Lorenzo de’ Medici to Girolamo Morelli, Florentine Ambassador at Milan
I hear from Naples that the King continues to molest me and my affairs as much as he can by not allowing me to encash and desiring me to pay. I fear that as soon as the Pope hears of these attempts to provoke disobedience he will make some move against my affairs at Rome. Although I think the imminent peril has passed over as I have very considerable credit there, yet I wish that with the utmost caution and care, and so secretly that none but Messer Ceccho should know, you would find out whether I can count upon 30,000 or 40,000 ducats for six or seven months in case of need. I do not expect they will be wanted because, as I said, I think all the ill that could be done to me there has been done, and till now I have been able to provide for everything. Yet, for my own tranquillity I should like to know this, and I have not the least fear that it will be refused. See that you find out at once and let me know, acting with all the caution and secrecy necessary in such business. I have in Rome Antonio and the Portinari, nevertheless I confide this to you alone, and have written with my own hand in order that none should know. I wish, as I said, that you should arrange this with Messer Ceccho without either he or you conferring with others. I shall be able to face the many troubles I have with much more courage if I know that I can count on this help. If I do need it I will give every obligation and bond.—In Florence on the 25th July 1478.
Your Lorenzo de’ Medici.[231]
In 1478, after the Pazzi conspiracy, when the Pope was stirring up war against the Medici he hated, Lorenzo sent his wife and children to Pistoja, where they were the guests of the Panciaticchi, for safety. With them went Angelo Poliziano as tutor to Piero the eldest boy, then about six years of age. The stiff, proud Roman, Madonna Clarice, had never known how to gain her husband’s love, and did not get on well with his brilliant, sarcastic, rather Bohemian friends. She particularly disliked Poliziano’s growing influence over Piero, and at the end of the year there was an open rupture, when she dismissed him with scant courtesy. One pities them both. Clarice, already far gone in consumption, was irritable and anxious about her husband, whose attitude towards the Holy See she, with her education, could not approve; while Poliziano, used to the brilliant talk in the Medici palace, where he measured his wit with Luigi Pulci, Matteo Franco, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, &c., and Lorenzo himself, was bored to death and always longing to be back in Florence. The letters from the little boy to his father show how simple was the family life of the Magnificent Lorenzo, indeed he is blamed by Machiavelli for joining in childish games with his children and for being seen playing with them.
Agnolo Poliziano at Pistoja to Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence
Magnifice mi patrone,—I hope and trust Your Magnificence has not been disturbed by my letter written this morning under the influence of anger; the want of patience is my great fault. I hope in bonam partem acceperis rebusque nostris prospectum curabis.
Madonna Clarice sends you three pheasants and a partridge. She says you are to beware as though they came from an enemy because she does not know the man who brought them; he is the father of your Pisan courier who broke his leg.
By the bearer I send you the opinion of Messer Bartolommeo Sozzino. Every hour I have been entreating him to finish it and found a copyist who made all the haste he could, but it was impossible to get it done quicker.[232]
Piero is well and I take every care of him, all the others are also in good health; but I get all the kicks; yet te propter Libyeæ.[233] I am longing for news that the plague has ceased on account of my anxiety for you and in order to return and serve you; for I hoped and I thought to be with you; but as you have, or rather my evil fortune has assigned to me this post in the service of Your Magnificence, I endure it, quamvis durum, nec levius fit patientia. I commend myself to Your Magnificence.—Pistoja, August 24, 1478.[234]