As regards his arbitrary administration of the state finances opinions varied even in his own time. Had he not diverted to his own purposes a portion of the public funds, argued some, he would have been ruined, and his ruin would have entailed that of countless others. All that he took from first to last, as well to preserve his credit as to carry on an extravagant mode of life, was as nothing compared to the losses an incompetent ruler would have brought upon the state; one ill-considered or untimely public regulation alone would have cost the treasury dearer than Lorenzo’s entire rule. The final aim of all the Medici, so ran the general opinion, was their own profit or advancement, but they remained Florentine citizens to the end, and in most cases their interests and those of their city were identical. To the kindly disposed who rendered this judgment after Lorenzo’s death, the answer was indeed given that the aim of the Medici had been none the less sole dominion, because it was given the form of democracy by the destruction of the patrician influence, and the raising to favour of members of the lower classes; that a subtle, crafty tyranny, like that of Cosmo de’ Medici, or one tempered by generosity and benevolence, like Lorenzo’s, was the more dangerous for the people inasmuch as it paved the way for a severer form.
In the ninth chapter of his History of Florence Guicciardini[q] gives a masterly summing up of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s influence over the city that gave him birth. “Florence,” he says, “did not become free under Lorenzo de’ Medici, but a better master no city could have had. Incalculable good resulted to it as the outpouring of his own benevolent nature, while the evils that are inseparable from tyranny in any form were limited in their workings—rendered almost harmless, in fact, when his will came into play. There were doubtless many who rejoiced at his death; but all who took any part in the administration regretted it deeply, even those who thought they had grounds of complaint against him, for none could tell what a change of rulers might bring about.”[c]
Pope Leo IV arresting the Conflagration
(By Raphael)
CHAPTER XIII. ASPECTS OF LATER RENAISSANCE CULTURE
What we call, for want of a better name, the Renaissance, was a period of transition from the Middle Ages to the first phase of modern life. It was a step which had to be made, at unequal distances of time and under varying influences, by all the peoples of the European community. At the commencement of this period, the modern nations acquired consistency and fixity of type. Mutually repelled by the principle of nationality, which made of each a separate organism, they were at the same time drawn and knit together by a common bond of intellectual activities and interests. The creation of this international consciousness or spirit, which, after the lapse of four centuries, justifies us in regarding the past history of Europe as the history of a single family, and encourages us to expect from the future a still closer interaction of the western nations, can be ascribed in a great measure to the Renaissance.[b]
We must now interrupt the story of political development, to make a casual survey of the culture of the time of the Medici and the succeeding generation. Scholarship had progressed pretty steadily since the days of Petrarch. “Even the early part of the fifteenth century,” says Roscoe,[j] “produced scholars as much superior to Petrarch and his coadjutors, as they were to the monkish compilers and scholastic disputants who immediately preceded them; and the labours of Leonardo Aretino, Gianozzo Manetti, Guarino Veronese, and Poggio Bracciolini, prepared the way for the still more correct and classical productions of Politiano, Sannazaro, Pontano, and Augurelli.”
Now there came a fresh impulse through the arrival of numerous Greek scholars from the East, and their example led to a more philosophical study of classical languages. The establishment of public libraries in Italy began now to be a prominent feature of the culture development. Cosmo de’ Medici was particularly active in this direction; his son Piero steadily pursued the same object; and Lorenzo brought the work to a culmination in the final development of the Laurentian library. The interest in the classics was probably influential in retarding the development of Italian literature. Nevertheless, the influence of Lorenzo de’ Medici was directed also towards the field of creative literature, and he himself was prominent in the restoration of Italian poetry.[a] He attempted to restore the poetry of his country, to the state in which Petrarch had left it; but this man, so superior by the greatness of his character, and by the universality of his genius, did not possess the talent of versification in the same degree as Petrarch. In his love verses, his sonnets, and canzoni, we find less sweetness and harmony. Their poetical colouring is less striking; and it is remarked that they display a ruder expression, more nearly allied to the infancy of the language. On the other hand, his ideas are more natural, and are often accompanied by a great charm of imagination.