“Now,” says Giovanni Cambi,[n] with all the indignation that might be expected from the son of the persecuted Neri, “now let all reflect on what it is to set up tyrants in the city and create balias, and assemble parliaments.” The depreciated currencies of Siena, Lucca, and Bologna affected that of Florence, so that to keep the silver coin in the country it was in like manner depreciated; this measure was considered fair and necessary at the moment by many; but for the people’s quiet, who first and most sensibly feel such evils and who now justly began to murmur, it was announced as a measure for enabling government to pay those marriage portions which had been stopped the previous year. The public for a season appear to have acquiesced in this, not immediately perceiving that they were paying Lorenzo de’ Medici’s debts; but when this new money, called the quattrino bianco was issued at one-fifth more than its real value and not taken by the treasury for more than its actual worth, the citizens saw plainly that they were defrauded and that every species of taxation was virtually augmented by it to that amount, whereupon a deep murmur of indignation pervaded the community. Their anger was vain; Lorenzo’s private necessities required the sacrifice, and his power enforced it!
[1491-1492 A.D.]
When Innocent VIII made Lorenzo’s son, Giovanni de’ Medici, a cardinal ere the boy had completed the age of fourteen, being rather ashamed of his work he accompanied this honour by a stipulation that the hat was not to be worn for three years. That time had now elapsed; Innocent sent the long-desired insignia, and thus prepared the way for a pontificate which encouraged Italian genius and established Medicean grandeur. The ceremony of assuming this hat was performed with great pomp on the 10th of March, 1492, and on the 9th of the following April Lorenzo breathed his last at Careggi in the forty-fourth year of his age.
On his death-bed Lorenzo is said to have sent for Girolamo Savonarola (whom he had always unsuccessfully courted), to confess and grant him absolution. The monk first demanded whether he placed entire faith in the mercy of God, and was answered in the affirmative. He next asked if Lorenzo were ready to surrender all the wealth which he had wrongfully acquired. And this, after some hesitation, was also answered in the affirmative. The third question was if he would re-establish popular government and restore public liberty; but to this he would give no answer, or according to others gave a decided negative; upon which the uncompromising churchman quitted him without bestowing absolution. The authenticity of this anecdote has been questioned, but it is in keeping with the character of both men.[p]
VON REUMONT’S ESTIMATE OF LORENZO
Lorenzo de’ Medici was called from this world at the age of forty-three years—a short life in which to have accomplished so much, to have achieved fame so widespread and enduring. In the character of this remarkable man, the foremost representative of a remarkable period, we find the irresistible onward impulse of creative power united to a deep knowledge of the stages that succeed each other in the development of the new; we find the highest degree of receptivity combined with a student’s seriousness and capacity for taking pains; we see a keen and joyous appreciation of art go hand in hand with the practical sense necessary to the proper conduct of life; we find him to possess, in a word, all the qualities that go to make the statesman, the poet, the citizen, and the prince.
He knew no fatigue under the multiplicity of public affairs that fell to him as head of a peculiarly constituted state; with sure and rapid view he could take cognisance of the whole mass of business while giving his attention to the smallest details. In his later years he became wary and discreet, never acting save as the result of deep reflection, holding steadfastly to the goal he had set himself, conscious, but not unduly, of the dignity of his position and that of the state he represented. In his home and family life he was gay and companionable. As a husband he was not above reproach, it is true; but he was tenderly attached to the wife he had not chosen, devoted to the excellent mother with whom he had many qualities in common, and to his children he was always a generous provider, a wise counsellor and guide. He had the faculty of attracting to himself people of the widest diversity of character, and was capable of forming warm and lasting friendships; amid all the cares of state he was never too busy to render assistance to a friend, and was as ready to exert himself in behalf of the low as of the high.
It is not to be denied, however, that he possessed a share of the weaknesses and failings of his times, which were chiefly apparent in his political life, superior as it was in consistency and honesty of purpose to that of most foreign or Italian statesmen of his day. His interior policy, in particular, has received sharp blame, as much for its refashioning of the constitution to permit an increase in personal power as for the corrupt methods employed to gain undisputed control over the state funds. As regards the latter charge it is difficult to see how in later years—had longer life been granted to Lorenzo—a catastrophe could have been avoided, unless a protracted peace had allowed the maintenance of a perfect balance in the state expenditures. In respect to the first shortcoming many contemporaries expressed the opinion that Lorenzo’s fixed and secret aim was to create for himself a principality, to attain which end he was merely awaiting a favourable opportunity—the appointment to the office of gonfalonier, for example, when he should have reached the proper age.
When all has been weighed and judged, undoubtedly the worst evil in the rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent is just this lack of agreement between form and fact, this diversion of the highest authority from its proper centre. Personality had become the most powerful factor in all departments of the administration—the political, the financial, the judicial. Nevertheless if Florence was free from the excesses that disgraced every other Italian state, if Lorenzo’s rule was mild and blameless compared to that of Cosmo, not only the continuance of peace, the assured position of the country, and the habit on the part of the people of submitting to such a rule were to be thanked for it, but the views and ability of the man who stood at the head. Lorenzo de’ Medici was determined to be obeyed, but he was no tyrant: on the one hand too keen-sighted a reader of men, and too well-versed in the traditions of his people; on the other he was of a nature too magnanimous and richly endowed, too open, too necessitous of friendship to fall into an extreme of despotism. Above all he was a citizen of Florence, and if left to himself, would have allowed nothing in his outer circumstances to distinguish him from the rest of his fellow-citizens; but after the Pazzi conspiracy it was deemed necessary that he should be accompanied everywhere by a guard, formed at first of four trusted friends, later of twelve paid members of the nobility.