I have written a detailed account of what happens to the Eight. My own impressions, such as they are, I write to Your Magnificence, to whom I can explain things with more freedom than to such eminent magistrates. You can therefore guess at the truth; to me it appears that although there is danger there is also hope.
Exitus in Diis est: tamen if a month after our arrival here a bishop had declared for us things would not be so backward or so ill looked on as they are; even if one was now on the way here so as not to delay giving medicine to the corpse! At inquies. Either the Emperor has not manifested his approval, what then? or he has not openly turned against the enterprise. For my designs it would be sufficient to stay here long enough for things to make a little progress, and then I would gladly pay ready money for a valid impediment in order to transfer all to a more convenient spot. I pray Your Magnificence to take the follies I have written for what they are worth and to judge and command according to your own wishes. Ego jussa exequar and to that I commend myself.—Basel, October 25, 1482.[301]
Sixtus IV. had been thoroughly frightened by the threatened Council at Basel and had also fallen under the influence of his nephew Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who feared the growing power of Venice and was friendly to the Medici. In December 1482 he hurriedly made peace with Naples and Ferrara, and received the Duke of Calabria in the Vatican. Alfonso then started for Ferrara, passing through Florence early in January, where he stayed three days in the house of Giovanni Tornabuoni. Venice refused to obey the Pope’s commands to make peace with Ferrara, and the city was in dire straits. It was only the encouragement and advice of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, the Florentine ambassador, that prevented Duke Ercole from quitting Ferrara and taking refuge at Modena. A Congress of the Allies was summoned at Cremona, to which Lorenzo went early in February 1483, in spite of strong opposition from his fellow-citizens, who feared he might be assassinated by his arch-enemy Girolamo Riario. Louis XI. shared these fears as is seen in his letter. The Congress at Cremona consisted of the Cardinal Legate Gonzaga, Alfonso Duke Of Calabria, Lodovico and Ascanio Sforza, Ercole d’Este Duke of Ferrara, Federigo Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua, Giovanni Bentovoglio of Bologna, Girolamo Riario,[302] Lorenzo de’ Medici, and various envoys.[303]
Louis XI., King of France, to Lorenzo de’ Medici
My Cousin,—By your letter of January 30th I learn your wishes regarding your son Giovanni, if I had only known this before the death of the Cardinal de Rohan I should have done all in my power to please you. I will gladly do whatever I can when a benefice falls vacant. As to Ferrara, where you have promised to go, I should have advised you to abstain, and to be very careful about your personal safety, for I do not know the people or the place you will be in. I would gladly have sent an ambassador from here to excuse you. However as you have promised I leave it to you, to good fortune, and to God.—Written at Plessis du Parc, February 17, 1482 (1483).
Luy.[304]
The following tale and poem in Latin (which I have done into prose) were sent to Lorenzo by Bartolommeo Scala,[305] who prided himself on his literary conceits and on his pure Latinity. I insert them as they are typical of the conceits of the fifteenth century.
Bartolommeo Scala to Lorenzo de’ Medici at Bagno a Morba
My Patron, greeting,—Last September when I was at Morba, where you now are, for my gout, I composed a conceit on the nymph Amorba, childish enough perhaps. If you have time to read this it may not displease you. Trifles of this kind sometimes give pleasure. Indeed those who have been with you inform me that you have sought anew the society of the Muses and are their constant boon companion. Of a truth they can heal our diseases much more pleasantly than any baths.
This indeed is attested with perhaps a certain neatness by an apologue of mine. It is as follows.