“With all his faults,” says Von Reumont,[c] “Cosmo was certainly a remarkable man. More than anyone else he contributed to keep alive not only the forms but much of the spirit of civil equality and dignity, after it had become impossible to avoid a party government leading sooner or later to the preponderance of one family.”
Marsilio Ficino[l] described Cosmo as “a man intelligent above all others, pious before God, just and high-minded towards his fellow-men, modest in everything that concerned himself, active in his private affairs, but still more careful and prudent in public ones. He did not live for himself alone,” adds the eulogist, “but for the service of God and his country.”
COSMO’S SUCCESSOR
During the later years of Cosmo’s life Lucas Pitti came to regard himself as the future chief of the state. It was about this time that he undertook the building of that magnificent palace which formed the residence of the grand dukes. The republican equality was not only offended by the splendour of this regal dwelling, but the construction of it afforded Pitti an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He made of this building an asylum for all fugitives from justice, whom no public officer dared pursue when once he took part in the labour. At the same time individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in the construction of his palace.
[1464-1466 A.D.]
When Cosmo de’ Medici died, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas Pitti felt himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation of that great citizen. Cosmo’s son, Piero de’ Medici, then forty-eight years of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration of the republic, as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by hereditary right; but the state of his health did not admit of his attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his rivals with much fear. To diminish the weight of affairs which oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense fortune from commerce, recalling all his loans made in partnership with other merchants, and laying out this money in land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence, at the same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and deprived it of much of its popularity. The death of Sforza also, which took place on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest support abroad. Francesco Sforza, whether as condottiere or duke of Milan, had always been the devoted friend of Cosmo. His son, Galeazzo Sforza, who succeeded him, declared his resolution of persisting in the same alliance; but the talents, the character, and, above all, the glory of his father, were not to be found in him. Galeazzo seemed to believe that the supreme power which he inherited brought him the right of indulging every pleasure—of abandoning himself to every vice without restraint. He dissipated by his ostentation the finances of the duchy of Milan; he stained by his libertinism the honour of almost all the noble families; and he alienated the people by his cruelty.
The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and Piero de’ Medici no longer agreed together; and they recovered courage when the latter proposed to the council the calling of a parliament, in order to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465: his proposition was rejected. The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot from among the members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti and Medici were reconciled; they agreed to call a parliament, and to direct it in concert; to intimidate it, they surrounded it with foreign troops.
But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2nd of September, 1466, found means of admitting his own partisans only, and excluding all those of Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were all exiled; several were subjected to enormous fines. Five commissioners, called accoppiatori, were charged to open, every two months, the purse from which the signoria were to be drawn, and choose from thence the names of the gonfalonier and eight priori, who were to enter office. These magistrates were so dependent on Piero de’ Medici, that the gonfalonier went frequently to his palace to take his orders, and afterwards published them as the result of his deliberations with his colleagues, whom he had not even consulted. Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to his ambition; the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally detested him, and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave.
Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants; every revolution, even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens. The party of the Albizzi had been exiled in 1434; but the Alberti, who had vanquished it, were, in turn, banished in 1466; and among the members of both parties were to be found almost all the historical names of Florence—those names which Europe had learned to respect, either for immense credit in commerce, or for the lustre which literature and the arts shed on them.