Cosimo’s death in 1464 left the headship of the family to his only surviving son, Piero, who was already middle-aged |Piero de’ Medici and his opponents.| and in feeble health. The five years during which he survived his father are chiefly noteworthy because they witnessed the great split in the Medicean party, which careful observers must have seen for some time to be inevitable. Four of the most prominent associates of Cosimo—Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Angelo Acciaiuoli, and Niccolo Soderini—were unwilling to give to the son the deference which they had shown to the father. Luckily for the Medici, their unanimity did not go far. The first three were actuated by motives of personal ambition, which might easily lead them to quarrel with each other, while Niccolo Soderini was an enthusiast for democracy, and had no desire to humble Piero in order to exalt another in his place. Neroni was the ablest of the leaders, but he was lacking in personal courage, and preferred to employ intrigue and constitutional methods rather than violence. It was only gradually that two parties were organised in avowed opposition to each other. The anti-Medicean party received the nickname of the Mountain, because the great palace of Luca Pitti was rising on the hill of San Giorgio. The residence of the Medici stood on level ground to the north of the Arno, and hence Piero’s adherents were known as the Plain.
The first trial of strength took place in 1465, when the opposition made a bid for popularity by proposing to abolish the balia of 1458 and to restore the constitutional method of filling offices by lot. Piero was too cautious to oppose such a measure, and it was carried with virtual unanimity. In November the first draw took place, and Niccolo Soderini became gonfalonier. Disunion among the leaders prevented any use being made of the advantage which chance had given them, and Soderini went out of office at the end of December without having effected any further change in the constitution. In the next year the party strife was extended to foreign politics. Venice had never forgotten or forgiven the part which Florence had played in establishing the Sforzas in Milan. Now that Francesco was dead and succeeded by the more reckless Galeazzo Maria, there was some possibility of evicting a dynasty which was a perpetual bar to Venetian expansion in Lombardy. But to overthrow the Sforzas it was first necessary to overthrow the Medici. And so the leaders of the Mountain made overtures to Venice, regardless of the consideration that a complete reversal of foreign policy might damage the interests of Florence. The Venetians were too cautious to commit themselves to an alliance with a faction which might fail, and moreover they had the Turkish war on their hands. But there was a secret understanding that if Piero de’ Medici were got rid of, either by the dagger or by a revolution, his opponents would be aided by troops under Bartolommeo Coleone, a condottiere in the pay of Venice, and Ercole d’Este, brother of the duke of Ferrara.
Piero knew enough of these schemes to induce him to draw closer the alliance with Milan and Naples which his |Crisis of 1466.| father had bequeathed to him. His elder son, Lorenzo, received his first experience of diplomacy by being sent on an embassy to Ferrante. The news that Ercole d’Este had advanced in the direction of Pistoia brought matters to a crisis. Piero hurried to Florence from his villa at Careggi, and is said to have escaped an ambush on the way through the vigilance and acuteness of Lorenzo. Galeazzo Maria Sforza was invited to send troops to the assistance of Florence, and the peasants from the Medici estates were armed and brought into the city. On the other side Niccolo Soderini collected two hundred men who were kept in arms in the Pitti palace. Civil war seemed inevitable, but by a tacit agreement active violence was postponed till the new signoria was drawn at the end of August. Fortune or skill favoured the Medici, and a gonfalonier and priors devoted to their interests took up office on September 1. On the next day the great bell called the people to a parliament in the piazza. The armed adherents of Piero commanded every entrance, and the dissentients who obtained admission were too few or too timid to make themselves heard. A numerous balia was proposed by the signoria and approved by acclamation. For the next ten years the priors were to be made by hand. Neroni, Acciaiuolo, and Niccolo Soderini were banished. Luca Pitti, who had been bribed or persuaded to desert his associates, was allowed to remain, but his ostentation had made him unpopular, and he spent the rest of his life in harmless insignificance. His gigantic palace remained unfinished till it was completed by the Medici in the next century.
There still remained the danger of foreign intervention. Neroni, who had been banished to Sicily, defied the decree and repaired to Venice. It was decided to carry |Failure of the anti-Mediceans.| out the scheme which had been arranged in the previous year. Bartolommeo Coleone was to conduct in the interest of the exiles what was ostensibly a private enterprise. He was joined in the spring of 1467 by Ercole d’Este and several of the smaller princes of Romagna. Neapolitan and Milanese auxiliaries were sent to the aid of Florence, whose forces were under the supreme command of Federigo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino. Italy watched with eager interest the progress of the campaign, which was conducted with the punctilious precision so dear to the professional soldier of Italy. There was a great deal of marching, but very little fighting and very little execution. The armies never came anywhere near Florence, whose fate was supposed to be at stake, and no decisive advantage was gained by either side. But this was in itself decisive enough. It was sufficient for the Medici to avoid defeat; the exiles could hope for nothing unless they gained a great victory. In 1468 peace was negotiated by Pope Paul II., leaving matters in statu quo. The exiles lost all hope of returning to Florence. Niccolo Soderini died in Germany in 1474; Neroni lived in Rome till 1482; Angelo Acciaiuoli entered a Carthusian monastery in Naples.
The struggle of 1466 and 1467 removed any possible doubt as to the position of the Medici. The whole aim of the opposition and their supporters had been to effect their overthrow, and the attempt had failed. They were undistinguished by any title, but they were as obviously the rulers of Florence as if they called themselves dukes or counts. This was made clear after the death of Piero de’ Medici on December 3, 1469. Tommaso Soderini, Niccolo’s brother, who had remained faithful during the recent crisis, convened a pratica or |Accession of Lorenzo.| informal meeting of the principal citizens. He proposed that Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was only twenty-one, and therefore below the legal age for holding any magistracy in the republic, should be invited to exercise the power that had been wielded by Cosimo and Piero. A deputation was chosen to carry the offer, which Lorenzo accepted after a becoming show of hesitation.
Lorenzo’s conduct shows that he was fully conscious of the altered position which events had enabled him to assume. Hitherto the Medici had been content to intermarry with Florentine families, and thus to recognise their equality of rank. But Lorenzo, as a prince, must seek a foreign bride, and he married Clarice Orsini, a daughter of the famous family of Roman nobles. Though his own tastes led him to show an interest in art and literature, and to encourage |Constitutional changes.| the amusements of the people, he was also inspired by the wish to establish a court on the lines which had become familiar in the principalities of Italy. In their intercourse with Lorenzo the Florentines showed a deference and even a servility which would have been deemed wholly out of place in the days of Cosimo and Piero. This growth of a monarchical element within the republic is probably the explanation of the numerous and obscure constitutional changes which were made or attempted in the early years of Lorenzo’s administration. Their essential object was to secure absolute control of appointments to the signory. In 1470 it was proposed that the accoppiatori should be chosen every year by a new college of forty-five, consisting of men who had discharged this function since the return of the Medici in 1434. The scheme was denounced as an attempt to subject the city to forty-five tyrants, and failed to pass the council of a hundred. In the next year, however, the same object was attained in a different way. The existing accoppiatori were associated with the sitting members of the signoria as a permanent committee, and the names which they proposed were to be carried in the Hundred by a bare majority, instead of by the usual majority of two-thirds. In the same year the legislative functions of the old councils of the people and of the commune were suspended for ten years. It is difficult to estimate the precise significance of these and other changes, but their general effect was to narrow the circle of families among whose members the more important offices circulated. This was certain to excite dissatisfaction; and among the malcontents we find the Pazzi, an old noble family which had devoted itself to commerce, and now became rivals of the Medici in business as well as in politics.
Events proved that discontent within Florence was not very formidable, unless it was reinforced by |Foreign policy.| difficulties in foreign relations. Lorenzo had been brought up by his grandfather to regard Milan and Naples as the normal allies of Florence, Venice as a dangerous rival of Florence and a resolute opponent of the Medici ascendency, and the papacy as a variable force depending on the idiosyncracies of rapidly changing popes, and requiring to be very carefully watched. Lorenzo had learned the lesson, but with the egotism and self-sufficiency of youth he was not disinclined to attempt a few experiments on his own account. If he could establish friendly relations with the papacy and with Venice, he might make his own position stronger than ever, and might pose as mediator and almost as arbiter in the relations of the Italian states. On the election of Sixtus IV. in 1471, Lorenzo went in person as Florentine envoy to carry the usual congratulations. He returned not only with a confirmation of his banking privileges in Rome, but with the lucrative appointment of receiver of the papal revenues. At the same time he opened negotiations with Venice, which led in 1474 to the embassy of Tommaso Soderini and the conclusion of an alliance between Venice, Milan, and Florence.
But these new connections were dearly purchased by the alienation of Naples. Ferrante regarded Venice as the inveterate enemy of his kingdom and his family. As long as the Medici had identified their interests with his own he had been eager to uphold |Alienation of Naples and quarrel with Sixtus IV.| their power in Florence. But a good understanding of Milan and Florence with Venice threatened Naples with isolation, and Ferrante must seek support elsewhere. Sixtus had already allowed the Neapolitan tribute to be commuted for a formal gift; and as the ties between Naples and the papacy were drawn closer, a coolness grew up between Sixtus and Lorenzo. The origin of the quarrel is to be found in the opposition of Florence to the aggrandisement of Girolamo Riario (see p. [282]). Lorenzo refused to find the money for the purchase of Imola, and the Pope transferred the post of receiver-general from the Medici to the Pazzi. The dispute was speedily embittered. Sixtus appointed Francesco Salviati to the archbishopric of Pisa without consulting Lorenzo, and in defiance of his wishes. The Florentines, on their side, refused to admit the archbishop to his see; they supported the Vitelli in Citta di Castello, and in many ways showed an inclination to thwart the Pope’s schemes in Romagna. For some time, however, the dispute did not seem likely to lead to serious results. But the death of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1476, and the obvious weakness of the government of the regent, Bona of Savoy, encouraged the opponents of the Medici to bolder acts than they would have contemplated when Milan could give efficient support to Florence. In 1477 Girolamo Riario and Francesco Pazzi began to discuss in Rome |Conspiracy of the Pazzi.| how to overthrow a family which stood in the way of both of them. By the beginning of 1478 the main outlines of the conspiracy had been agreed to. Francesco Salviati and Jacopo Pazzi, the head of the family in Florence, had agreed to take part in the plot. It was understood that the Pope and the king of Naples would give active support, but they took no responsibilities for the actual means by which the desired end was to be attained. Assassination was a recognised weapon in Italian politics, and it was obviously difficult to effect a revolution in Florence without it. Sixtus IV. might plead that he was ignorant of this part of the design, but morally the plea is worthless. If the Medici government had been unpopular in Florence, it might have been possible to organise a rebellion and to overthrow them by means of a parliament. But there was no widespread discontent in the city, and the Pazzi had no strong following among either the lower or the wealthy classes. It was decided, therefore, to kill Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano, and to trust to the resultant confusion and foreign intervention. A number of hired mercenaries, headed by Giovanni Battista da Montesecco, were engaged to carry out the two immediate objects—the murder of the brothers and the seizure of the magistrates. It says much for the fidelity of the plotters that no one was found to betray the design, in spite of the discouragement caused by unavoidable delays. The great practical difficulty arose from the necessity of assassinating Lorenzo and Giuliano at the same moment, for fear that one might receive warning from the fate of the other. And unless both were removed, the plot would end in failure. At last the desired opportunity was offered by a banquet which the Medici gave in honour of Cardinal Raffaelle Riario, a great-nephew of the Pope. But Giuliano was too unwell to attend, and the time and place had to be altered. On Sunday, April 26, 1478, the two brothers were to be present at divine service in the cathedral, and the elevation of the host was to be the signal to the assassins. This gave rise to an unexpected difficulty. Montesecco, who had undertaken to slay Lorenzo, refused to commit sacrilege by shedding blood in a church, and two priests were chosen to take his place. But the priests, though they did not share the scruples, also lacked the strength and skill of the soldier. As the little altar bell tinkled, Giuliano was struck down, and Francesco Pazzi dealt the final deathblow. But Lorenzo was only wounded in the shoulder, and in the confused scuffle which followed he succeeded in escaping to the sacristy, where his friends closed the bronze doors in the face of the murderers. Elsewhere the conspirators were equally unsuccessful. Archbishop Salviati, who had gone to the Palazzo to superintend the seizure of the gonfalonier and priors, excited suspicion by his obvious agitation, and was seized with several of his followers. Jacopo Pazzi headed a procession through the streets with shouts of ‘Liberty,’ but the people raised the counter-cry of ‘Palle! Palle!’ in favour of the Medici, and the leaders of the demonstration were carried by the mob to the Palazzo. On the arrival of the news that Giuliano de’ Medici was dead, Francesco Pazzi, the archbishop of Pisa, and several other prisoners were promptly hanged from the windows. Vindictive severity was shown to the Pazzi and their allies. Guglielmo Pazzi, who had married Lorenzo’s sister, was the only member of the family who escaped. The two priests who had taken refuge in a monastery were dragged from their sanctuary by the mob and barbarously murdered. Montesecco had left Florence, but he was captured, and after giving evidence which implicated the Pope in the conspiracy, was executed. One of the murderers succeeded in reaching Constantinople, but even there the vengeance of the Medici was able to reach him. He was handed over by Mohammed II., and brought back to Florence, where in 1479 he shared the fate of his accomplices.
Within Florence all danger was at an end. The cowardly nature of the attack rallied public opinion to the Medici; and |War with Naples and the Papacy.| the death of a brother, who had hitherto enjoyed the larger share of popular favour, served to exalt the survivor and to remove from his way a possible rival. The fate of the conspirators was a striking object-lesson to future malcontents. But Lorenzo’s signal triumph only exasperated the foreign enemies whom his reckless policy had alienated. He had broken up the triple alliance, in which Florence served as a link between Milan and Naples, and had divided Italy into a northern and a southern league. These were now brought into collision by the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy. Both Sixtus IV. and Ferrante of Naples had good reasons for desiring the overthrow of Lorenzo, and these reasons were multiplied now that success had made him more formidable. The Pope, urged on by Girolamo Riario, and infuriated by the execution of an archbishop and the murder of priests, called upon the Florentines to banish Lorenzo, who was to be made the scapegoat for the crime of his opponents. The citizens refused to give up their leader, and published the confession of Montesecco. Sixtus laid the city under an interdict, and prepared for war. The papal troops under Federigo da Montefeltro and a Neapolitan army under Alfonso of Calabria marched into southern Tuscany, where the adhesion of Siena gave the invaders a convenient base of operations. Florence appealed to her allies, and obtained assistance from Milan under Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, and from Venice under Galeotto Pico of Mirandola. Ercole d’Este was appointed commander-in-chief for the republic. Great hopes were also entertained of the intervention of France, and Louis XI. despatched Philippe de Commines to Italy to try what diplomacy could effect in favour of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
In 1478 Florence made a creditable resistance against superior forces. The fortification of Poggio Imperiale blocked the Val d’Elsa, the most vulnerable approach to |Campaigns of 1478 and 1479.| the city; and when the disappointed invaders turned eastwards to the valley of the Chiana, they had only completed the preliminary operation of taking Monte San Savino when winter put an end to operations. But in the campaign of 1479 fortune turned decisively against the Florentines. A revolution in Milan, which was dexterously organised by Ferrante, not only compelled the withdrawal of the Milanese troops; but by substituting the rule of Ludovico Sforza for that of Bona of Savoy, detached Milan for a time from the Florentine alliance. The Turkish attack on Scutari, which reduced Venice to such straits that it was necessary to make the peace of Constantinople, and to refrain from any vigorous action in Italy, was also attributed by contemporary suspicion to the wily suggestions of the Neapolitan king. Worst of all, France would not take action. A few hundred French lances would have been worth far more than the threat of a general council which the Pope knew would not be carried out. Florence found herself isolated and exposed to a crushing attack. The plague broke out within the walls, Poggio Imperiale was stormed, and nothing but the ponderous tactics of a mercenary army saved the city from the necessity of an ignominious surrender. Lorenzo de’ Medici was in a very difficult position. In a sense the city was enduring these sufferings and risks on his behalf, and the loyalty of the citizens might give way under an intolerable strain. He sought and found a way out of the dilemma by an enterprise which his adherents and apologists have agreed to consider |Lorenzo goes to Naples.| heroic. In December 1479 he set out on an embassy to Naples. The fate of Jacopo Piccinino was sufficiently recent to convince people that it was dangerous to trust to the good faith of Ferrante, yet it is difficult to believe that Lorenzo undertook the journey without some fairly substantial assurance that there was less risk in it than appeared on the surface. After all, Ferrante had originally been the cordial friend of Lorenzo; and although he had since then taken offence, he might be appeased by a renewal of the old understanding. Events had proved that it was not worth while to alienate Naples in order to establish better relations with Venice, and Lorenzo was quite willing to do penance for his blunder. And the alliance between Naples and the Pope did not rest upon very substantial foundations. Lorenzo could point out that Sixtus only cared for the aggrandisement of his nephew, that he was already preparing to expel the Ordelaffii from Forli in order to give a duchy to Girolamo, and that a strong secular power in the papal states was by no means likely to benefit Naples. There was an ultimate argument in the relations of the Medici with France. The revival of the Angevin claim was a perpetual nightmare to Ferrante and his son, and it might well prove that the house of Aragon would find in a Florentine alliance a substantial bulwark to their throne. At all events, whether hazardous or not, the enterprise was successful. Lorenzo returned to Florence in 1480 with a treaty of |Conclusion of peace, 1480.| peace. It was not, of course, a very glorious agreement: the southern districts of Florentine territory were ceded to Siena, the allies in Romagna were left at the mercy of the Pope, and there was no provision for the restoration of the northern fortress of Sarzana, which had been seized during the war by the Fregosi of Genoa. But anything was better than the continuance of the war, and Lorenzo was hailed as the saviour of the state. It is true that there was a momentary reaction, when it was found that the Neapolitan forces were in no hurry to quit Tuscany, and that Alfonso was apparently taking advantage of party feuds in Siena to maintain a permanent foothold in the province. But the Turks intervened to checkmate any such design, and the occupation of Otranto compelled Alfonso and his troops to retire for the defence of their own territory. Even the obstinate Pope was forced to give way by the danger from the infidel. Sixtus ceased to insist that Lorenzo should make another more humiliating, and perhaps more perilous journey to Rome, and withdrew the interdict which he had launched against Florence for venturing to punish ecclesiastics for a flagrant crime.