A philosopher, a diplomatist, a “Pagan much inclined to the worship of Venus,” as Machiavelli tells us, a Christian as shown in his Laudi and his Capitoli, evidently written con amore, a staunch friend, generous and kind, yet he is generally accused of having ordered the sack of Volterra—now, however, proved to have been instigated by the mercenaries engaged to defend the town—and of causing his opponents to be tortured and executed. The indelible stain on Lorenzo’s fair name is his interference with the deposits in the Monte.[151] Cambi, who it must be remembered was no friend of the Medici, writes: “On the 13th August 1490 seventeen so-called Reformers were created by the authority of the Signory, the Colleges of the Council, of the People, and of the Commune, the Council of the One Hundred, the officers of the Monte, and the whole Popolo of Florence. Under pretext of revising the coinage and the duties they altered the entries of all monies received for the use of the State for the benefit of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who needed money in order to make his son Messer Giovanni a cardinal, which he did. And it was done with the money of the Commune. Counting what they gave him after he became a cardinal, it cost the Commune 10,000 scudi in gold. From the poor dowers of the married maidens and of those about to be married they deducted by means of taxes and the reduction of all future interest 3/4 per cent. of the interest, so that what should have given 3 per cent. they lowered to 1-1/2 per cent., and even that was not paid.... Thus few maidens married, and those few only by dint of money. Even then the permission of Lorenzo de’ Medici was necessary. Let every one therefore consider what it means to create tyrants in the city, to make a Balia and to call a parliament.”[152]
It was fortunate for the Italian language that the young Lorenzo fell under the influence of Leon Battista Alberti, who asserted that “though the ancient tongue has undisputed authority because so many learned men have employed it, the like honour will certainly be paid to our language to-day if men of culture take the pains to purify and polish it.” The revival of classical learning had almost arrested the study of Italian. In spite of the example of Dante and Boccaccio, Latin was the patrician and literary language, and even when men of letters used the vulgar tongue they interlarded it with Latin. Poliziano’s letters are a case in point. The example of Lorenzo altered all this. In his letter to Federigo of Naples (p. [88]) he passes extraordinarily acute criticism on the old Italian poets, and in his Commentary, which takes up ninety-three double pages in the Aldine edition of his poems, he predicts a glorious future to the language used by Dante, Cavalcanti, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. “Men and practice,” he says, “have rather been wanting to the language than the language to the men.” Muratori, treating of the poetry of the fifteenth century, gives the palm to Lorenzo, and Carducci declares him to be little if at all inferior to Poliziano and Pulci.
Incessantly occupied in preserving the balance of power in Italy, yet in his short life of forty-two years he wrote an amount of poetry, and good poetry, which would do credit to a man whose whole life is dedicated to literature. Treated as an equal by popes and princes—the King of France doffed his cap to his ambassadors and called him “my beloved cousin”—he was at home with the artisan and the peasant, whose tastes he to a certain degree shared, and whose characters he so perfectly understood and describes. In La Nencia da Barberino, that gayest of gay poems overflowing with la joie de vivre, often imitated but never surpassed, Vallera, the shy love-sick peasant, sings the praises of his Nencia, who, with her pretty ways and soft words, her eyes as black as coal, and her fair curly hair, would bear away the palm among a thousand city maidens. Such a dancer too. She bounds like a young goat, whirls like the wheel of a mill and then curtsies, no Florentine lady can do it better. He offers to buy her a paper cornet full of rouge or powder, or pins, or a necklace of those little red buttons [coral] when he goes to Florence, for he would draw the marrow from his bones to give her pleasure. Could he put his heart into her hands it would cry “Nencia, Nencia bella,” if she cut it with a knife. But Nencia flirts with other swains, his sighs are full of tears, he waits for her to come with her sheep when he drives his heifers to pasture, and the cruel girl turns back.[153]
Lorenzo’s love of the country, of country life, and of animals, is shown in Ambra and La Caccia col Falcone. The former is an allegorical description of a flood which swept away an island at Lorenzo’s favourite villa, Poggio a Caiano. Winter is approaching. Only the bay, the myrtle, and the prickly juniper, shine among the bare trees, while the few birds take refuge in the cypresses. The olives on a southern slope sway, now green now silver white, to the breeze. The cranes print varied and beautiful lines on the sky, and Lorenzo notes how the leader cedes his place, when tired, to one of those in the rear. The eagle slowly circles in the air, a menace to all smaller fowl. Zephyr has fled to Cyprus, where he dances with the lazy flowers among the green grass. Boreas drives the mists down from the Alps, and the river, writhing like a serpent in the valley, gathers his tributaries. With strange sounds he rises. The yellow foam is tossed into the air as the wicked turbid stream rolls stone upon stone, and dashing against the dykes, overwhelms Ambra, “beloved of Lorenzo.” The terrified peasants take refuge on the roofs of their cottages, and watch their poor riches being swept away. Then comes the more artificial and well-worn tale of the lovely nymph Ambra pursued by the river god Ombrone, her prayer to the chaste goddess, and her farewell to Lorenzo as she is turned to stone.
La Caccia col Falcone is a graphic account of the sport Lorenzo loved. Falcons, dogs, and men are drawn with facile pen by a man who delighted in country life and open air.
Selve d’Amore is a lover’s complaint on the absence of his lady. Jealousy, Hope, and the Age of Gold, which existed before the opening of Pandora’s box, are described. He invokes his mistress in these beautiful lines beginning:
“O vaghi occhi amorosi,”
and at last she appears, Beauty on her right hand, Love on her left.
This is, however, not the place to describe Lorenzo’s poems, the fine Altercazione, a Platonic dialogue; the Capitoli, or I Beoni. His Ballate, Canzone di Ballo, and Canzone Carnescialeschi, which represent the popular, often very licentious poetry of the streets, are known to all Italian scholars. Il Lasca (A. Grazzini), after describing the masqueraders parading the streets with Trionfi, allegorical or mythological cars, and Carri filled with men representing various trades, each one preceded and followed by its special attendants singing and dancing, and many masqued horsemen, says: “The Magnificent Lorenzo invented this manner of celebrating the festival. Formerly men dressed up as women went about the streets singing and dancing, imitating the maidens who thus greeted the month of May. The Magnificent, finding it was always the same thing, imagined to change not only the songs but the whole representation and the words, writing songs with varied metres, and causing new and different airs to be written. The first of these masquerades was performed by men who sold sugar-plums and berriquocoli (small cakes), and the music, for three voices, was written by a certain Arrigo Tedesco,[154] head of the choir of S. Giovanni, a musician of great repute in those days.”
The most beautiful of Lorenzo’s carnival songs is Il Trionfo di Bacco e Arianne, beginning: