DEATH IN FLORENCE: THE MEDICI, SAVONAROLA AND THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE RENAISSANCE CITY (I)

BY

PAUL STRATHERN

 

 

LEADING DRAMATIS PERSONAE AND MAIN FACTIONS

 

Alexander VI – notoriously corrupt Borgia Pope who became Savonarola’s sworn enemy

Alfonso, Duke of Calabria – son and heir of King Ferrante I of Naples. Would later become Alfonso II of Naples

Anne of France – acted as Regent during the youth of Charles VIII

Arrabbiati – the most powerful anti-Savonarola faction

Bigi – faction supporting return of Piero de’ Medici

Sandro Botticelli – renowned painter and friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Fra Pacifico Burlamacchi – wrote early biography of Savonarola, much of it heard from Savonarola himself

Piero di Gino Capponi – leading Florentine citizen who famously defied Charles VIII

Cardinal Caraffi of Naples – friend of Alexander VI who nonetheless supported Savonarola

‘Ser Ceccone’ (real name Francesco de Ser Barone) – Savonarola’s chief civil interrogator

Charles VIII – the young King of France who invaded Italy

Compagnacci – fanatically anti-Savonarola group led by Doffo Spini

Commines (Commynes) – leading adviser of Charles VIII who kept a diary

Cardinal della Rovere – sworn enemy of Alexander VI, who encouraged Charles VIII to set up a council to depose him

Bartolomeo Cerretani – contemporary Florentine chronicler

Domenico da Pescia – the Dominican monk who was Savonarola’s closest and most loyal supporter, who followed his master to the end

Lucrezia Donati – ‘the most beautiful woman in Florence’, to whom the young Lorenzo the Magnificent addressed love poems

Ferrante I – King of Naples who received Lorenzo the Magnificent

Marsilio Ficino – celebrated Platonist and close friend of Medici family

Francesco da Puglia – a Franciscan monk from Santa Croce and a bitter enemy of Savonarola who issued the challenge for the ordeal by fire

Battista Guarino – the celebrated humanist scholar whose lectures Savonarola attended at the University of Ferrara

Francesco Guicciardini – contemporary historian of Florence and Italy

Fra Leonardo da Fivizzano – Augustinian monk at Santo Spirito who preached in Florence against Savonarola when he was at the height of his power

Giovanni della Vecchia – ‘the Captain of the Square,’ responsible for keeping the peace in the Piazza della Signoria, and later at San Marco

Giovanni Manetti – the Arrabbiati responsible for stirring up the crowd at the ordeal by fire, who later demanded permission to inspect Savonarola

Niccolò Machiavelli – contemporary historian of Florence and Italy

Fra Malatesta (Sacramoro) – the Arrabbiati spy in San Marco

Domenico Mazzinghi – pro-Savonarolan gonfaloniere who later argued in favour of the ordeal by fire

Fra Mariano da Genazzano – the Augustinian who was Florence’s favourite preacher before his ‘contest’ with Savonarola

Cosimo de’ Medici – the man who built up the Medici bank, grandfather of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Giovanni de’ Medici – second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who became a young cardinal

Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – taken into the Palazzo Medici by his uncle Lorenzo the Magnificent as a youth when his father Pierfrancesco died.

Giuliano de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s younger brother, who was murdered

Lorenzo de’ Medici (‘Lorenzo the Magnificent’) – effective ruler of Florence until 1492

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – son of Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. Taken into the Palazzo Medici as a youth when his father died

Lucrezia (neé Tornabuoni) de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s influential mother

Fra Ludovico da Ferrara – despatched to Florence by Alexander VI to investigate Savonarola

Fra Silvestro Maruffi – monk at San Marco prone to visions who would follow Savonarola to the end

Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – cousin of Piero de’ Medici and grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, the founder of the Medici bank

Piero de’ Medici – first son of Lorenzo the Magnificent who took over his rule of Florence in 1492

Dietisalvi Neroni – long-term business associate of Cosimo de’ Medici, who grew jealous of Piero de’ Medici

Clarice (neé Orsini) de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s Roman bride

Pico della Mirandola – charismatic Renaissance philosopher, befriended by Lorenzo the Magnificent, his biography was written by his nephew, Francesco Pico della Mirandola

Piero Parenti – Florentine diarist during this period

Piagnoni – Savonarola’s supporters, mainly drawn from amongst the poor, but extending into all sections of Florentine society

Angelo Poliziano – renowned poet and member of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s circle

Bishop Remolino – finally despatched by Alexander VI to conduct Savonarola’s ‘examination’

Bernardo Rucellai – leading Florentine citizen sent by Lorenzo the Magnificent on delegation to persuade Savonarola to tone down his sermons; later turned against Peiro de’ Medici (‘the Unfortunate’)

Girolamo Rucellai – moderating voice at the Pratica called to debate the ordeal by fire

Marcuccio Salviati – commander of the pro-Savonarolan troops at the ordeal by fire

Girolamo Savonarola – the Dominican friar who stood against all that the Medici represented

Michele Savonarola – Girolamo’s grandfather and a formative influence. Despite being a pioneering physician, he remained a strict medievalist.

Niccolò Savonarola – Girolamo’s unsuccessful father

Galeazzo Maria Sforza – nephew of Ludovico Sforza, and rightful heir to the Dukedom of Milan

Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza – uncle of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who acted as ruler of Milan during his nephew’s minority

Paolantonio Soderini – leading citizen and supporter of Savonarola

Doffo Spini – the headstrong leader of the Compagnacci extreme anti-Savonarola faction

Giovanni Tornabuoni – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s uncle, manager of the Rome branch of the Medici bank

Fra Mariano Ughi – the second Dominican who volunteered for the ordeal by fire

Francesco Valori – sent by Lorenzo the Magnificent on a delegation to warn Savonarola to tone down his sermons; later pro-Savonarolan gonfaloniere

Simonetta Vespucci – celebrated at the age of 17 as the most beautiful woman in Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s brother Giuliano is said to have pined for her love

 

PROLOGUE: ‘THE NEEDLE OF THE ITALIAN COMPASS’

 

IN THE FIRST week of April 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent^[1], the forty-three-year-old ruler of Renaissance Florence, lay seriously ill in his villa at Careggi, in the countryside a couple of miles north of the city walls. Lorenzo, a charismatic figure in a charismatic age, had powerful but curiously ugly features, which appeared to lend his personality an almost animal magnetism. His intellectual brilliance and physical daring also contributed to his attraction. Amongst other accomplishments he was a distinguished poet, a champion jouster and a prolific lover of beautiful women (and, on occasion, similar men).

Yet for two months now Lorenzo’s powerful frame had been racked with incapacitating pain, a manifestation of the congenital gout and chronic arthritis that had stricken so many amongst the recent generations of the Medici banking family. However, for Lorenzo the worst was yet to come: his beloved friend, the poet Angelo Poliziano, watched as he succumbed to:

a fever [that] gradually passed into his body, spreading not into his arteries or veins, like others do, but into his frame, his vital organs, his muscles, his bones too, and their marrow. But since it spread subtly and invisibly, with utmost stealth, it was hardly noticed at first. But then it gave clean evidence of itself … it so speedily weakened the man and wore him down that because not only his strength had ebbed away and been consumed, but his entire body, he was wasted away to nothing.¹

 

By this stage Lorenzo was being attended by the celebrated Lazaro da Ticino² ‘a very creative physician’, who had arrived from Milan. According to Poliziano: ‘in order not to leave any method untested, he tried a highly expensive remedy which involved grinding pearls and precious stones of all sorts’. This was a traditional remedy deriving from classical times, which almost certainly arrived in Europe from China, where such concoctions were thought to be ingredients of the fabled ‘elixir of life’. Lazaro da Ticino had been despatched to attend Lorenzo the Magnificent by Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza, the de facto ruler of Florence’s powerful northern neighbour, Milan. Ludovico Sforza was probably nicknamed ‘il Moro’ (the Moor) on account of his dark features; yet there was also a distinctly dark side to his character. A braggart, given to rash gestures, he was deeply superstitious, yet liked to regard himself and his court as highly cultured. In fact, he was a tyrant, of paranoid tendencies, who ruled from behind the high, dark walls of the imposing Castello Sforza, which looked down over the rooftops of his capital city. Some ten years previously, when intelligence had reached Lorenzo the Magnificent that Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza might be wavering in his vital support for militarily weak Florence, Lorenzo had launched a charm offensive, part of which involved despatching Leonardo da Vinci to Milan. Ludovico Sforza had been deeply flattered; the alliance with Florence had been reinforced, and the Milanese ruler came to regard Lorenzo the Magnificent as his valued personal friend.

During the twenty-three years of his reign Lorenzo had gained the admiration and affection of rulers all over Italy. Late fifteenth-century Italy was split into five major powers – Milan, Venice, the papacy, Florence and Naples – and several minor city states, which tended to ally themselves with their nearest powerful neighbour. The balance of power between the major territories was constantly threatened by the covert shifting of allegiances. Militarily weak Florence had clung to its status as a major power largely through Lorenzo the Magnificent’s diplomatic skill, and his tactical astuteness in perpetuating the idea of the city as the centre of Italian culture. Here the Renaissance had first come to fruition, financed by the patronage of its great banking families, with Florentine artists and architects regarded as the finest in Europe, the pride of Italian civilisation. Even so, Florence remained vulnerable to brute military force, requiring a constant diplomatic effort to keep its neighbouring states at bay.

As a consequence, Ludovico Sforza of Milan was not the only powerful Italian leader with whom Lorenzo the Magnificent maintained constant diplomatic dealings, and whom he succeeded in making his personal friend. Perhaps his most surprising alliance was with the ageing King Ferrante of Naples, a man notorious for his treachery, who in his earlier years had delighted in showing visitors his ‘museum of mummies’,³ consisting of the embalmed bodies of his enemies. Yet when Ferrante had hatched a plot to assassinate Lorenzo and sent the Neapolitan army to invade virtually defenceless Florence, Lorenzo had been willing to risk his life by dashing to Naples to confront Ferrante personally. The sheer bravado of the twenty-nine-year-old Lorenzo’s gesture had so won the admiration of Ferrante that he too declared himself Lorenzo’s firm friend. Likewise Pope Innocent VIII, a slippery character of part-Greek descent, of whom it was said the he ‘begat eight boys and just as many girls, so that Rome might justly call him Father’.⁴Lorenzo cemented an alliance with Innocent VIII by arranging for the pope’s eldest son, Franceschetto Cybo, to marry his daughter Maddalena de’ Medici.

Lorenzo certainly lived up to his soubriquet.^fn1 Even his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, ever the sardonic and incisive observer of political affairs, was dazzled:

Lorenzo was loved by fortune and by God in the highest degree, and as a result all his enterprises came to a successful conclusion … His way of life, his prudence and his fortune were known and admired by princes far beyond the borders of Italy.⁵

 

This last was no exaggeration. Machiavelli names the Sultan of Turkey and the King of Hungary as Lorenzo’s friends, and in the grounds of Lorenzo’s villa of Poggio a Caiano he kept a pet giraffe ‘so gentle it [would] take an apple from a child’s hand’,⁶which had been sent as a gift by the Sultan of Babylon. But as Machiavelli makes plain, Lorenzo was no saint: ‘His great virtues may not have been flawed by serious vices, but he did however involve himself in the affairs of Venus to an astonishing degree, as well as delighting in facetious gossip, pungent wit and childish games more than was fitting for a man of his position.’⁷ Yet such apparently frivolous traits may well have contributed to his charm and aided his more serious endeavours, as Machiavelli understood: ‘His reputation for prudence grew with every year, for he was winning and eloquent in discussion, of sympathetic wisdom when it came to resolving issues, as well as being quick of impulse when action was necessary.’ Thus was the man who had guided Italy through such treacherous political waters that Innocent VIII would famously refer to him as ‘the needle of the Italian compass’.⁸

Despite all this, in Florence Lorenzo’s position was rather more contentious. The city was theoretically a democratic republic, a matter of great pride to its citizens. At this time, when the separate territories that made up Italy were ruled for the most part by absolute rulers – a king, a pope, an oligarchy, hereditary dukes, petty tyrants, and so forth – only in the republic of Florence did citizens have a say in their government. In times of crisis, all male members of the population over the age of fourteen would be summoned by the tolling of a bell to assemble in the main square for aparlamento. Here they would vote in a balià, an emergency committe that had full power to deal with the crisis as it saw fit.

Under more normal circumstances, the city was ruled by the gonfaloniere (literally ‘standard-bearer’) and his eight-man council, the Signoria, each of whom was regularly selected by lot from special leather bags into which were placed the names of members of the guilds. When selected, the new gonfaloniere and his Signoria would take up residence in the Palazzo della Signoria, the imposing medieval palace with its tall castellated campanile, which to this day dominates the centre of Florence. Here they would don their ceremonial red robes and be wined, dined and entertained at public expense through their two-month period in office, their opinions and discussions being beyond outside influence. The comparative brevity of their tenure, as well as their isolation, was intended to prevent the city falling under the permanent power of any faction or tyrant.

The same system of selection by lot was used to choose the members of the various councils that advised the Signoria. Unfortunately, the conditions and complexities of the system by which the names placed in the leather bags were chosen had, over the years, proved open to manipulation. The leading families of Florence had long since succeeded in influencing the selection for all powerful posts, and finally even these competing families had succumbed to the single overwhelming influence wielded by the huge wealth of the Medici family. Such corrupution was grudgingly tolerated by the citizens of the republic because Lorenzo himself was popular, or at least managed to maintain a façade of popularity by lavish spending on entertainments for the citizenry. But with Lorenzo now ill and incapacitated, how much longer would this state of affairs last?

The prospect of change was not exclusive to Florence at this moment of history. As Lorenzo lay dying, Western civilisation itself was undergoing a profound transformation. Later that very year Christopher Columbus would make landfall in the New World, an event that would soon lead Europeans to realise that much of the world remained to be discovered. Indeed, some four years previously the Portuguese navigator Bartholomew Diaz had rounded the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean, opening up passage to a largely unknown Eastern world. At the same time, many thinkers in western Europe were becoming aware that much of their life within this world extended to wider mental horizons that remained unexplored: a profound evolution in human self-consciousness was taking place. The medieval vision of the world, where knowledge was largely accepted on authority from such sources as Aristotle and the Bible, was beginning to give way to the new vision of humanism. During the medieval era, the world and our life within it had been regarded as a mere preparation for the eternal life of the hereafter, when our souls were judged – assigned to heaven, purgatory or hell – in accordance with how we had behaved during this brief life of the flesh. Now a Renaissance was taking place: a rebirth of knowledge from the pagan classical era was giving humanity a greater confidence in itself and its powers. New ways of painting, as well as advances in architecture and knowledge of all kinds, were encouraging humanity in a more realistic view of the world, transforming both our self-belief and our self-understanding. Instead of the essentially spiritual outlook of medievalism, the new humanism regarded life and the world from a more human perspective.

In Florence, the Renaissance was approaching its zenith, with the city’s leading artists recognised as the most advanced in Italy, producing works that continue to this day to be regarded as pinnacles of human achievement. By 1492, Botticelli had already painted his masterpieces Spring(Primavera) and The Birth of Venus, and had worked on the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Leonardo da Vinci had left for Milan, where he had already sketched detailed plans for a manned flying machine and would soon begin painting The Last Supper. Meanwhile the precocious seventeen-year-old Michelangelo had begun sculpting his first masterwork, The Battle of the Centaurs, which had been commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent himself.

Lorenzo was by now well practised in the policy of using Florentine artists in the pursuance of his political aims. Although his despatch of Botticelli to Rome, and of Leonardo to Milan, had been prompted by specific strategic concerns, Lorenzo the Magnificent also regarded the artists he sent abroad as serving a wider purpose, acting as general cultural ambassadors for their native city. For him, art always had both a higher and a lower purpose, even at home. Prior to using his artists as instruments of foreign policy, he had employed them in Florence to contribute to the flamboyant celebrations that he laid on to maintain his popularity with the people of the city, as well as to mark historic events. In this way, Botticelli had been commissioned to paint an exemplary public mural depicting the hanging bodies of those apprehended after the failed Pazzi conspiracy to murder Lorenzo and overthrow Medici rule; on a lighter note, Leonardo had been responsible for spectacular firework displays and ice sculptures that had provided centrepieces for Lorenzo’s popular celebrations.

Despite such diversions, a curious atmosphere of foreboding had begun to pervade the city. Its people seemed to sense something hollow at the heart of the new way of life that was coming into being around them. They were not yet fully at ease with the art, knowledge and self-confident celebrations of the Renaissance era. The human soul, which for the long centuries of the medieval era had been the moral focus of every individual’s life, was suffering from unwonted neglect. The old spiritual certainties were in danger of being overwhelmed, and with the approach of 1500 many citizens became gripped by a mounting sense of apprehension. It would soon be one and a half millennia since the birth of Christ, and whispers began to spread of a coming apocalypse, heralding the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. Amidst this pervasive undercurrent of metaphysical angst, many began turning to a fiery young monk from Ferrara called Savonarola, who had begun preaching the Lenten sermons in the Church of San Marco.

At first glance, Girolamo Savonarola presented an unprepossessing figure: ‘the little friar’,⁹ as he often called himself with deceptive humility. He was indeed short, and thin, intense in manner, and spoke with the heavy accent of his native Ferrara, which lay seventy miles north across the Apennine mountains and was regarded as something of a provincial backwater by the Florentines. Savonarola was not given to social graces, and his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo depicts a cowled, plain-faced man with hollow ascetic cheeks, a hooked nose and thick, sensual lips. Apparently there was nothing particularly remarkable about his appearance apart from his eyes, which were said to have glinted with a burning intensity beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.

When Savonarola spoke, he had the knack of investing his words with all the power of his driven personality. His sermons were charged with the Holy Spirit with which he felt himself to be filled. He raged with an Old Testament fury, and his words were filled with prophecies of doom. Here, with a vengeance, was a return to the old certainties of times gone by. Savonarola impressed upon the citizens of Florence how they should be devoting themselves to the life of the spirit, not wasting their substance on the sensuality and baubles of the worldly life. All such things were nothing but a wicked delusion, foisted upon them by evil rulers.

In early April 1492, as Lorenzo the Magnificent lay dying in his country villa at Careggi, he unexpectedly sent word to none other than Savonarola, asking the friar to visit him. According to a contemporary report, Lorenzo is said to have justified this request ‘using these very words: “Go for the Father [Savonarola], for I have never found one save him who was an honest friar.”’¹⁰

Lorenzo recognised Savonarola for what he was, just as Savonarola did Lorenzo. Ironically, it was Lorenzo himself who had been responsible for inviting Savonarola to Florence. Lorenzo’s invitation had perhaps inevitably involved ulterior political motives, and these concerned the plans he had laid for the continuation of Medici power after his death. Lorenzo intended his eldest son Piero to succeed him in taking over the reins of power in Florence, but he had ambitions in a different direction for Giovanni, his highly intelligent second son. Giovanni had been brought up amidst the humanistic atmosphere of the poets and scholars of Lorenzo’s circle, with the poet Poliziano even acting as his tutor. But now Lorenzo wanted Giovanni to enter the Church, in order to advance the Medici family name in this new sphere. It was thought that Savonarola’s sermons might act as a corrective to Giovanni’s liberal education and inspire in him a suitably religious attitude.

Descriptions of what took place when Savonarola visited the dying Lorenzo’s bedside vary slightly, although one thing is certain – this unlikely visit definitely took place. Another undisputed fact is that Savonarola stood his ground and refused to be swayed by the sight of his dying ruler, behaving towards him with some severity, and even making certain demands of Lorenzo before he gave him his blessing. These demands are said to have been as follows. Initially, Savonarola asked Lorenzo whether he repented of his sins and believed in the one true God – to which Lorenzo replied that he did. Next, Savonarola demanded that if Lorenzo’s soul was to be saved, he would have to renounce his ill-gotten wealth ‘and restore what has wrongfully been taken’. To this, Lorenzo replied, ‘Father, I will do so, or I will cause my heirs to do it if I cannot.’ Finally, Savonarola demanded that Lorenzo should restore to the people of Florence their liberty, which could only be guaranteed by a truly republican government. To this last demand Lorenzo refused to reply, finally turning his face away.¹¹

Whether Savonarola actually made these precise demands is not certain – yet most sources agree that he did make three demands, and that they were similar to those cited above. When Lorenzo refused to reply to Savonarola’s final demand, the priest is said to have stood in silence before him for some time, until at last he gave Lorenzo his blessing and departed.

The following day, 8 April 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, and his body was carried back to Florence, where it was laid out in the Church of San Lorenzo. It was said that every citizen of Florence had deep feelings concerning the passing of this man who had ruled them for the past twenty-three years – though the precise nature of these feelings was varied. Many loved him, certainly; equally certainly, others secretly hoped that his passing might hasten a return to the old ways of more republican government. The grief-stricken Poliziano wrote:

Lightning flies from heaven down¹²

To rob us of our laurel crown^[2] …

Now silence rings us all around,

Now we are deaf to all thy sound.

Savonarola felt that his moment of destiny was now approaching.

 

What took place in fifteenth-century Florence has been seen as a clash of wills between a benign enlightened ruler and a religious fanatic, between secular pluralism with all its internal self-contradictions and the repressive extremism demanded by a thorough-going spirituality. Yet as the story unfolds, it soon becomes clear that this black-and-white picture is in fact a gross oversimplification. In describing the turbulent events that characterised these times, the nuances and subtleties that underlay this struggle will be revealed. Even so, the struggle was intense and the stakes were the highest. Not for nothing is this a story of death in Florence.

The Medici ruled for themselves and the preservation of their own power. By 1492, their interests had little to do with the people over whom they held sway. All knew this, but only Savonarola was willing to stand up and preach against such corruption – wherever he saw it. Savonarola was a fundamentalist: in the city that had celebrated the first glories of the new age of the Renaissance, he sought to return to the basic principles of early Christianity and establish a ‘City of God’. This was to be a simple, pure, God-fearing republic – where all that was required were the necessities for living a life dedicated to the Almighty, before whom all stood in equality. All distinctions of rank and class, all luxuries, baubles and distractions, all licentious and frivolous enjoyment were to be renounced.

Although Savonarola was essentially medieval in outlook, paradoxically his disparaging of the old corrupt powers pointed the way towards an egalitarianism that was quintessentially modern. Savonarola’s envisaged republic would prove to be the most democratic and open rule the city had ever known. By a paradox that this narrative will attempt to illuminate, it was also one of the most repressive and inhuman in the city’s history. Both sides of this struggle for power were riven by such paradoxes.

All this took place 500 years ago, against the backdrop of the city that gave birth to the Renaissance, the moment that was to transform Western civilisation and provide the first inklings of our modern world. Yet this clash between the secular and the religious has continued to reverberate down the centuries – first in Europe, then in America, and now finally throughout the world the struggle continues. It is nothing less than the fight for the soul of humanity, a struggle over the direction that humanity should take, the way we should live our lives, what we are, and what we should become. This is a struggle that will become all the more pressing and relevant as we exhaust the resources and despoil the environment of the planet that we inhabit, as we face the choice – for perhaps the first time in our progressive civilisation – of how we are to limit our way of living. Five centuries ago in Florence this coming battle was played out for the first time in recognisable modern terms.

 ‘The role of individuals is equally important in … wars and revolutions, these are historic periods where normal rules do not apply. When traditional ways of doing things no longer offer useful guidance … and revolutionary leaders have to fall back on instinct and charisma. Boldness, persuasiveness, and personal judgement can make the difference between triumph and disaster.’

Anatole Kaletsky

‘To attribute foreseeable necessity to the catastrophe … would be to give it a meaning it did not have.’

Golo Mann

 

NOTES

1. ‘a fever [that] gradually …’ et seq.: see Angelo Poliziano, Letters (in the original Latin and facing English), trans. & ed. Shane Butler (London, 2006), Book IV, Letter 2, p.231, 5. I have not adhered to Shane Butler’s translation.

2. Lazaro da Ticino: appears in some sources as Lazzaro of Pavia, leading some people to confuse him with the renowned physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani of Pavia, who lived in the eighteenth century.

3. ‘museum of mummies’: see Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of Renaissance Italy, trans. Middlemore (London, 1990), p.41

4. ‘begat eight boys …’: epigram by the contemporary poet Marullus, cited in Latin in F. Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes, ed. & trans. F. I. Antrobus, 40 vols (London, 1950 edn), Vol. V, p.240n.

5. ‘Lorenzo was loved …’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VIII, Sec. 36

6. ‘so gentle it …’: cited in Christopher Hibbert, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (London, 1985), p.172

7. ‘His great virtues …’ et seq.: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VIII, Sec. 36

8. ‘the needle of …’: this celebrated phrase is quoted in a wide number of sources. The actual Italian phrase is ago di balancia, which literally translates as ‘the needle of the balancing scales’, but the more poetic version referring to a compass has become the popularly accepted English translation, presumably because it is so apt. See, for instance, the entry on the Medici family in the celebrated 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XVIII p.33, by the renowned Italian Renaissance scholar Pasquale Villari.

9. ‘the little friar’: most sources mention Savonarola using this phrase; see, for instance, his latest biographer Lauro Martines, Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Italy (London, 2006), p.2

10. ‘using these very words …’ et seq.: Fra Silvestro, the close adherent of Savonarola, is believed to have heard them from Savonarola himself; see Lives of the Early Medici: As told in their correspondence, trans. & ed. Janet Ross (London, 1910), p.340

11. ‘and restore …’ et sea.: this meeting between Savonarola and the dying Lorenzo is discussed in varying detail by many authorities. See in particular William Roscoe, The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici (London, 1865), pp. 354–5, and Pasquale Villari, La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de’ suoi tempi, 2 vols (Florence, 1887), Vol. I, pp.157–60, 182–6, who both refer to the original contemporary sources, as well as discussing their reliability.

12. ‘Lightning flies …’: cited in Latin and English in Roscoe, Lorenzo, pp.368–9. I have not used Roscoe’s translation.

 

 

1.    A PRINCE IN ALL BUT NAME

 

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI was born on 1 January 1449 at the Palazzo Medici in Florence. During this time his sixty-year-old grandfather Cosimo de’ Medici, head of the Medici bank, was de facto ruler of the city. Cosimo was an extremely astute businessman and had increased the fortunes of the Medici bank to the point where it had branches in all major Italian cities, as well as branches as far afield as London and Bruges, with agents operating in Spain and North Africa, the Levant and the Black Sea. As a result the Medici had soon amassed a fortune which dwarfed that of the older leading Florentine bankers and powerful political families.

Originally the Medici had been against taking power, but it had been virtually forced upon them when they had come to realise that without power they would not be able to protect their fortune. In 1433 the jealousy and resentment of certain influential Florentine political factions, led by the ancient Albizzi family, had resulted in Cosimo’s imprisonment on the charge of interfering in state affairs, with the intention of taking over the state. This amounted to treason, a charge that incurred the death penalty, which Cosimo had only been able to escape by means of bribery and outside intervention. Even so, he had been sentenced to exile for ten years. Yet after a year of inept rule, hampered by lack of funds, the gonfaloniere and his ruling Signoria had invited Cosimo back to Florence to put his considerable talents and extreme wealth at the disposal of the city. From this moment on, Medici rule over Florence was consolidated. The gonfaloniere and the Signoria continued to be selected by lot as before, but Cosimo established an efficient political machine which covertly ensured that all men selected to positions of political power were Medici supporters. The seat of government may officially have remained the Palazzo della Signoria, but this only operated in consultation with the Palazzo Medici, where all the important decisions were taken by Cosimo. Indicatively, from now on all ambassadors and visiting foreign dignitaries called at the Medici residence.

By the time of Lorenzo’s birth, the ageing Cosimo had begun to delegate much of his power to his son Piero, Lorenzo’s father. Piero de’ Medici was a meticulous, if not overly talented, banker, who had exhibited a sophisticated taste in the arts and had become a highly discriminating patron. Unfortunately, he was chronically afflicted with the congenital Medici curse, to the point where he would soon become known as Piero the Gouty. This debilitating disease meant that for increasing spells his legs were too painfully infirm to support him, and he would have to be carried about on a litter. The constant pain also had a marked effect on his character, punctuating his natural charm with increasing bouts of irascibility. Such a quality did not endear him to others, especially in a society where political influence relied so heavily upon warm human contact.

However, the major influence on the young Lorenzo would undoubtedly be his mother, Lucrezia, an intelligent and resilient woman in an age when females for the most part had little opportunity to assert themselves beyond the restricted domestic sphere. Lucrezia came from an old and distinguished Florentine family, the Tornabuoni, and although her arranged marriage to a Medici was undoubtedly contracted for political reasons, she appears from her extant letters to have been genuinely fond of her husband, worrying over his health and betraying her concern that he should not ‘give way to melancholy’.² Yet these letters are not the only evidence of her writing, for Lucrezia de’ Medici was also a talented poet and hymnist. Although the conventional religiosity of her verse is of little modern interest, such piety did not stifle the warmth of her sympathetic personality. Her verse appears to have been the outlet for a wider creative sensibility, which was used to some effect in guiding her husband’s discriminating patronage of such leading early Renaissance figures as the architect Michelozzi, who had designed the groundbreaking Palazzo Medici; the sculptor Donatello, whose innovative realistic sculptures included the first free-standing nude since classical times; and the troubled artist Fra Filippo Lippi, whose colourful larger-than-life portraits echoed his own larger-than-life personality. All three of these artists Lucrezia came to regard as personal friends. The Medici were amongst the first patrons to recognise that artists were now becoming something more than mere craftsmen, and the family did their best to accommodate the increasingly difficult temperaments and wayward behaviour of these emergent genius-figures. Lucrezia was also known to have influenced her husband on more important political matters – for instance, it would be she who persuaded Piero to allow certain members of the Strozzi family to return from the banishment they had suffered for opposing Cosimo. This would prove a particularly astute move.

Of similar impact was Lucrezia’s formative influence upon the youthful Lorenzo, who quickly began displaying precocious brilliance in a variety of fields, ranging from classical literature to horse-riding. He was also said to have had an exceptional singing voice, accompanying himself on the lyre.^fn1 In 1459, the self-confident ten-year-old Lorenzo would play a leading role in the great pageant put on to entertain the new pope, Pius II, when he visited Florence, though he would not have been aware of the ulterior motive behind all the ‘theatrical performances, combats of wild beasts, races and balls … given in honour of the illustrious guest’.³ In fact, Cosimo was attempting to persuade Pius II to reinstate the Medici bank as handlers of the lucrative papal account.

Lorenzo and his younger brother Giuliano were tutored by leading members of the humanist intellectual circle that gathered at the Palazzo Medici. The brothers first learned Latin from the scholar Gentile Becchi, who would later be rewarded with the bishopric of Arezzo. Lorenzo was four years older than Giuliano, and as they grew up the two brothers became increasingly close. Lucrezia, in a letter to her husband, evokes a touching scene in which the nine-year-old ‘Lorenzo is learning [Latin] verses which his master … gave him and then teaches them to Giuliano’.⁴ The boys were taught Greek and Aristotelian philosophy by Johannes Argyropoulos, the leading Byzantine scholar who had left Constantinople prior to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Aristotelian philosophy was very much the backbone of the old medieval learning, whilst the new humanism turned instead to his predecessors Socrates and Plato, whose philosophy was taught to Lorenzo by Marsilio Ficino. The most knowledgeable Platonic scholar of his age, Ficino had been employed by Cosimo de’ Medici to translate the entire works of Plato from the original Greek into more accessible Latin, a task that would occupy most of his life. Ficino appears to have been a curious, but sympathetic character: a tiny, limping hunchback with a distinct stutter and a somewhat volatile temperament, he nonetheless doted on the young Lorenzo. In turn, Lorenzo quickly established a deep rapport with his middle-aged tutor, and throughout his life would continue to debate philosophical ideas with Ficino. Even at this early stage Ficino took it upon himself to provide Lorenzo with philosophical advice: ‘by imitating the deeds of Socrates we are taught better how to attain courage than by the art displayed by Aristotle in his writings on morality … I beg you to prefer learning from reality instead of from description, as you would prefer a living thing from a dead.’⁵

Surprisingly, it was Ficino who would encourage Lorenzo to write his verse in the local Tuscan dialect of Italian, rather than scholarly Latin. This dialect was now in the process of becoming the predominant Italian language amongst the many dialects spoken throughout the peninsula, in part because it had been used by Dante in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), which was already becoming recognised by many as the finest work of poetry since the classical era.

However, right from the start Lorenzo’s poetry would exhibit a curious schizophrenic tendency. On the one hand, it would be infused with the seriousness and intensity of feeling exhibited by his mother’s verse, whilst on other occasions it would be characterised by a bawdy wit and levity suitable for the public carnivals in which it appeared. Indeed, Lorenzo’s verse exhibited the same duality that seemed to permeate his entire character. The precocious young scholar who wrote flawless poetry was also the boisterous player of calcio storico, the rough-house early version of football in which Florentine boys used to let off steam. Likewise, the intense youth who participated in the high-minded debates on Platonic idealism at the Palazzo Medici was also the rascal who delighted in roaming the streets at night with his pals chanting bawdy verses, or in winter throwing snowballs up at the windows of the local girls. And as Machiavelli noted, this childish element would remain a part of his character throughout his life: ‘to see him pass in a moment from his serious self to his exuberant self was to see in him two quite distinct personalities joined as if by some impossible bond’.⁶

This perennial childishness seems to have been a psychological reaction: the serious side of his character would be forced from an early age to assume a maturity well beyond his years. In 1464, when Lorenzo was just fifteen, Cosimo de’ Medici died and Lorenzo’s father took over as ruler of Florence. The gout-ridden 46-year-old Piero de’ Medici suspected that he had not long to live, and quickly began coaching Lorenzo for his future role as ruler of Florence. Within a year, Lorenzo was being sent on his first mission to represent Florence in Milan at the wedding of Ippolita Maria Sforza, daughter of Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, to Alfonso, the son and heir of King Ferrante I of Naples. The bedridden Piero sent a number of letters to his sixteen-year-old son, issuing a constant stream of advice and detailed instructions: ‘act as a man, not as a boy’,⁷ ‘follow the advice of Pigello [manager of the Milan branch of the Medici bank]’ and, above all, ‘do not stint money, but do thyself honour’ and ‘if thou givest dinners or other entertainments do not let there be any stint in money or whatever else is needful to do thyself honour’.

Piero need not have worried, for Lorenzo was soon exercising both diplomacy and charm and, where necessary, perspicacity – undertaking missions to Venice, Naples, Ferrara, and finally Rome in the spring of 1466. This last was a mission of the utmost importance, for Lorenzo was expected to persuade Pope Paul II to grant to the Medici bank the monopoly on operating and distribution rights for the highly lucrative Tolfa alum mines owned by the papacy.

At the time alum was the mineral salt used to fix vivid dyes on cloth, making it an essential ingredient in the thriving textile industries of Florence and Venice, as well as those in the Low Countries and England. At the height of their trading, the mines at Tolfa some thirty miles north-west of Rome accounted for almost 3,500 tons of alum each year. This was sold for the equivalent of around 150,000 florins – that is, around half the value of the entire papal dues accumulating from all over Christendom, which at the time arrived from dioceses stretching from Greenland to Cyprus, from Poland to the Azores. In effect, the papacy would claim the equivalent of half the total alum-sale revenue; and after costs the operator would expect to recover around 50,000 florins. This was another colossal sum, when the total assets of the Medici bank at its height under Cosimo de’ Medici had probably been less than 200,000 florins.^fn2

However, relations between the papacy and the Medici had now taken a sudden turn for the worse. Paul II was a Venetian, and when Venice had recently gone to war with Florence, the pope had transferred the operating rights of the alum mines to a Venetian concern, as well as withdrawing the papal account from the Medici bank. This had plunged the Medici bank into crisis, seriously endangering Piero’s rule in Florence: without the constant flow of money required to maintain widespread patronage, Medici political power could not be guaranteed.

It was impossible to overemphasise the importance of Lorenzo’s mission, and Piero once again felt the need to stress in his correspondence the significance of his son’s behaviour: ‘Put an end to all playing on instruments, or singing or dancing … be old beyond thy years for the times require it.’⁹ From the sound of this, Lorenzo’s previous missions had not been completely without lapse into what Machiavelli referred to as ‘his exuberant self’. Piero had already issued Lorenzo with the most specific instructions on how to present the Medici case to Pope Paul II. Lorenzo was to argue that only the Medici bank had sufficient expertise to organise high production from the mines, while at the same time having the necessary financial resources and contacts to outfit galleys to carry the alum on the long voyage to London and Bruges. Shipwreck, and the constant threat of Barbary pirates, meant inevitable losses, which only the Medici bank could afford to cover; no Venetian operators had funds that could enable them to survive such losses. Lorenzo evidently behaved himself in Rome: his charm, Piero’s arguments and Paul II’s greed eventually won the day, and in April 1466 the Medici bank was finally granted the alum monopoly.

Yet Piero had also sent his son to Rome on another matter of some importance – namely, to learn the day-to-day running of the family business. In between his diplomatic duties, he was instructed to call upon his uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni, the manager of the important Rome branch of the Medici bank, so that he could be instructed in the art and technicalities of Renaissance banking.

Banking in its modern form had to all intents and purposes been invented by the Italians some two centuries previously. Even in the fifteenth century it remained very much an Italian concern, especially with the recent introduction of double-entry bookkeeping, which enabled a banker to carry out a swift check on the overall balance between credit and debit in his accounts. He could thus determine at a glance whether it was prudent to make a further outlay, or whether the bank was dangerously at risk if a certain debtor defaulted – a situation that was not always readily apparent with more primitive bookkeeping methods. However, banking still suffered from an ancient drawback. Strictly speaking, the lending and borrowing of money fell under the biblical edict against ‘usury’: officially banks could not charge interest on any money loaned, nor could depositors receive interest on any money banked. This difficulty was largely circumvented by financial sleight of hand. If money (or its equivalent in the form of gold plate, jewellery, and so forth) was deposited, the bank would pay an annual ‘gift’ to the depositor of around 15 per cent of the deposit’s worth.

Another source of income that eluded the ban on usury was ‘exchange’. The main Italian commercial centres, such as Milan, Venice and Florence, each had their own different currencies, which had no constant equivalence. For instance, at this period the Florentine florin could be worth anything between 10 and 20 per cent less than the Venetian ducat. Other countries in Europe also had their own currencies, and their exchange rates could fluctuate by similar amounts. This enabled bankers covertly to receive and dispense interest under the guise of ‘exchange’. Such was particularly the case with the papal bankers, who were responsible for collecting papal revenues in far-flung regions throughout Christendom and remitting equivalent sums to Rome. Yet the fact remained that in theological terms the practice of banking still involved the sin of usury. Indeed, it was Cosimo de’ Medici’s increasing anxiety over this matter as his years advanced, and he faced the prospect of death and the Last Judgement, that had played a large part in prompting him to build and renovate so many churches. In this way, Cosimo hoped to absolve himself from the sin of usury. Ironically, it had been this archetypically medieval concern over the ultimate fate of his soul which had prompted the patronage that ushered in the new humanist age of the Renaissance.

By contrast, Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo appears to have been as little concerned with such matters as he was with banking as a whole. The young Lorenzo prided himself on having the mind of a poet and the mental steeliness of a warrior; he enjoyed debating philosophy and discussing the latest humanist ideas. Such a mind was not given to studying the intricacies of account ledgers. Despite the best efforts of his Uncle Giovanni at the bank in Rome, Lorenzo absorbed little or nothing of the processes by which the Medici had made their fortune. Later, when asked about banking, he would confess (or perhaps boast): ‘I know nothing about such matters.’¹⁰

However, if Lorenzo returned home from Rome, after his successful negotiations with the pope over the alum monopoly, expecting a hero’s welcome from his father, he was in for a shock. He found Florence divided and his father locked in a struggle for his political life.

Piero de’ Medici’s unwillingness to travel beyond his native city and the Medici villas in its immediate environs was not only on account of his debilitating illness. Since taking over from his father, Piero had become increasingly aware of the precariousness of his position. By the end of Cosimo’s long life, many of the leading Florentine families had begun to tire of the Medici ascendancy, wishing instead for a return to the more apparently republican ways of former times, when they had been able to exercise their own influence over the affairs of the city. The ever-astute Cosimo had certainly realised this, declaring: ‘I know the fickle ways of our citizens. Within fifty years we Medici will be chased out of Florence.’¹¹

Despite Cosimo’s perspicacity, at the end of his life he had made two uncharacteristic mistakes. Firstly, he had left no will clarifying family ownership of the Medici bank. This meant that when he died, his son Piero inherited only 50 per cent of the Medici holding in the bank. The other half was inherited by his cousin Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who took no part in the running of the bank or indeed in running the city. As a result, Piero had large outgoings in the form of patronage to maintain Medici control; and when, as sometimes happened, the bank required a sudden injection of liquidity, it was Piero who advanced the money. Meanwhile, Pierfrancesco simply accumulated more and more assets. He would soon have much greater wealth than the ruling branch of the Medici family, yet he made sure that he was in no way seen as being associated with their rule, despite the fact that he lived next door to the Palazzo Medici. Many in Florence began to wonder how much longer this could continue.

Cosimo’s second mistake was to advise his son Piero that when it came to running the Medici bank he should follow the advice of Dietisalvi Neroni, Cosimo’s long-term business associate, who had gained a considerable fortune through his association with the Medici. However, unbeknown to Piero, Neroni had become jealous of the power wielded by the Medici and had covertly switched his allegiance. Machiavelli, who was not only a profound judge of human nature, but also knew the devious ways of Florentine politics, described how:

Messer Dietisalvi [Neroni], inspired more by his own ambition than by his love for Piero or the benefits he had in former times received from Cosimo, thought it would be easy for him to ruin Piero’s credit, and to deprive him of the power he had inherited from his father. He therefore gave advice to Piero, in a manner which made him appear entirely honest and reasonable, but which in practice was intended to bring about his ruin.¹²

Neroni began leading Piero through the Medici bank’s libri segreti (private account ledgers), pointing out to him that – contrary to appearances – the bank was in a distinctly parlous state. During his last years Cosimo had spent vast sums patronising the costly building and renovation of churches; at the same time, he had also quietly loaned considerable sums to a number of leading Florentine figures who had got into difficulties during the recent downturn in the wool trade. On top of this, the bank had several large outstanding loans abroad, leaving a number of its branches in a perilous financial position. Owing to mismanagement, the Bruges branch was close to collapse, and things were if anything even worse at the London branch, where credit advanced to King Edward IV and his various nobles in order to finance the Wars of the Roses amounted to almost 80,000 florins. Word had it that Edward IV was neither willing nor able to repay his debts. Having acquainted Piero with ‘the disorder in his affairs and how much money was absolutely necessary to save his own credit’, Neroni suggested ‘that the most honourable way to remedy his difficulties was to call in the debts due to his father by both foreigners and citizens’. As Machiavelli pointed out, ‘such counsel seemed good and honest to Piero, who wished to remedy his affairs with his own means’.

At the end of 1464, just months after taking over from his father, Piero decided to call in the Medici bank’s loans. This proved a catastrophic error. As a result, many merchants faced bankruptcy and anti-Medici sentiment began to spread amongst the influential families. Yet whilst the fortunes of the Medici bank had suffered, others had prospered – in particular, the ancient bank headed by Luca Pitti, who had begun to build himself a vast ostentatious palazzo in the Oltrarno district across the river from the main centre of the city. Although Pitti’s palazzo remained unfinished, it was evident that this grandiose residence was intended to dwarf all others in Florence, particularly the Palazzo Medici. The changing fortunes of the Medici meant that instead of petitioning at the Palazzo Medici, many now sought patronage at the Palazzo Pitti. The city was beginning to polarise into two opposing camps: the Party of the Hill (the Pitti faction, centred on its palazzo in the hilly Oltrarno) and the Party of the Plain (centred on the less resplendent Palazzo Medici on the flat ground north of the city centre).

The Party of the Hill was backed by several powerful families, including the Acciaiuoli, the Soderini and more covertly the Neroni, all of whom had secretly nursed a grudge against the Medici since their rise to pre-eminence. (Indicatively, the members of the Strozzi family, who had been allowed by Piero to return from exile, refrained from joining.) In May 1465 400 citizens more or less closely associated with the Party of the Hill signed a petition calling for a return to the old republican method of elections and an end to the Medici manipulation of the names placed in the leather bags from which were chosen the new gonfaloniere and his Signoria, as well as other leading appointments in the government. This petition was even signed by Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who was married to an Acciaiuoli. Piero de’ Medici ignored the petition, biding his time. Then, in March 1466, while the young Lorenzo was away in Rome, news came through that the Medici’s great ally, Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, had died and been succeeded by his twenty-three-year-old son, the unpredictable Galeazzo Maria Sforza. Piero realised that, in case of trouble, he could no longer be certain of support from Milan.

Meanwhile Luca Pitti and the Party of the Hill had already made secret plans for the overthrow of Piero de’ Medici, securing the support of Borso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who was on the point of despatching 1,300 cavalry across the Apennine mountains into Florentine territory. Such was the situation when Lorenzo returned from his mission to Rome in the summer of 1466.

In the midst of a sweltering August, Piero became stricken with a particularly virulent attack of gout and was carried out of the city on a litter to recover amidst the cooler air of his villa at Careggi, accompanied by Lorenzo. Only now did Piero learn the full extent of the plotters’ plans to overthrow him. Realising the seriousness of the situation, he sent word to Milan, in the forlorn hope that Galeazzo Maria Sforza might come to his aid; then on the morning of 27 August, he prepared for his servants to carry him back to Florence at once, despatching Lorenzo ahead with orders to make ready for his arrival and the defence of the Palazzo Medici. As Lorenzo galloped down the road to Florence he was hailed by some peasants working in the fields and warned that a group of armed men was waiting down the road at the villa of Archbishop Neroni, the brother of Dietisalvi. Lorenzo realised that these men were planning to ambush Piero and assassinate him. He quickly galloped back to warn his father and together they took a cross-country track, enabling them to enter the city undetected through another gate.

By afternoon Piero de’ Medici was installed in the Palazzo Medici, summoning his supporters throughout the city. At the same time the unexpected news reached Florence that Galeazzo Maria Sforza had despatched 1,500 cavalry from Milan. When the conspirators who had gathered at the Palazzo Pitti learned that Piero had returned to Florence, they were spurred into precipitate action. Acciaiuoli, Soderini and Neroni rode off to rally their men. Pitti, finding himself left alone and defenceless in his half-built palazzo, suddenly became suspicious of his fellow conspirators and panicked. Clambering onto his horse he rode pell-mell over the Ponte Vecchio, across the Arno and through the streets to the Palazzo Medici, where he abjectly pledged his alliegance to Piero. Unaware of how deeply Pitti had been involved in the plot to kill him, Piero graciously pardoned him, but made sure that Pitti remained in the Palazzo Medici.^fn3

By now the city was in uproar. Piero sent word next door to the residence of his cousin Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, saying that he needed 10,000 ducats^fn4 at once, in order to secure the city and provide for the approaching Milanese troops. Surprisingly, Pierfrancesco responded by giving him the money. His motives remain unclear. He certainly favoured a return to a more open republican government, but may have feared that the overthrow of his cousin would result in the demise of the Medici bank, and with it his own fortune. On the other hand, he may simply have feared for his life, with so many armed Medici supporters gathering at the neighbouring palazzo. On receiving the money, Piero despatched men throughout the city to buy up all the supplies of bread and wine. When the frightened citizenry had heard what was happening, many of them had begun flocking to the Palazzo Medici, where the supplies obtained by Piero’s men were freely distributed amongst them. The sight of this apparent popular rally of support for the Medici, along with news of the approaching troops from Milan, duly had their effect. The bands of armed men who had been riding through the streets attempting to drum up support for the conspirators now began to melt away through the side alleys. The Duke of Ferrara, hearing that his arrival would not be greeted by the expected popular uprising against the Medici, ordered his troops to turn about and retreat from Florentine territory before they became involved in any engagement with the Duke of Milan’s forces. The Medici had won the day, during the course of which Lorenzo had saved his father’s life.

The leading conspirators amongst the Acciaiuoli, Neroni and Soderini families were soon rounded up, tried and sentenced to death. Once again Piero was minded to exercise compassion and commuted their sentences to permanent exile. This proved a serious mistake, as the conspirators gathered in Venice, where an army was raised to attack Florence. Fortunately Piero was able to rely upon the support of Milan, and also hired the crack condottiere^fn5 Federigo da Montefeltro with his mercenary army. Low-key hostilities would continue for a year before peace was declared and Florence was once again safe.

Having achieved success in diplomacy, the seventeen-year-old Lorenzo was now learning the lessons and perils of statecraft at first hand at his father’s side. Preparation, decisive action (both personal and in winning over the people), together with good fortune, appeared to be the key factors: this was a lesson he would never forget.

Despite his deep involvement in matters of state, Lorenzo still found time to indulge his ‘exuberant’ side. He wrote increasingly assured and eloquent poetry, and in the manner of the time began addressing poems to a beautiful woman with whom he had fallen in love. The object of his poems was Lucrezia Donati, who was generally accounted the most beautiful woman in Florence. Sources differ as to Lucrezia’s age, some putting this as low as twelve, others insisting that she was already married (at the time, such claims need not necessarily have been mutually exclusive). However, in the tradition of Dante and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, this was a chaste poetic love affair – platonic in fact, if not in tone:

When I see her heavenly smile,¹³

The love that lights her eyes

Fires Cupid’s dart into my heart.

 

As Lorenzo’s early English biographer William Roscoe so aptly put it, ‘Lucretia [sic] was the mistress of the poet, and not of the man.’¹⁴ Such public declaration of love to a woman who was possibly betrothed, if not actually married, might have been acceptable in poetic terms; had there been any sexual involvement, this would have involved outrage, scandal and vengeance. The teenage Lorenzo was in fact rehearsing more mature emotions, in much the same way as jousters of this era practised for actual combat. Indeed, when a public joust was held at this time in the Piazza Santa Croce, according to tradition the queen of the tournament was the most beautiful woman in the city, and Lucrezia Donati was duly appointed. One by one the contestants rode up to her place on the dais, making their obeisance with lowered lance, before riding against each other. In this contest Lorenzo not only saluted Lucrezia before the applauding crowds lining the piazza, but also carried her standard and wore her device on his armour; this would indeed be a test of Lorenzo’s mettle, for he was competing with some experienced veterans. The tournament, and Lorenzo’s part in it, would feature in an epic written by the Florentine poet Luigi Pulci, a member of the intellectual circle at the Palazzo Medici. Pulci’s The Joust of Lorenzo de’ Medici would take its place as one of the most popular heroic ballads of its day. Even so, in the interests of veracity, Pulci felt bound to mention that at one stage Lorenzo fell off his horse, though with poetic legerdemain he would manage to transform this incident into an example of Lorenzo’s valour. Lorenzo himself was under no such illusion about his role in the tournament, recording modestly in his journal: ‘Although neither my years nor my blows were very great, the first prize was awarded to me, a silver helmet with Mars as its crest.’¹⁵

If Lorenzo was crowned in the customary fashion – on bended knee, as the queen of the tournament placed the helmet on his head – this would have been the closest he came to actual physical contact with Lucrezia Donati. Such jousts were all about display: no blood was spilled, there was little danger, and enthusiasm was all. Here Lorenzo would have learned another important lesson: the people of Florence were easily distracted from their troubles by the staging of such events, even though they recognised that his victory and his wearing of Lucrezia Donati’s device as an indication of his love for her were no more than a charade.

In fact, by this time Lorenzo was actually betrothed to someone else, as a prelude to an arranged marriage. His mother had journeyed to Rome to inspect the prospective bride, Clarice Orsini, a member of one of Rome’s most distinguished and powerful aristocratic families, whose long pedigree included numerous cardinals and even two popes. Fortuitously, Lorenzo had seen Clarice during his trip to Rome, though without realising that she would soon be selected as his wife. This union was to be above all else political, as was indicated by the somewhat matter-of-fact tone adopted by Lorenzo’s mother Lucrezia, when she wrote from Rome to Piero, describing the woman they wished to secure as Lorenzo’s future bride. After mentioning Clarice Orsini’s ‘good height’,¹⁶‘nice complexion’ and ‘gentle manners’, Lorenzo’s mother went on to record: ‘Her throat is fairly elegant, but it seems to me a little meagre … Her bosom … appeared to me of good proportions. She does not carry her head proudly like our girls, but pokes it a little forward.’ Despite this dispassionate description, Lorenzo’s mother knew that the choice of an aristocratic Roman bride for Lorenzo was a significant and ambitious departure from tradition. Previously, the Medici had married into leading Florentine families such as her own; by marrying an Orsini they were asserting their right to aristocratic status, as well as gaining a foothold in the Roman hierarchy. Here was a public indication that the Medici wished to establish themselves as the permanent aristocratic rulers of Florence. As Machiavelli would perceptively remark: ‘he who does not want his fellow citizens as relatives wants them as slaves’.¹⁷

The precise details of the Medici family ambitions were a closely guarded secret, traditionally passed on from father to son on his deathbed, a custom established by Cosimo de’ Medici’s father Giovanni di Bicci, the founder of the Medici bank. Giovanni di Bicci, in his wisdom, had advised Cosimo to remain modest, and not to interfere in politics. Cosimo had initially followed his father’s advice, but had soon understood that political power was the only way to protect his family and his fortune. Even so it was Cosimo, suspecting that the citizens of Florence would soon tire of the Medici, who had advised his son Piero to find an aristocratic Roman bride for young Lorenzo. If the Medici were driven from Florence, they would still have the highest connections in Rome.

In June 1469 Clarice Orsini travelled to Florence and was duly married to Lorenzo de’ Medici. The church bells rang out, and for three days the city of Florence was given over to public feasting and various Medici-funded celebrations. The festivities were largely organised by Lorenzo himself, for by now his father was too ill to move, and it soon became clear that he was dying. Less than five months later, on 2 December, the church bells of Florence pealed for the death of the city’s ruler.

Lorenzo recorded in a journal written some years later:

On the second day after [my father’s] death, although I was still a young man, being twenty-one years of age,^fn6 the principal men of the City and the State came to us in our house to console us and to encourage me to take care of the City and of the State, as my father and grandfather had done. This was against all my youthful instincts, and considering the great responsibility and danger involved, I accepted with reluctance. I did this solely to protect my friends and possessions, for it fares ill in Florence for anyone who is rich and does not control the State.¹⁸

 

Lorenzo’s mistake about his age was forgivable, but in the light of the evidence his insistence upon his ‘reluctance’ to take office was pure window-dressing. Between 1 and 4 December (that is, in the days before the Florentine delegation asked him to take power), Lorenzo wrote no fewer than three letters to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, preparing the Medici family’s most powerful ally for the transition in Florence, as well as soliciting his continued support for the city and the Medici cause. Wary of Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s violent and unstable personality, Lorenzo made sure he did this in the most flattering and fawning fashion:

I would like to declare myself as the most devoted servant of Your Excellency, and to recall the ancient devotion of our house and myself in particular toward Your Illustrious Lordship … while certain of having here the support of many good friends, it seems to me it would do little good without the favour and aid of Your Illustrious Lordship.¹⁹

Although Lorenzo wrote in his journal that the death of his father ‘was greatly mourned by the entire city’,²⁰ and spoke to Galeazzo Maria Sforza of ‘the great support of many good friends’ in Florence, this too was disingenuous. True, the city leaders had offered him the post of unofficial ruler, but they had certainly been pressed into doing so by the Medici faction. And in truth the passing of Piero had not been mourned by many outside this powerful and well-organised faction. Indeed, this Medici ‘succession’ would prove no foregone conclusion.

Seizing on what was perceived to be a groundswell of anti-Medici sentiment, supporters of the Party of the Hill faction staged an uprising in the city of Prato some ten miles north-west of Florence. But to their chagrin this was followed by no popular uprising in Florence itself, and when the rebels heard that Lorenzo had ordered a swift military response, with the backing of the gonfaloniere and his Signoria, they quickly surrendered.

At the start of his reign, Lorenzo confided to the Milanese ambassador that he wished to rule the city ‘in as civil a way as one can, as far as possible within the constitution’.²¹ Yet he now realised that if he was to remain in control of the city and protect the Medici wealth, he would have to take measures that tightened his hold over the electoral process, ensuring that those who were elected to powerful posts in the government always remained favourable to his rule. To this end, encouraged by Medici money, the Medici faction now evolved into an even more efficient and coercive party machine. The Council of One Hundred had been established by Cosimo de’ Medici just over a decade previously for the purpose of selecting suitable names to be placed in the leather bags from which were drawn the new gonfaloniere, his eight-man ruling Signoria and all senior posts in the government. The new Medici party machine now ensured that the Council of One Hundred was packed with even more Medici men. All this may have remained ‘within the constitution’, but it hardly encouraged the spirit of republican democracy upon which the city prided itself.

In 1471 Pope Paul II died and was succeeded by Pope Sixtus IV. Lorenzo de’ Medici travelled to Rome to represent Florence at the coronation of the new pope and was graciously received as the ruler of Florence. However, Lorenzo was also present as the representative of the Medici commercial concerns, and this role he fulfilled with some success. Paul II had not only renewed the Medici bank’s monopoly operation of the Tolfa alum mines, but also reinstated the Medici as the papal bankers. To confirm this new relationship, the pope allowed Lorenzo to purchase a number of exquisite gems from his collection. Although Lorenzo is remembered as a great patron of the arts, in reality his personal preference seems to have been for gems, jewellery, cameos and the like.

Some commentators have seen this proclivity as an indication that Lorenzo privately concurred with his grandfather’s opinion that the Medici would inevitably be driven from power within a few years. In case of an unexpected coup, such precious items could be quickly and easily transportable. There may have been some truth in this assessment, at least early in Lorenzo’s reign. However, his later treatment of his jewel collection suggests that, as the years went by, his premonitions became very much the opposite – tending indeed to the most grandiose fantasies concerning the future of the Medici family. Far from treating his jewels as assets that could be sold in time of need, he ‘desecrated’ them by claiming them as permanent Medici property: cameos, vases and even jewels were engraved with his name, usually in the form of ‘LAU.R.MED’.²² This marque has attracted much speculation. The first three letters were evidently the Latinised Lorenzo, and the last three Medici – but what of the R? Could this have stood for ‘king’: rex in Latin,re in Italian? Lorenzo appeared to be dreaming that future Medici would become kings, of Florence or elsewhere, and by these marques he wished to claim his place as first in such a royal line.

Having consolidated his position at home, and formed an alliance with the pope that complemented his alliance with Milan, Lorenzo seemed to be in full control of his situation. But it was now that he made a major blunder. Fresh alum deposits had recently been discovered at Volterra, forty miles south-west of Florence. Volterra lay in Florentine territory and was subject to Florentine rule: tribute was paid, and a Florentine governor was installed, but otherwise the city largely ran itself. Perhaps inevitably, a dispute now arose, between a group backed by the governor and one backed by the local council, as to who should be granted the mining contract for the alum. In 1471 this was sent for arbitration to Florence, where Lorenzo unsurprisingly decided in favour of the governor, whom he had appointed. When this news reached Volterra, the city erupted in a riot, several Florentines were killed and the governor was fortunate to escape with his life.

Against the advice of the Signoria, Lorenzo decided that firm action should be taken. Only recently, Prato had fallen with surprising ease to the Party of the Hill dissidents, and he knew that several Tuscan cities were growing impatient of Florentine rule. Once again, Florence hired thecondottiere Federigo da Montefeltro and his army, which Lorenzo ordered to march on Volterra. Here Montefeltro found the gates barred, and embarked upon a siege. On 16 June 1472, after twenty-five days, Volterra surrendered, whereupon Montefeltro’s mercenary troops went on the rampage – looting, raping and murdering the defenceless citizens. As soon as Lorenzo heard what had happened he rode post-haste to Volterra, where he made a heartfelt apology to the citizens, at the same time distributing alms in an attempt to alleviate their distress. But the harm had been done. It was he who had ordered in the troops, and he would for ever be blamed for the atrocity they had committed.

Although Lorenzo was practised in diplomacy from an early age, it was evident that he still had lessons to learn. Within months it was discovered that the alum mine at Volterra was far from matching the rich deposits at Tolfa. In the end it produced only limited quantities of low-grade alum, and mining was soon abandoned. Had Lorenzo not acted so precipitately, all this might have come to light earlier and the threat been defused. As it was, he now had to fortify the local garrison in order to maintain Florentine rule and prevent the city from switching its allegiance to nearby Siena.

As if to underline this irony, the Medici bank now began to suffer its own setbacks in the alum trade. One Florentine galley, and then another, was lost carrying alum on the long sea voyage around Spain to Bruges. Then the Venetians and the Genoese broke the papal monopoly and began shipping in Turkish alum to Bruges, seriously undercutting the alum reserves held in the Medici warehouses. Eventually the situation would become so dire that the Medici bank, which still had to pay papal dues on all alum that was mined at Tolfa, was actually making a loss on alum trading.

Meanwhile life at the Palazzo Medici continued as before, with its patronage of the Renaissance entering a golden age. Amongst the many and varied cultural figures associated with the Palazzo Medici during this period was the artist Sandro Botticelli, who was just thirty years old when he completed The Adoration of the Magi in 1475. Apart from being a masterpiece in its own right, this painting is also a monument to the Medici family. Although ostensibly depicting the three wise men and their entourage bearing their traditional gifts to the infant Christ, it also served as a family portrait depicting three generations of the Medici family. There are recognisable portraits of Cosimo, Piero and Lorenzo, along with his younger brother Giuliano; also included are likenesses of several influential Medici supporters and leading members of the Medici intellectual circle. As well as these, the picture included a strikingly assertive self-portrait of Botticelli himself at the edge of the crowd, one of the first indications of the emergent importance of the Renaissance artist, both in his own eyes and in those of his patrons.

Other leading artists in the Medici circle around this time included the ageing Michelozzo Michelozzi, who was now commissioned to create a tomb for Piero. Lorenzo also did his best to secure commissions, and smooth over controversies, for one of his more difficult geniuses, the young Leonardo da Vinci, whose ever-active mind leapt from project to project, from art to invention, frequently losing interest in the work for which he had been paid before he got round to completing it.

However, the figure to whom Lorenzo was most closely drawn was Angelo Poliziano, whom Lorenzo soon recognised as an even more accomplished poet than himself. Poliziano was born in 1454 in the town of Montepulciano, at the very southern limits of Tuscan territory, where his father was the Florentine-appointed governor. At the same time as the attempt to assassinate Piero de’ Medici in 1466, the citizens of Montepulciano had staged an anti-Florentine uprising, during which Poliziano’s father had been murdered. The twelve-year-old Poliziano was then brought up in Florence, where he quickly displayed precocious brilliance, writing Latin poetry at the age of thirteen and Greek verse four years later. This brought him to the attention of Lorenzo, and some time later he was invited to take up residence at the Palazzo Medici. By now Lorenzo had two sons, Piero and Giovanni, and Poliziano became their tutor, along with the Platonic scholar Ficino. Lorenzo seems to have been particularly drawn to Poliziano’s combination of profound scholarship and sheer joie de vivre, and their affectionately shared ebullience led some to suspect that for a time they were even lovers. Lorenzo’s sexual omnivorousness had not abated with his marriage. Poliziano also composed an epic featuring Lorenzo’s beloved younger brother Giuliano, who had originally been encouraged by Lorenzo to take an equal role in ruling the city, but preferred to remain out of the limelight and now acted more in an advisory capacity. Although Giuliano resembled his brother in his discriminating patronage and zest for life, he struck his contemporaries as lovable, rather than powerfully charismatic like his brother. As distant from his older brother, Giuliano was strikingly handsome, and attempted to emulate Lorenzo in the pursuit of women; but he was unfitted for the role of ruthless womaniser, and would frequently fall in love with women who rejected his advances. As a consequence, he was often plunged into a love-lorn state. In order to bolster Giuliano’s pride, Poliziano composed a companion poem to Pulci’s The Joust of Lorenzo de’ Medici, calling it The Joust of Giuliano de’ Medici. Although this poem did in fact describe an actual joust similar to the one won by his brother six years previously, Poliziano’s embellishments upon the event were intended as a private joke amongst the Medici circle. These related how the most beautiful woman in Florence, a title now held by the seventeen-year-old Simonetta Vespucci, fell in love with Giuliano, but failed to win his affection, ‘because none could melt the ice within his breast’.²³

Some time around 1476, Lorenzo’s cousin Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, the non-active half-owner of the Medici bank who was related by marriage to the Acciaiuoli family, had died. Lorenzo immediately took Pierfranceso’s thirteen-year-old-son Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici and his younger brother Giovanni to live with him in the Palazzo Medici, where they too were educated by Ficino and Poliziano.^fn7 However, Lorenzo’s motives for this were not entirely philanthropic. In becoming guardian of his cousin’ssons, he was intending to nullify the influence of the opposing Acciaiuoli family; at the same time he also became ‘guardian’ of their inheritance, which included their father’s half-share of the Medici bank, a sum that by this stage was far greater than that held by Lorenzo, who had sold off part of his assets to finance the Medici party machine.

By now the market for alum had become so glutted, and the price fallen so low, that in order to cut their losses the Medici bank had reduced to a mere trickle the quantity of alum leaving the Tolfa mines. Consequently this so reduced the amount paid in papal dues that Sixtus IV became suspicious and ordered an audit of the Medici accounts. Such distrust in Medici banking practice was unprecedented, and Lorenzo was deeply affronted. In a retaliatory move he refused to allow Francesco Salviati, the new papally appointed Archbishop of Pisa, to take up his office in the city, on the grounds that the pope should have consulted him before making such an appointment in Florentine territory.

The relationship deteriorated further when Sixtus IV, who was constantly short of cash, approached the Medici bank for a loan of 40,000 florins, with which he wished to purchase the lordship of Imola for his ‘nephew’ Girolamo Riario (who was widely suspected of being his son). Imola’s strategic position in the Romagna meant that it controlled Florence’s eastern trade route across the Apennine mountains to the Adriatic, and Lorenzo’s suspicions were immediately aroused. He politely refused the pope his loan, and advised all other Florentine bankers to do the same.

Although the Medici bank had experienced a decline during the five years since Lorenzo had succeeded his father in 1469, other banks in Florence had continued to prosper – in particular that run by the ancient Pazzi family, whose wealth now surpassed that of the Medici. The Pazzi family saw their opportunity to displace the Medici as the papal bankers, and willingly loaned Sixtus IV his 40,000 florins. Lorenzo was incensed; at the same time he also saw the serious implications of the Pazzi’s move. Acting as the papal bankers would add to their already considerable wealth, which could only pose a threat to Medici power. Indeed, it was well known that the Pazzi family were becoming increasingly resentful of the Medici’s pre-eminent position in Florence.

Lorenzo vowed to strike back at the Pazzi at the first opportunity, which was not long in coming. In March 1477, the death was announced of the rich father of a woman who had married into the Pazzi family, whereupon his daughter claimed the large inheritance, which would then have passed into the Pazzi family, further adding to their wealth and power. Instead of allowing this inheritance to fall to the Pazzi, Lorenzo chose to intervene: he ruled that the inheritance should pass instead to the woman’s cousin, as he was the closest male relative. This was a judgement that nullified centuries-old tradition, at the same time setting a precedent that would have severe implications for every family in Florence, but Lorenzo refused to be dissuaded from his decision. According to Machiavelli, ‘Lorenzo, heady with youth and power, was determined to decide on everything and show Florence that all policy came from him.’²⁴ Even his closest circle was beginning to have qualms about Lorenzo’s attitude, which the Pazzi inheritance seemed to have brought to a head. Once more, in the words of Machiavelli, ‘With regard to this business, Giuliano de’ Medici again and again expressed his misgivings, telling his brother that by wanting to take over too much he was liable to lose everything.’²⁵ Giuliano’s misgivings were soon to be fulfilled.

Just over a year later, on Sunday 26 April 1478, Lorenzo was attending Mass at Florence Cathedral when a commotion broke out amongst the congregation. At the same time, two priests standing near the altar beside Lorenzo withdrew daggers from beneath their robes and attempted to stab him. One stabbed him in the neck, but he broke free of the mêlée and, supported by friends, managed to reach the safety of the sacristy, where he boarded himself in. Only later did Lorenzo learn that in the midst of the congregation his brother Giuliano had been stabbed to death.

Meanwhile there was an attempt by Francesco Salviati, the recently appointed Archbishop of Pisa, to seize the Florentine seat of government, the Palazzo della Signoria, but this too was foiled. Upon hearing of the assassination attempts, the city erupted in turmoil, but Medici supporters were quick to rally the citizens to their cause, spreading word that this was an attempt by foreign enemies to take over Florence. Still clad in his ecclesiastical robes, the Archbishop of Pisa was flung out of a high window of the Palazzo della Signoria with a noose around his neck. Below, the crowd in the piazza jeered as he danced in his death-throes on the end of the rope. Eventually the bloodstained Lorenzo appeared at a high window of the Palazzo Medici and reassured the alarmed citizens gathered below that he was still their leader and would resist all foreign attempts to take over their city. Lorenzo’s dramatic speech was received with heartfelt patriotic cheers, and the mob dispersed, hell-bent on revenge.

Only gradually, during the course of the day, did Lorenzo manage to piece together what had in fact happened. In a well-planned bid to overthrow the Medici, the Pazzi family had mounted an assassination attempt and a simultaneous coup, which had covertly been backed by Sixtus IV. The Medici’s enemies had united in the plot – one of the priests who had attempted to stab him came from Volterra, while Giuliano’s assassin was a leading member of the Pazzi family, and the coup itself was financed by Pazzi money. In retaliation, many genuine (or even suspected) Pazzi sympathisers were dragged from their houses and torn to pieces by the mob. The Volterran priest was caught and castrated, before being hanged.

Over the following week, Lorenzo ordered all leading members of the Pazzi family who had survived to be killed, thrown into prison or banished into exile. All Pazzi property and possessions were to be seized, and Medici agents were ordered in the name of the republic to attempt to sequester all assets of the Pazzi bank throughout Europe.

Yet despite this apparent victory, Lorenzo soon became aware of the extent and continuing determination of his enemies. Not only had the Pazzi been backed by Sixtus IV, but they had also been assured of the support of the pope’s close ally King Ferrante I of Naples. Even Florence’s trustedcondottiere Federigo da Montefeltro had secretly been standing by in his nearby territory at Urbino, ready to move into Florentine territory to enforce the Pazzi takeover.

The pope was livid at the failure of the coup, and was especially outraged at the treatment of the Archbishop of Pisa, whilst dressed in his robes of office no less. Such an act was an offence against the Holy Church, and for this he excommunicated the entire population of Florence. These may have been mere words, but they were soon backed by action. War was declared on Florence, and papal troops, Montefeltro’s troops, as well as King Ferrante’s troops were launched into Florentine territory. Worse still, Florence could no longer even rely upon her usual ally Milan, as Lorenzo’s friend Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza had been assassinated two years previously. Florence was defenceless, and threatened on all sides.

It was now that Lorenzo showed his true mettle. The headstrong impetuousness that had been his failing in his dealings with Volterra and early handling of the Pazzi opposition now proved the saving of himself and his city. Acting on impulse, Lorenzo suddenly rode out of Florence without telling anyone of his intentions. Only when it was too late to stop him did he write to the Signoria, informing them somewhat disingenuously: ‘Therefore, with the blessing of Your Excellencies of the Signoria, I have decided to go openly to Naples.’²⁶ He then boarded a galley at Pisa and sailed down the coast, disembarking at Naples – where he planned to present himself before King Ferrante and intercede personally on behalf of Florence.

This was an act of truly foolhardy courage. The fifty-six-year-old King Ferrante was a merciless tyrant of mixed Spanish and Moorish descent whose upbringing had ‘embittered and darkened his nature, and it is certain that he was equalled in ferocity by none among the princes of his time’.²⁷Ominously for Lorenzo, Ferrante retained his unique way of dealing with his enemies: ‘He liked to have his opponents near him … dead and embalmed, dressed in the costume which they wore in their lifetime.’ But to widespread astonishment, Lorenzo’s gamble paid off. King Ferrante welcomed Lorenzo de’ Medici to his court, charmed by the daring young man who now proceeded to do all in his power to win over the king and the people of Naples. The galley slaves who had rowed Lorenzo’s ship from Pisa to Naples were granted their freedom, clothed in becoming outfits to replace their rags, and awarded with ten florins each to speed them on their way. Dowries were dispensed to families too poor to marry off their daughters, so that they could make good marriages. Setting himself up at the local residence of the Medici bank, Lorenzo began a round of lavish entertaining for the leading families of the city.

All this involved funds that neither he nor the Medici bank possessed. Years later, the Medici family would order all documents from these years to be destroyed, but one survived. This disclosed that at some unspecified date Lorenzo de’ Medici had embezzled no fewer than 74,948 florins from the Florentine exchequer, diverting it into his own personal account ‘without the sanction of any law and without authority’.²⁸ This colossal amount almost certainly dates from this period, and seems to have been used for two purposes. First and foremost, it funded Lorenzo’s lavish behaviour in Naples; and second, in the opinion of Raymond de Roover, the foremost authority on the Medici bank: ‘It is likely, therefore, that bankruptcy after the Pazzi conspiracy was diverted only by dipping into the public treasury.’²⁹

On 13 March 1480 Lorenzo de’ Medici returned to Florence from Naples as a conquering hero. Not only had he persuaded King Ferrante to sign a peace treaty with Florence, but in the interests of Italian unity even Sixtus IV had joined this alliance. Florence was saved, although its citizens remained unaware of precisely how, and precisely how much, they themselves had contributed to this near-miraculous turn of events.

Well understanding the fickleness of his popularity, Lorenzo decided the time was ripe for him to make a number of changes to the city’s constitution, which would consolidate his power, though in a largely covert manner. Just five weeks after his triumphant return from Naples, under the guise of reforming the constitution and the tax system in order to make them more just and efficient, Lorenzo suggested to the Council of One Hundred that they allow their powers to be superseded by a more streamlined Council of Seventy. Despite considerable opposition to this move, the Council of One Hundred eventually passed this constitutional ‘reform’ by a single vote. The Renaissance historian Lauro Martines justifiably asks, ‘Were bribes paid out, favours promised, or heads banged in private and in the corridors? We are unlikely ever to know.’ Lorenzo now appointed a large majority of ambitious citizens who were sympathetic to the Medici cause to sit on his new Council of Seventy. He had staged what ‘was tantamount … to a constitutionalcoup d’état.’ However, there were more than a few – even amongst the Medici faction and members of the Council of Seventy – who remained uneasy about jettisoning the last vestiges of democratic process. Indeed, over the coming years even the Council of Seventy would not always prove reliable in supporting Lorenzo’s intended policy. Lorenzo would then find it necessary to attend their meetings in person, his intimidating presence – and the fact that he could see for himself who was for, and who was against, his proposed measure – being enough to sway the vote.

Lorenzo could not afford to lose control of his brainchild: the powers of the Council of Seventy were formidable indeed. Its members were to remain in office for five years (this would later be extended to life). They would choose each new gonfaloniere and his Signoria. And they would also be the main ‘advisory’ council to the gonfaloniereand the Signoria with regard to the passing of laws, as well as on foreign-policy matters and internal affairs, especially in the criminal and financial sphere. The Council of Seventy had to all intents and purposes superseded the gonfaloniere as ruler of the city, with elections for this post (and indeed all senior posts in the government) being reduced to little more than a merry-go-round of Medici puppets, with Lorenzo himself in complete control. Even so, the elections were duly held, and the results duly recorded, as if everything was above board: it may have been a charade, but the appearance of democratic constitutional rule had to be maintained.

Lorenzo’s dash to Naples had been viewed by all as a valiant action, unprecedented in the treacherous world of contemporary Italian politics, and from now on the man who had selflessly risked his life in this noble fashion would become known throughout the land as Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the coming years he would play a leading role in keeping the peace in Italy; and his cultural influence would help spread the Renaissance through the Italian states. From now on, Florence’s great artists would be loaned out to exercise their talents in the service of Italian leaders, acting as cultural ambassadors, promoting the good name of their native city and establishing it as the cultural centre of Italy, the paragon of European civilisation. Thus, in 1481 Lorenzo despatched Botticelli to Rome to appease Sixtus IV; and a year later, Leonardo da Vinci would be sent to Milan to win over the new ruler, Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza. Meanwhile back home Lorenzo maintained civil peace and his own popularity with a calendar of spectacular events and festivals. The settings for these were designed by his finest artists, and the pageants performed at them were scripted by his most talented poets. He even put his talent to use on these occasions, composing humorous bawdy ballads. We now only have the words of these ballads, and snatches of the music that accompanied them; but it is not too difficult to imagine the knowing gestures of the actors as they sang their roles. Here, for instance, is a passage from Lorenzo’s ‘Song of the Peasants’:

We’ve all got cucumbers, and big ones too.³⁰

They may look old and knobbly to you,

But they’re great for opening up pipes that are closed.

Use both hands to pluck ’em, then expose

The top, peeling back the skin,

Open wide your mouths and suck ’em in.

 

The citizens may have delighted at such entertainments, yet unbeknown to them it was they who were actually paying for all this. Such was the city of Florence in May 1482, when an earnest young monk called Savonarola arrived to take up a post at the monastery of San Marco.

^fn1 Several first-hand sources attest to this talent. However, the mature Lorenzo was known to have a flattened nose, with no sense of smell, and a curiously high-pitched nasal voice. This discrepancy has been ascribed to a riding accident, perhaps in the course of jousting, which may have occurred some time during his teenage years.

^fn2 To place such sums into perspective: a moderately successful merchant in Florence could support a large household, including his entire family and servants, for 200 florins a year. Meanwhile a worker at one of the many dyeing mills in Florence could expect to earn the equivalent of 15 florins a year at most.

^fn3 As a result of Luca Pitti’s cowardly behaviour he would become an object of derision. Even the craftsmen working on his palace downed tools in disgust. His palace remained uncompleted in his lifetime, and he was despised throughout the city until his death four years later.

^fn4 Florentine florins and Venetian ducats were the most widely used currencies in Italy at the time. Exchange rates between the two fluctuated slightly over the years, but around this period 5 ducats was usually worth around 6 florins.

^fn5 condottiere: literally ‘conductor’ (i.e. leader or general) of his own army of mercenary soldiers, which he would contract or hire out under his leadership to whichever city-state was willing to pay best for their services. When the contract expired, he was free to offer his services elsewhere.

^fn6 Lorenzo was in fact twenty at the time, and most translations give this figure – yet the Italian version copied by Roscoe from a (now lost) original document, which he claimed was in Lorenzo’s hand, quite plainly stated ‘cioè di anni 21’.

^fn7 Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s full name includes the first name of his father, and I have used this form throughout to distinguish him from his cousin, the ruler of Florence, whose full name – including that of his father – would in fact have been Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici.

 

NOTES

1. In contemporary reports the year of Lorenzo’s birth is given as 1448; this is because the Florentine New Year did not begin until the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March. In this matter I have adhered to modern usage throughout.

2. ‘give way …’: letter from Lucrezia to her husband, Piero de’ Medici, dated 17 May 1446. See Ross, Early Medici (correspondence), p.50

3. ‘theatrical performances …’: see History of the Popes, ed. Antrobus, Vol. III, p.56, citing as his source the contemporary Giovanni de Pedrino, Cronica di Forli

4. ‘Lorenzo is learning …’: letter from Lucrezia de’ Medici to her husband Piero, 28 February 1458. See Ross, Early Medici, p.60

5. ‘by imitating …’: letter from Marsilio Ficino to Lorenzo de’ Medici, undated. See Ross, Early Medici, p.76

6. ‘to see him …’: Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine, Book VIII, Sec. 36

7. ‘act as a man …’ et sea.: letters from Piero de’ Medici to Lorenzo in Milan, May 1465. See Ross, Early Medici, pp.93–5

8. Figures for the alum trade as a whole and the papal revenues of this period vary considerably. Mine are, in the main, extrapolated from Jean Delameau, L’Alun de Rome XVe–XIXe siècle (Paris, 1962), as well as Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397–1494 (Harvard, 1963), who concentrates on the trading with Bruges and London. Two reliable facts indicate the overall size of the alum trade. In 1462, prior to the papal monopoly, the alum trade throughout Europe was in the order of 300,000 florins (Delameau p.19), while three years later the trade to Bruges and Venice combined amounted to 4,500 tons (Delameau, p.25).

9. ‘Put an end …’: letter from Piero de’ Medici to Lorenzo in Rome, March 1466. See Ross, Early Medici, pp.102–3

10. ‘I know nothing …’: see de Roover, Medici Bank, p.365, citing as the original source the Report of Angelo Tani in the collection Mediceo avanti il Principato (in the State Archives of Florence), Filza 82, No.163

11. ‘I know the fickle …’: this quotation appears in varying forms in many works; see, for instance, Hibbert, Medici, p.73. The original source is Cosimo’s friend, the contemporary Florentine humanist Vespasiano di Bisticci.

12. ‘Messer Dietisalvi …’ et seq.: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VII, Sec. 10

13. ‘When I see …’: Lorenzo de’ Medici, Sonnet V, opening ‘Lasso a me! …’ see The Autobiography of Lorenzo de’ Medici The Magnificent, trans. James Wyatt Cook (New York, 1995), pp.80–2. This has the Italian and English versions on facing pages: I have not adhered to Cook’s translation.

14. ‘Lucretia [sic] was the mistress …’: see Roscoe, Lorenzo, p.74

15. ‘Although neither …’: cited in Cecilia M. Ady, Lorenzo dei Medici and Renaissance Italy (London, 1960), p.29. A copy of the few remaining pages of Lorenzo’s Ricordi can be seen in the Florentine archives (Publica Liberia Magliabechiana). An Italian version, which differs slightly from this, can be found in Roscoe, Lorenzo, Appendix XI pp.464–7. Roscoe claims that he copied this from a version in Lorenzo’s hand, which is now lost. For an English version, see Ross; Early Medici, pp.150–6. The Ricordi breaks off on 1 March 1485 (in fact, 1484 in the manuscript, which adhered to the ancient Florentine year that ended on 25 March).

16. ‘good height’ et seq.: letter from Lucrezia de’ Medici to her husband Piero, dated ‘Rome 27 March 1467’. See Ross, Early Medici, p.108

17. ‘he who does not …’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, Book VII, Sec. 11

18. ‘On the second day …’: Lorenzo, Ricordi. See Roscoe, Lorenzo, Appendix XI, p.466

19. ‘I would like …’: collation of letters written 1–4 December 1469 by Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence to Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan – cited in Miles J. Unger, Magnifico: Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici (New York, 2008), pp.168–9

20. ‘was greatly mourned …’: Lorenzo, Ricordi. See Roscoe, Lorenzo, Appendix XI, p.466

21. ‘in as civil …’: cited in Tim Parks, Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (London, 2006), p.199

22. ‘LAU.R.MED’: cited in F.W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence(Baltimore, 2004), p.146

23. ‘because none could …’: Angelo Poliziano, Stanze Cominciate per la Giostra di Giuliano de’ Medici (Turin, 1954)

24. ‘Lorenzo, heady with youth …’: Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine, Book VIII, Sec. 3

25. ‘With regard to this …’: ibid., Book VIII, Sec. 2

26. ‘Therefore, with the blessing …’: see Ross, Early Medici, p.229

27. ‘embittered and darkened …’ et seq.: Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of Renaissance Italy, trans. S. Middlemore (London, 1990), pp.40–1

28. ‘without the sanction of …’: document found amongst the Strozzi papers (Carte Strozziane Series I, No. 10, fols 190–1), cited in de Roover, Medici Bank, p.367

29. ‘It is likely …’: ibid.

30. ‘We’ve all got cucumbers …’: Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere, ed. A. Simioni (Bari, 1914), Vol. II, Canti Carnascialeschi, p.247

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] ‘Il Magnifico’ was in fact a courtesy title, frequently used to address leaders, heads of important families and even those in charge of successful commercial enterprises. For instance, when the manager of the Medici bank in Rome wrote to the head of the Medici bank in Florence, he would address him as ‘magnifico’. In English, the loose contemporary equivalent would have been ‘my lord’, as often appears in Shakespeare’s plays. However, in the case of Lorenzo the Magnificent the title seems to have taken on a more formal, admirable quality. Many of the citizens of Florence and elsewhere had begun to know him as ‘il Magnifico’ long before his death. In such fashion, this title had become conventionalised in the familiar medieval manner. During this era nicknames assigned on account of personal characteristics often took on a more permanent aspect – much as Lorenzo’s father had been called Piero the Gouty, and earlier kings of France had gone down in history as Louis the Quarreller or Charles the Mad.

[2] Poliziano uses the Latin word laurus, as in the laurel wreath with which poets were crowned in classical times, but this is also intended as a loose pun on Lorenzo.