The more important reason was furnished by the war, of which this was the origin. The city of Aquila, though subject to the kingdom of Naples, was in a manner free; and the count di Montorio possessed great influence over it. The duke of Calabria was upon the banks of the Tronto with his men-at-arms, under pretence of appeasing some disturbances amongst the peasantry, but really with a design of reducing Aquila entirely under the king’s authority, and sent for the count di Montorio, as if to consult him upon the business he pretended then to have in hand. The count obeyed without the least suspicion, and on his arrival was made prisoner by the duke and sent to Naples. When this circumstance became known at Aquila, the anger of the inhabitants arose to the highest pitch; taking arms they killed Antonio Cencinello, commissary for the king, and with him some inhabitants known partisans of his majesty. The Aquilani, in order to have a defender in their rebellion, raised the banner of the church, and sent envoys to the pope, to submit their city and themselves to him, beseeching that he would defend them as his own subjects against the tyranny of the king. The pontiff gladly undertook their defence, for he had both public and private reasons for hating that monarch; and Signor Roberto da San Severino, an enemy of the duke of Milan, being disengaged, was appointed to take the command of his forces, and sent for with all speed to Rome. He entreated the friends and relatives of the count di Montorio to withdraw their allegiance from the king, and induced the princes of Altimura, Salerno, and Bisignano to take arms against him. The king, finding himself so suddenly involved in war had recourse to the Florentines and the duke of Milan for assistance. The Florentines hesitated with regard to their own conduct, for they felt all the inconvenience of neglecting their own affairs to attend to those of others, and hostilities against the church seemed likely to involve much risk. However, being under the obligation of a league, they preferred their honour to convenience or security, engaged the Orsini, and sent all their own forces under the count di Pitigliano towards Rome, to the assistance of the king. The latter divided his forces into two parts; one, under the duke of Calabria, he sent towards Rome, which, being joined by the Florentines, opposed the army of the church; with the other, under his own command, he attacked the barons, and the war was prosecuted with various success on both sides. At length, the king, being universally victorious, peace was concluded by the intervention of the ambassadors of the king of Spain, in August, 1486, to which the pope consented; for having found fortune opposed to him he was not disposed to tempt it further. In this treaty all the powers of Italy were united, except the Genoese, who were omitted as rebels against the republic of Milan, and unjust occupiers of territories belonging to the Florentines. Upon the peace being ratified, Roberto da San Severino, having been during the war a treacherous ally of the church, and by no means formidable to her enemies, left Rome; being followed by the forces of the duke and the Florentines, after passing Cesena, he found them near him, and urging his flight reached Ravenna with less than a hundred horse. Of his forces, part were received into the duke’s service, and part were plundered by the peasantry. The king, being reconciled with his barons, put to death Jacopo Coppola and Antonello d’Aversa and their sons, for having, during the war, betrayed his secrets to the pope.
The pope having observed, in the course of the war, how promptly and earnestly the Florentines adhered to their alliances, although he had previously been opposed to them from his attachment to the Genoese, and the assistance they had rendered to the king, now evinced a more amicable disposition, and received their ambassadors with greater favour than previously. Lorenzo de’ Medici, being made acquainted with this change of feeling, encouraged it with the utmost solicitude; for he thought it would be of great advantage, if to the friendship of the king he could add that of the pontiff.
The pope had a son named Francesco, upon whom designing to bestow states and attach friends who might be useful to him after his own death, he saw no safer connection in Italy than Lorenzo’s, and therefore induced the latter to give him one of his daughters in marriage. Having formed this alliance, the pope desired the Genoese to concede Sarzana to the Florentines, insisting that they had no right to detain what Agostino had sold, nor was Agostino justified in making over to the bank of St. George what was not his own. However, his holiness did not succeed with them; for the Genoese, during these transactions at Rome, armed several vessels, and, unknown to the Florentines, landed three thousand foot, attacked Sarzanello, situated above Sarzana, plundered and burned the town near it, and then, directing their artillery against the fortress, fired upon it with their utmost energy. This assault was new and unexpected by the Florentines, who immediately assembled their forces under Virginio Orsini, at Pisa, and complained to the pope that, whilst he was endeavouring to establish peace, the Genoese had renewed their attack upon them. They then sent Piero Corsini to Lucca, that by his presence he might keep the city faithful; and Pagolantonio Soderini to Venice, to learn how that republic was disposed. They demanded assistance of the king and of Signor Lodovico, but obtained it from neither; for the king expressed apprehensions of the Turkish fleet, and Lodovico made excuses, but sent no aid. Thus the Florentines in their own wars were almost always obliged to stand alone, and found no friends to assist them with the same readiness they practised towards others. Nor did they, on this desertion of their allies (it being nothing new to them), give way to despondency; for having assembled a large army under Jacopo Guicciardini and Piero Vettori, they sent it against the enemy, who had encamped on the river Magra, at the same time pressing Sarzanello with mines and every species of attack. The commissaries being resolved to relieve the place, an engagement ensued, when the Genoese were routed, and Lodovico de’ Fieschi, with several other principal men, made prisoners. The Sarzanesi were not so depressed at their defeat as to be willing to surrender, but obstinately prepared for their defence, whilst the Florentine commissaries proceeded with their operations, and instances of valour occurred on both sides.
The siege being protracted by a variety of fortune, Lorenzo de’ Medici resolved to go to the camp, and on his arrival the troops acquired fresh courage, whilst that of the enemy seemed to fail; for perceiving the obstinacy of the Florentines’ attack, and the delay of the Genoese in coming to their relief, they surrendered to Lorenzo, without asking conditions, and none were treated with severity except two or three who were leaders of the rebellion. During the siege, Lodovico had sent troops to Pontremoli, as if with an intention of assisting the Florentines; but having secret correspondence in Genoa, a party was raised there who gave the city to Milan.[r]
LAST YEARS OF LORENZO
[1486-1491 A.D.]
From this period until the death of Lorenzo Italy remained at peace and little of any moment occurred at Florence. Lorenzo’s power augmented daily, and like a deep and rapid stream looked clear and smooth and beautiful until crossed by some obstacle; then its force mounted up and swept everything violently away. Nor was it alone in Florence that its strength and volume were felt; Lorenzo’s true object and interest, like Ferdinand’s, was peace, and they held the balance in their hand; the unquiet nature of Alfonso was doubtful and dangerous, but Lorenzo ruled the unextinct energies of a powerful republic with the decision and unity of an absolute monarch and would allow no seeds of discord to be sown without an instantaneous effort to destroy; he influenced all the smaller states, and the vast weight of Florence cast on the side of one or other of the greater was never without its consequences. Disputes for instance occurred this year between Lodovico Sforza and Alfonso of Calabria about the former’s virtually usurping the whole sovereign authority of Milan from his nephew; and these, partly by persuasion, and partly by threats of placing himself on the side of the injured party, Lorenzo settled as he did most others; for he was well convinced that nothing would prove more dangerous to his own authority than any increase of power in either of these potentates. By such judicious management he maintained the peace of Italy, well knowing that no ties, whether of relationship, or obligation, or personal attachment, would ever have the beneficial effects that are produced by fear on sovereign princes.
If Cosmo purchased the liberties of Florence, Lorenzo received back the money with interest, not in power alone, but in gold and silver: under the gonfaloniership of Piero Alamanni in July and August, 1490, the disorder of his finances had become so great as to make a fresh grant of public money absolutely necessary to restore them, and in the year 1491, other fraudulent means were adopted to make up the deficiency. His extensive commercial establishments were necessarily left in the hands of agents who, puffed up with the importance of their master’s name, squandered his substance while they neglected his affairs; from the beginning his credit had been sustained by occasional grants of public money to a large amount; but now the evil was so alarmingly increased that a violent effort of the commonwealth became necessary to remove it, and that effort no less than public bankruptcy! On the 13th of August, 1490, a balia of seventeen members with the full powers of the whole Florentine nation was created to examine the condition of the coinage, the state of the various gabelle, and the public finances as connected with the private necessities of Lorenzo; to ascertain also what was spent on the occasion of making his son a cardinal, which with subsequent donations amounted to 50,000 florins. The disorder both of the public revenues and the private resources of the Medici was extreme, the former having even been anticipated and spent by his own and his agents’ extravagance: the portions of young women, already mentioned as forming a public stock based on national faith and moral integrity, were the first and greatest sufferers; this branch of the public debt which previously paid three per cent. per annum was at once reduced by the authority of the commission to half that interest; and the instantaneous fall of public credit reduced the luoghi di monte, or shares of 100 florins of public stock, from twenty-seven to eleven and a half! The young women who married were allowed a sufficient sum from their portions to pay the contract duty, which of course immediately returned to the treasury; the remainder was reserved, and a payment of seven per cent. promised at the end of twenty years!
One consequence of this was a sudden check to marriage; and when the portions were invested in public securities, dowers of 1500, 1800, and even 2000 florins were given by parties of equal rank to make up the deficiency between real and nominal portions, where 1100 had previously served. There were consequently few marriages except those accomplished by force of ready money, and even for these Lorenzo’s permission became necessary!