duchess Eleanora was a tender nurse, and her weaning caused the cradle to rock with hope as well as love.
Just twelve months later a baby brother came to keep little Maria company, a strong and vigorous boy, dark-haired and sallow like his Spanish mother. He was christened Francesco, after the patron saint of his day of birth. Cosimo was not in Florence at the time, he had gone to pay his respects to the Emperor Charles V. at Genoa.
The object of his visit to the Imperial Court was to thank Charles for the German bodyguard of Landesnechte which he had sent to Florence to defend the Medici Palace and its inmates during the three years of disorder and repression, and to ask for an extension of their services.