Audito tantum nomine pacis, obit.’
In Rome itself the pontificate of Sixtus IV. had been as turbulent as his foreign relations. The great families, and especially the Colonnas, had opposed the advancement of the Pope’s nephews, and had thus drawn on themselves the wrath of Sixtus. A long civil war ensued, |Disorders in Rome.| in which the barons allied themselves with the foreign enemies of the Pope, at one time with Florence, at another with Naples or with Venice. In this war Sixtus displayed all his cold-blooded cruelty and treachery. The stronghold of his enemies was the castle of Marino, which was surrendered by Lorenzo Colonna on condition that he should be restored to his family. Sixtus fulfilled his promise by sending them his corpse. The mother appeared at the papal court, and producing her son’s head, exclaimed, ‘See how a Pope keeps faith!’ It was a graphic picture of the terrible degradation of Rome by the Pope’s abandonment of spiritual aims for temporal ambition. Directly the Pope’s death was known, the Colonnas headed a rising which sacked the palaces of the Riarios and drove their adherents from Rome.
The character of Innocent VIII. has been painted by some historians in blacker colours than it deserves. It is true that |Innocent VIII., 1484-92.| he was the first Pope who recognised his own children, but they seem to have been born before he took orders, and his devotion to them did not involve him in such scandals as disgrace his predecessor and his successor. The principality of Anguillara was purchased for his son, Franceschetto Cibo, but the latter was more interested in gaining money than power, and his first act after his father’s death was to sell his territories to Virginio Orsino. Innocent himself had little capacity and little interest in politics. He spent great part of his time in a state of lethargy, which not infrequently gave the appearance of death. Among those who exercised a dominant influence over the feeble Pope was Lorenzo de’ Medici, who married his daughter Maddalena to Franceschetto Cibo, and as a part of the bargain, obtained the cardinal’s hat for his second son, Giovanni, at the age of fourteen. It was under Innocent VIII. that the Medici obtained that position at the papal court which enabled them to produce two almost successive popes, Leo X. and Clement VII., and enabled these popes to use the power of the Church to suppress the liberties of their native city.
By far the greatest difficulty of Innocent VIII.’s pontificate was connected with Naples. Ever since the withdrawal of |Rising of Neapolitan barons.| John of Calabria in 1464, the bastard house of Aragon had enjoyed undisputed possession of the Neapolitan throne. Jacopo Piccinino, the condottiere, who had been formidable in the previous struggle, was enticed to Naples by Ferrante with the aid of Francesco Sforza, and was treacherously put to death in 1465. At the time of his alliance with Sixtus IV. against Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ferrante had succeeded in reducing his tribute to his papal suzerain to the annual gift of a white horse. The freedom from external danger enabled the king to make the royal authority despotic, and to annul the independence of the feudal nobles. His son, Alfonso of Calabria, gained an undeserved military reputation by the withdrawal of the Turks from Otranto, and from that time was associated with his father in the government. Under his influence the royal rule became even more tyrannical and oppressive, and in 1485 the barons determined to rebel. Innocent VIII., who desired to extort the old tribute from Naples which his predecessor had commuted, espoused their cause, and Venice, always hostile to the house of Aragon, gave secret assistance. It was decided to revive the Angevin pretensions, and Réné of Lorraine, the grandson of Réné le Bon, was invited to come to Italy as a claimant of the crown for which his ancestors had so long contended. But the rebellion ended in complete failure. Neither Florence nor Milan would consent to such a disturbance of the normal relations of Italy as would be involved in French intervention. The military force of the Neapolitan rulers was overwhelming, and Alfonso, for the second time, led an army against Rome. To complete the disasters of the Pope and his allies, Réné of Lorraine, who was engaged in prosecuting a hopeless claim upon Provence at the French court, allowed the opportunity of gaining Naples to slip from his hands. But the mere threat of a French invasion was enough to induce Ferrante and Alfonso to come to terms. The Pope was bought off by the restoration of the former tribute, and the Neapolitan barons, deprived of all hope of assistance, submitted on the understanding that a full amnesty should be granted to them. The promise was broken with that cynical disregard of good faith which marked the politics of Italy in the fifteenth century. The nobles who returned to Naples were imprisoned, and were never again seen alive. The sole survivors were those who preferred to remain in exile rather than trust the rulers whom they had endeavoured to depose. These men eagerly watched for an opportunity which might enable them at once to avenge the death of their associates and to regain their own confiscated territories. In 1493 they were at last enabled to act. The death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the growing alienation of Ludovico Sforza from Naples, removed some of the chief securities for peace in Italy. By the advice of Venice the Neapolitan exiles petitioned for the intervention, not of the duke of Lorraine, but of the French king, Charles VIII. Before any final decision had been come to at the French court, Ferrante had died on January 25, 1494, and Alfonso II. was left to face the danger of which his own violence and misrule had been the principal cause.
Innocent VIII. had not lived to witness this new crisis in the history of Naples. His death in 1492 had been followed by a very important election. The most prominent candidates for the suffrages of the conclave were Ascanio Sforza, the brother of Ludovico, and Giuliano della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV. But neither could obtain the requisite majority, and in the end Ascanio Sforza was bribed to support the candidature of the wealthiest of the Roman cardinals, Rodrigo Borgia, a nephew of Calixtus III. The well-known fact that he had several natural children, born to him not only since he was a priest, but since he had been a cardinal, seems to have been completely disregarded. |Election of Alexander VI.| A lavish expenditure of money and promises secured his election, and he assumed the title of Alexander VI. The first great problem which the new Pope had to solve concerned the approaching struggle in Naples. In spite of his obligations to Ascanio Sforza, and his antagonism to the Orsini, who were closely connected at this time with the house of Aragon, Alexander allowed himself to be drawn in 1493 into an alliance with Ferrante, and on his death he recognised the title of Alfonso II. The French invasion, which the Pope was thus pledged to resist, threatened the papacy for some time with serious dangers; but in the end it proved one of the chief circumstances which enabled Alexander himself, and afterwards Julius II., to erect the temporal power upon firmer foundations than any of their predecessors had been able to construct.
CHAPTER XIV
FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI
The period of oligarchical rule in Florence—Maso and Rinaldo degli Albizzi—Niccolo da Uzzano—The opposition and Giovanni de’ Medici—War with Filippo Maria Visconti—The Catasto—Unsuccessful attack upon Lucca—Expulsion of the Medici—Fall of the Albizzi, and return of Cosimo de’ Medici—Character and methods of Cosimo’s rule—Luca Pitti and the coup d’état of 1458—Cosimo’s foreign policy—Piero de’ Medici and his opponents—Victory of Piero—Accession of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Approximation to monarchy—Alienation of Naples, and quarrel with Sixtus IV.—Conspiracy of the Pazzi—War in 1478 and 1479—Lorenzo goes to Naples—Conclusion of peace—Constitutional changes in 1480—Lorenzo’s later years—Importance of his death—Reckless conduct of the younger Piero.
The leaders of the Florentine democracy paid a heavy penalty for their momentary triumph in 1378. A violent |Oligarchical rule in Florence.| reaction in 1382 restored the oligarchy under the leadership of the Albizzi, and for the next fifty years the curious machinery of the civic constitution was carefully manipulated to secure the ascendency of the dominant faction. Although it is by no means the most famous, there can be no doubt that this is one of the most successful periods in Florentine history. Under the resolute guidance of a close oligarchy, Florence maintained a heroic struggle against the encroachments of Gian Galeazzo Visconti until his death in 1402 saved the city from almost inevitable submission. When the Milanese dominions fell to pieces, Florence seized the opportunity to gain a great prize; and the city of Pisa, which commanded the mouth of the Arno, was in 1406 compelled to surrender after an obstinate resistance (see p. [244]). Then followed a long war with Ladislas of Naples, in the course of which Florence acquired the important town of Cortona. And in 1421 the commercial interests of the city were strengthened by the purchase from Genoa of a second port—Livorno.
For a long time the active leader of the victorious faction and the most influential politician in Florence was Maso degli Albizzi, a nephew of the Piero degli Albizzi who had been so prominent in the party strife of the fourteenth century (see p. [164]). Maso had returned from exile in 1382, and at various times held most of the chief offices of the state. While he was gonfalonier in 1393 harsh measures were taken to complete the defeat of the democrats. But, apart from the severity shown to the unfortunate Alberti and their supporters, Maso showed himself a wise and tolerant ruler. When he died in 1417, his place was, to some extent, taken by his eldest son, Rinaldo, who displayed great industry and integrity, but less prudence and insight than his father. The almost hereditary prominence of these two men did much to accustom the Florentines to that disguised despotism which was afterwards established by the Medici. But the Albizzi never enjoyed such undivided ascendency as was held by Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici. At least as influential a leader as Rinaldo was Niccolo da Uzzano, who is frequently spoken of by contemporaries as the head of the party. He seems to have been a sincere enthusiast for aristocratic rule, and it was greatly due to his influence that the Albizzi were prevented from making themselves absolute masters of the city. His reputation for wisdom and insight was deservedly high, and his death in 1432 proved a fatal blow to the party in whose counsels he had always been on the side of moderation.
In spite of the services which it rendered to the state, the oligarchical government did not succeed in averting discontent and hostility. The strongest political sentiment among the Florentines was the love of equality, which found practical expression in the system of filling offices by lot. This love of equality was more outraged by the domination of a clique of ruling families than it would have been by the government of a single despot. The lesser guilds and the lower classes resented their virtual exclusion from office; and many wealthy citizens, who had incurred the displeasure of the dominant faction, found themselves equally left in the cold. Moreover, the militant foreign policy of the government was extremely expensive; and the burden of taxation, as was always the case in Florence, fell more heavily upon the opponents than upon the supporters of the government. Gradually the cause of the opposition came to be more and more identified with the house of Medici. The action of Salvestro de’ Medici in 1378 had identified the name with the popular cause, though he did not personally profit by its short-lived victory. In 1393, when the severe measures of Maso degli Albizzi provoked a popular rising, it was to Vieri de’ Medici, a kinsman of Salvestro, that the mob appealed for guidance, and it was his moderate advice which checked the rebellion. But it was a member of another branch of the family—Giovanni de’ Medici—who, in the second decade of the fifteenth century, came to be regarded as the leader of those who disapproved of the conduct of affairs by the ruling party. Giovanni was a banker and money-changer, and was so successful in his business that he became the richest citizen in Florence, if not in Italy. He employed his wealth in extending his popularity, though he was extremely careful to avoid any action which might give the government a handle against him. In 1421 he was drawn as gonfalonier, and Niccolo da Uzzano wished to cancel the appointment as dangerous. But Giovanni’s hold on the people, and especially on the lesser guilds, made such a step perilous, and his two months of office passed uneventfully. Giovanni de’ Medici died in 1429, leaving two sons—Cosimo, afterwards the ruler of Florence, and Lorenzo, whose descendants in the sixteenth century became grand-dukes of Tuscany.