Cosmo now approached the period of his mortal existence, but the faculties of his mind yet remained unimpaired. About twenty days before his death, when his strength was visibly on the decline, he entered into conversation with Ficino, and whilst the faint beams of a setting sun seemed to accord with his situation and his feelings, began to lament the miseries of life and the imperfections inseparable from human nature. As he continued his discourse, his sentiments and his views became more elevated, and from bewailing the lot of humanity, he began to exult in the prospect of that happier state towards which he felt himself approaching. Ficino replied by citing corresponding sentiments from the Athenian sages, and particularly from Xenocrates; and the last task imposed by Cosmo on his philosophic attendant was to translate from the Greek the treatise of that author on death. Having prepared his mind to wait with composure the awful event, his next concern was the welfare of his surviving family, to whom he was desirous of imparting, in a solemn manner, the result of the experience of a long and active life. Calling into his chamber his wife Contessina, and his son Piero, he entered into a narrative of all his public transactions; he gave a full account of his extensive mercantile connections, and adverted to the state of his domestic concerns. To Piero he recommended a strict attention to the education of his sons. He requested that his funeral might be conducted with as much privacy as possible, and concluded his paternal exhortations by declaring his willingness to submit to the disposal of providence whenever he should be called upon. These admonitions were not lost on Piero, who communicated by letter to Lorenzo and Giuliano the impression which they had made upon his own mind. At the same time, sensible of his own infirmities, he exhorted them to consider themselves not as children but as men, seeing that circumstances rendered it necessary to put their abilities to an early proof. “A physician,” says Piero, “is hourly expected to arrive from Milan, but, for my own part, I place my confidence in God.” Either the physician did not arrive, or Piero’s distrust of him was well founded, for, about six days afterwards, being the first day of August, 1464, Cosmo died, at the age of seventy-five years, deeply lamented by a great majority of the citizens of Florence, whom he had firmly attached to his interest, and who feared for the safety of the city from the dissensions that were likely to ensue.
Roscoe’s Estimate of Cosmo
The character of Cosmo de’ Medici exhibits a combination of virtues and endowments rarely to be found united in the same person. If in his public works he was remarkable for his magnificence, he was no less conspicuous for his prudence in private life. Whilst in the character of chief of the Florentine Republic he supported a constant intercourse with the sovereigns of Europe, his conduct in Florence was divested of all ostentation, and neither in his retinue, his friendships, nor his conversation, could he be distinguished from any other respectable citizen. He well knew the jealous temper of the Florentines, and preferred the real enjoyment of authority to that open assumption of it which could only have been regarded as a perpetual insult by those whom he permitted to gratify their own pride in the reflection that they were the equals of Cosmo de’ Medici.
In affording protection to the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture, Cosmo set the great example to those who by their rank and their riches could alone afford them effectual aid. The countenance shown by him to those arts was not of that kind which their professors generally experience from the great; it was not conceded as a bounty, nor received as a favour, but appeared in the friendship and equality that subsisted between the artist and his patron. In the erection of the numerous public buildings in which Cosmo expended incredible sums of money, he principally availed himself of the assistance of Michellozzo Michellozzi and Filippo Brunelleschi—the first of whom was a man of talents, the latter of genius. Soon after his return from banishment, Cosmo engaged these two artists to form the plan of a mansion for his own residence. Brunelleschi gave scope to his invention, and produced the design of a palace which might have suited the proudest sovereign in Europe; but Cosmo was led by that prudence which, in his personal accommodation, regulated all his conduct, to prefer the plan of Michellozzi, which united extent with simplicity, and elegance with convenience. With the consciousness, Brunelleschi possessed also the irritability of genius, and in a fit of vexation he destroyed a design which he unjustly considered as disgraced by its not being carried into execution. Having completed his dwelling, Cosmo indulged his taste in ornamenting it with the most precious remains of ancient art, and in the purchase of vases, statues, busts, gems, and medals, expended no inconsiderable sum.
Nor was he less attentive to the merits of those artists whom his native place had recently produced. With Masaccio, a better style of painting had arisen; and the cold and formal manner of Giotto and his disciples had given way to a more natural and expressive composition. In Cosmo de’ Medici this rising artist found his most liberal patron and protector. Some of the works of Masaccio were executed in the chapel of the Brancacci, where they were held in such estimation that the place was regarded as a school of study by the most eminent artists who immediately succeeded him. Even the celebrated Michelangelo, when observing these paintings many years afterwards, in company with his honest and loquacious friend Vasari, did not hesitate to express his decided approbation of their merits. The reputation of Masaccio was emulated by his disciple, Filippo Lippi, who executed for Cosmo and his friends many celebrated pictures, of which Vasari[g] has given a minute account. Cosmo, however, found no small difficulty in controlling the temper and regulating the eccentricities of this extraordinary character. If the efforts of these early masters did not reach the true end of the art, they afforded considerable assistance towards it; and whilst Masaccio and Filippo decorated with their admired productions the altars of churches and the apartments of princes, Donatello gave to marble a proportion of form, a vivacity of expression, to which his contemporaries imagined that nothing more was wanting; Brunelleschi raised the great dome of the cathedral of Florence; and Ghiberti cast in bronze the stupendous doors of the church of St. John, which Michelangelo deemed worthy to be the gates of paradise.
A Florentine of the Fifteenth Century
In his person, Cosmo was tall; in his youth, he possessed the advantage of a prepossessing countenance; what age had taken from his comeliness it had added to his dignity; and in his latter years, his appearance was so truly venerable as to have been the frequent subject of panegyric. His manner was grave and complacent, but upon many occasions he gave sufficient proofs that this did not arise from a want of talents for sarcasm; and the fidelity of the Florentine historians has preserved many of his shrewd observations and remarks. When Rinaldo de’ Albizzi, who was then in exile, and meditated an attack upon his native place, sent a message to Cosmo, importing that the hen would shortly hatch, he replied, “She will hatch with an ill grace out of her own nest.” On another occasion, when his adversaries gave him to understand that they were not sleeping, “I believe it,” said Cosmo, “I have spoiled their sleep.” “Of what colour is my hair?” said Cosmo, uncovering his head to the ambassadors of Venice, who came with a complaint against the Florentines. “White,” they replied. “It will not be long,” said Cosmo, “before that of your senators will be so, too.” Shortly before his death, his wife inquiring why he closed his eyes, “That I may accustom them to it,” was his reply.
If, from considering the private character of Cosmo, we attend to his conduct as the moderator and director of the Florentine Republic, our admiration of his abilities will increase with the extent of the theatre upon which he had to act. So important were his mercantile concerns, that they often influenced in a very remarkable degree the politics of Italy. When Alfonso, king of Naples, leagued with the Venetians against Florence, Cosmo called in such immense debts from those places as deprived them of resources for carrying on the war. During the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, one of his agents in England was resorted to by Edward IV for a sum of money, which was furnished to such an extraordinary amount, that it might almost be considered as the means of supporting that monarch on the throne, and was repaid when his successes enabled him to fulfil his engagement. The alliance of Cosmo was sedulously courted by the princes of Italy; and it was remarked that by a happy kind of fatality, whoever united their interests with his, was always enabled either to repress or to overcome their adversaries. By his assistance the republic of Venice resisted the united attacks of Filippo, duke of Milan, and of the French nation; but when deprived of his support, the Venetians were no longer able to withstand their enemies. Whatever difficulties Cosmo had to encounter, at home or abroad, they generally terminated in the acquisition of additional honour to his country and to himself. The esteem and gratitude of his fellow-citizens were fully shown a short time before his death, when by a public decree he was honoured with the title of Pater Patriæ, Father of his Country, an appellation which was inscribed on his tomb, and which, as it was founded on real merit, has ever since been attached to the name of Cosmo de’ Medici.[d]