This morning the Illustrious Eight sent for me to announce that the citadel of Faenza had been given up by the governor and etiam the departure of Madonna Francesca.—Florence, June 9, 1488.[357]
... After the Magnificent Lorenzo had seen Messer Giovanni [Bentivoglio], who had been set at liberty and was in Florence, I went to hear what had passed between them. His Magnificence told me there had been much talk and that all the linen had been washed clean. It seemed to him that Messer Giovanni was quite satisfied and bore no rancour against this city or against himself, and had promised to represent matters to Milan so that nothing more would be said about Faenza.... At daylight the Magnificent Lorenzo left to take the baths at Villa (Filetta). His wife is very ill,[358] and there is no hope of her recovery.—Florence, July 21, 1488....[359]
Lorenzo de’ Medici to Pope Innocent VIII.
Sanctissime ac Beatissime Pater post Pedum oscula Beatorum Vestrorum,—Too often am I obliged to trouble and worry Your Beatitude with accidents sent by fortune and divine interposition, which as they are not to be resisted must be borne with patience. But the death of Clarice, which has just occurred, my most dear and beloved wife, has been and is so prejudicial, so great a loss, and such a grief to me for many reasons, that it has exhausted my patience and my power of enduring anguish, and the persecution of fortune, which I did not think would have made me suffer thus. The deprivation of such habitual and such sweet company has filled my cup and has made me so miserable that I can find no peace. Nought is left but to pray God that He may give me peace, and I have faith that in His infinite love He will alleviate my sorrow and not overwhelm me with so many disasters as I have endured during these last years. I humbly beg Your Beatitude with all my heart to pray for me as I know how efficacious are such prayers. I commend myself and place myself at Your Holy Feet.—Filetta, July 31, 1488. Your devoted servant,
Laurentius de Medicis.[360]
Messer Aldrovandini, Ambassador to the Republic of Florence, to the Duke Ercole d’Este
... I wrote that Madonna Clarice was ill, she died three days ago, but I did not send the news at once as it did not seem to me of much importance. Now that I am despatching the courier with letters from Naples I inform Your Excellency. She died last Wednesday at 24 of the clock and was buried without pomp that evening. The Magnificent Lorenzo is at Filetta taking the waters and the baths and the doctors advise him strongly not to come to Florence, also his friends have written to persuade him to remain and finish his cure, and this he will do. To-day, according to the custom here, the funeral service will take place at 21 of the clock. The whole city and the ambassadors of H.M., of Milan, and myself, have been invited. But before I received the invitation I went with the Milanese ambassador to the house of the Magnificent Lorenzo, and we condoled with Piero, the Magnificent’s eldest son, in the names of our Lords in such words as seemed fitted to the occasion.—Florence, August 1, 1488.[361]
Lorenzo’s grief for the loss of Clarice, to whom he was sincerely but not passionately attached, was mitigated by the information that his heart’s desire—the nomination of his second son Giovanni, a boy of fourteen, to the cardinalate—would not be long delayed. The lad was already abbot of Font Doulce, in the gift of the King of France, of Passignano in Tuscany bestowed on him by the Pope, of Miramondo given by Lodovico il Moro, and of the great abbey of Monte Cassino in commendam given to him by Ferrante, King of Naples. Innocent VIII. had declared he would make no cardinals under the age of thirty, but in March 1489 he yielded to Lorenzo’s entreaties, on the understanding that the nomination was to be kept secret for three years, and was exceedingly irate when it was divulged.
Messer Aldrovandini, Ambassador of Ferrara to the Republic of Florence, to Duke Ercole d’Este
... Some Corsicans on the pretence of buying wheat from the Castellan of Monte-acute, a castle in the Maremma belonging to Siena, entered in, slew the Castellan and seized the castle. The Sienese have sent a Commissary with troops, and have applied for help to the Signoria of Florence, who have ordered the Count of Pitigliano, their captain, to send his men to the aid of the Sienese—January 10, 1489.[362]