Part 15

Your Magnificence commanded me to send you news of your Magnificent Lorenzo every eight days. I now begin to recount the first week. As you will have heard from Francesco Nori and Gugliemo de’ Pazzi, after leaving you in the early morning we arrived at Prato during the cool. He dined with the Protonotary of the Medici, together with the Podestà of the place, his own people and Giuliano. There was some wind when we left about the 20th hour [4 P.M.], and he reached Pistoja on Friday evening, being met by several citizens of the town. He dismounted at the Bishop’s palace, as a messenger had said that Monsignore expected him. Having saluted the Bishop he went, while the luggage was being unloaded, to visit the two governors (_Rettori_), the Captain and the Podestà of the town, who were all invited by the Bishop to keep him company at supper. Four citizens came on behalf of the Priors to excuse themselves in the name of the townspeople, that on account of his unexpected arrival they had not, &c. &c., and begged him with affectionate words that on his return, &c. On Saturday he mounted at nine in the morning, and dined at Pescia with the governor, Baptista Nasi, there being no better inn; the heads of the Commune came to pay their respects, and presented wine, marzipan (cakes made with sweet almonds), and corn, and some private citizens did the same. After resting in the house of the Grand Master of Altopascio, who had accompanied him for dinner, he left at 20 of the clock, and met several chief citizens who had come to do him honour in their houses. Passing through Lucca at 23 of the clock, he dismounted at the inn della Corona,[142] outside the town on the Pisan road, intending to leave the next morning (Sunday). But after supper came six citizens of Lucca, with torches and servants of the Signoria, and finding Lorenzo on the square in the cool receiving visits from private acquaintances Paolo Trenta and Piero Guidiccioni addressed him, complaining that he had not deigned to dismount in a city where he was so welcome and had such influence, but had gone outside, and then in a long oration they prayed him to wait until the Signoria had, &c. &c. Lorenzo replied that to see them, whom he reverenced as fathers, gave him patience to undertake these visits, and perceiving that he was expected to reply in person he would put off his departure until after dinner, and next morning would come and demonstrate his affection towards the Signoria. Messer Niccolò da Noceto, Paolo di Poggio, and many other citizens came on Sunday morning to fetch him, and placing him first in their midst, and then Bernardo Rucellai, and then the Chancellor, they accompanied him to mass in the chapel of the Volto Santo, and then to the Signoria, where he spoke so fluently and so well that he drew to himself the hearts of all the people. When he returned presents began to arrive, torches, large and small, marzipan, boxes of sweetmeats, and wine. He thanked, bestowed gifts, kept a few of the gentlemen to dinner, spread out his silver, and as some showed symptoms of moving the wind having risen, he left before the time fixed; yet many of the citizens rode after him, and insisted on accompanying him and talking much. On the way he rested at Chiesa, Mazzarosa, and Capezzano, all very pretty places. At Pietrasanta he arrived at 23 of the clock, and lodged at the inn of the Campana outside, for it is an untrustworthy town; S. George had not much faith in S. Zita.[143] But the governor, who is a gentleman from Fiesco, sent to offer to pay his respects, and to do anything in his power. He saw him, thanked, and then, accompanied by all those men who could not take their eyes off him, supped with some of the citizens under an arbour; the place is beautiful with the sea in front and fertile plains behind. At 8 of the clock he mounted and rode sixteen miles most gaily. Under Monte Tignoso he met an envoy of the Magnificent Marquess of Fosdinovo, who invited him in the name of his master, and at Lavenza, or a little before reaching Luni, the Marquess Gabriello himself, who conducted him to his house at Sarzana. On dismounting he visited the governor who rules here for the Florentines, then we dined, and after resting a little went to see Sarzanella, which seen from the castle seemed to him a good purchase.[144] When he had supped he went to visit Messer Francesco, ducal Cameriere, who lives out of the town, and finding him ill provided for supper, he supplied him bountifully. To-morrow he goes to dine at Villa Franca, and in the evening will be at Pontremoli. The journey has been so arranged that he will be at Milan on Saturday, and after fulfilling his Magnificent father’s commission he will return at once to you who are the only one he regrets being absent from. He is very well and gay, and so is Bernardo.[145] Tell Nannina this. Our party is as when we left all good friends and obedient; we have had no drawbacks, for not even a nail is wanting. We have had no delays or frauds. All goes well and happily: please God we shall find you the same, to whom we all commend ourselves.--The 18th day of July 1469.[146]

Lorenzo de’ Medici _to his wife_ Clarice

I have arrived here safely and am well. I am sure this will please thee more than any other news save that of my return, judging by my own feelings of longing for thee and for home. Make much of Piero, Mona Contessina, and Mona Lucrezia; I shall hasten to finish here and return to thee, for it seems to me a thousand years since I saw thee. Pray to God for me, and if thou wantest aught from here let me know, so be I have not already left Milan.--July 22, 1469.

Thy Lorenzo de’ Medici.[147]

In Lorenzo’s _Ricordi_ he writes: “In the month of July MCDLXIX I went to Milan at the request of the most illustrious Duke Galeazzo to stand godfather, as proxy for Piero our father, to his first-born child. I was received with much honour, more so than the others who came for the same purpose, although they were persons more worthy than I. We paid our duty to the Duchess by presenting her with a necklace of gold with a large diamond, which cost near 2000 ducats. The consequence was that the said Lord desired that I should stand godfather to all his children.”[148]

Lorenzo de’ Medici, _from Monza_, _to his father_ Piero _in Florence_

Being here at Monza with His Excellency, he wishes me to write to you about sending aid to Arimino, and begs you to arrange that Signor Roberto [Malatesta] with his troop should join the Duke of Urbino. As I know that Messer Luigi is writing fully about this I say no more, and all being in his hands I should not have mentioned it but for His Lordship’s orders. You will see what I write to Sagromora about being careful of your own person, so that nothing unforeseen should happen. It is well to give ear to all, though I do not think the danger is as great as it seems. Still it is better to be prudent, and to imagine danger may be greater than it really is.

I have taken leave of His Excellency, and this evening go to Milan, where I shall spend all to-morrow. On Monday, if it pleases God, I leave by way of Genoa, as after talking to His Lordship he thought it a good plan. I expect to stay two or three days in Genoa and to be with you on the 13th or at the latest the 14th of August. Meanwhile I commend myself to you.--Moncia [Monza], July 28, 1469.

Your Lorenzo.[149]

In the autumn of 1469 Piero de’ Medici was very ill, partly no doubt from anxiety about the state of Florence, “grievously troubled by her own citizens.” He summoned the chief burghers to his bedside, reproached them in the bitter words cited by Machiavelli, and threatened that he would cause them to repent. Fair words in plenty they gave him, but never changed their evil courses. “Whereupon,” continues Machiavelli, “Piero called Agnolo Acciaiuoli secretly to Caffagiuolo and conferred at length with him about the condition of the city. There is no doubt that had he not been prevented by death he would have reinstated all those who had been banished in order to put a stop to the robbery of the others. But death put an end to these most praiseworthy intentions. Tormented by increasing infirmity and anguish of mind, he died in the fifty-third year of his age. His country could not fully recognise his worth and his goodness, because until nearly the end of his life he was associated with his father Cosimo, and the few years during which he survived him were passed in civil contests and constant illness.” Piero died at Careggi on December 2, 1469, and was buried in S. Lorenzo, near his father.

[Illustration: LORENZO DI PIERO DE’ MEDICI.

_In the Museo Giovio (Villa Soave, Como)._]

FOOTNOTES:

[87] _Delle Istorie Fiorentine_, Niccolò Machiavelli, pp. 410 _et seq._ Milano, 1823.

[88] _Cosmi Vita_, op. cit. ii. 286.

[89] This document is undated, but was in all probability given in 1464.

[90] _Laurentii Medicis Magnifici Vita_, Angelo Fabronio, ii. 117. Pisis, 1784.

[91] Palatina Codex 204. The volume bound in white vellum contains 622 pages. There is no title-page. Lorenzo’s letter occupies the first six and a half pages, and without any division or new paragraph follows the Life of Dante by Boccaccio, in the same handwriting. At page 63 the writing changes and continues the same for forty pages. The poems were evidently copied by various scribes, as the writing so often differs.

[92] Codex 2723. A far smaller volume in modern wooden binding. The title-page is: _Rime del Poliziano, di Lorenzo de’ Medici, di Dante e d’altri_. The famous letter begins on page 71 (really 142, as only the right-hand page is numbered) and above it is written in a different and more modern hand in red ink, _Epistola di M. Angelo Poliziano al S. Federigo insieme con raccolto volgare mandatogli dal Magco. Lorenzo_. The same scribe has written the names of the various poets in the margin of the letter where they are mentioned in red ink. The Life of Dante by Boccaccio and many of the poems that are in the Palatina Codex are wanting. At page 78 (_i.e._ 156) the handwriting changes, and at the end of the volume is inserted a Latin autograph letter from Poliziano to Philippu Beroaldus. In 1814 the Abbate Vincenzo Nannucci and Luigi Ciampolini published a collection of Poliziano’s poems and at the end printed Lorenzo’s letter, attributing it to Poliziano. They were evidently misled by the anonymous annotator of this codex. The attribution to Poliziano is absurd, as he was then barely fourteen years of age, and only knew Lorenzo in 1470, when he sent him a translation of part of the Iliad (see p. 157).

[93] _Renaissance in Italy_, J. A. Symonds, iv. 323. Smith, Elder, & Co., London, 1898.

[94] Manager of the Medici Bank at Milan.

[95] Ippolita Maria, daughter of Francesco Sforza, was married by proxy to the Duke of Calabria, eldest son of King Ferrante of Naples.

[96] Gugliemo de’ Pazzi, husband of Piero’s daughter Bianca.

[97] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xx. No. 12.

[98] The address is torn, and there only remains:

... entio de Medicis ... ediolani.

(_Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza. 20, No. 157.)

[99] Don Federigo and his sister-in-law, Ippolita Maria.

[100] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xx. No. 15.

[101] A long balustrade of stone raised several feet above the Piazza, with steps leading up to it, which once occupied the front of the Palazzo Vecchio to the left of the door. The erection was decreed on May 27, 1323, of “_unam nobilem, pulchram et decentem arengheriam, in muris seu juxta muros Palatii Populi in eo loco seu parte dicti palati ubi videbitur officia dominorum priorum_.”

[102] Luigi Pulci was born in Florence on August 15, 1432, of Jacopo Pulci and Brigida de’ Bardi. His brothers Luca and Bernardo were also poets. and Bernardo’s wife Antonia was a poetess of some repute. Luca went into trade but failed, and died in gaol in 1470, leaving his widow and children dependent on his brothers. Luigi, an intimate friend of the Medici family, wrote _La Giostra_ (sometimes attributed to his brother Luca) to celebrate the tournament held by Lorenzo de’ Medici in honour of the marriage of Braccio Martelli, but really of Lucrezia Donati just before his marriage with Clarice Orsini. The poem _Driades_ was first published under the pseudonym of Lucio Pulcro in Florence in 1479, but the later editions bear his name. His greatest work, less read than it deserves, _Morgante Maggiore_, was, as Mr. Armstrong says, a growth rather than a composition. Stanzas were recited at table, and Lucrezia de’ Medici urged him to collect them into an epic poem. Besides being a poet, Luigi Pulci was an acute and clever politician, often employed by Lorenzo in missions to foreign courts. He died in 1484, probably at Padua whilst on the road to Venice.

[103] _Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo il Magnifico_, Nelle Nozze della Volpe Zambrini, p. 6. Salvatore Bonghi, Lucca, 1868.

[104] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 47.

[105] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 49.

[106] Ibid., ii. 36.

[107] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 36.

[108] Probably Tanai, son of Vieri de’ Medici.

[109] _Lettere di Luigi Pulci_, op. cit., p. 26. The _Palle_ are the balls in the Medici arms, and the people saluted the Medici by shouting “_Palle, Palle_.”

[110] Her own daughters.

[111] _Tre Letter di Lucrezia Tornabuoni a Piero de’ Medici_, Ricordo di Nozze, Cesare Guasti. Firenze, 1859.

[112] Gentile Becchi, tutor to Lorenzo and Giuliano, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo.

[113] _Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Donna di Piero de’ Medici_, Studio da G. Levantini-Pieroni. Firenze, 1888.

[114] _Arch. Med. Miscellanea_, p. 6.

[115] Illegible.

[116] _Lucrezia Tornabuoni_, &c., _op. cit._

[117] Ibid., Filza lxxx.

[118] Daughter of Agnolo Acciaiuoli, married to Pier Francesco de’ Medici.

[119] _Archivio_, &c., Filza xxi. No. 55.

[120] _Lucrezia Tornabuoni_, &c., _op. cit._

[121] Luigi Pulci’s brother.

[122] In the Mugello where Luigi Pulci owned a small property.

[123] _Lettere di Luigi Pulci_, op. cit. 31.

[124] Ibid.

[125] _Tre Lettere di Lucrezia_, &c., _op. cit._

[126] _Tre Lettere di Lucrezia Tornabuoni_, op. cit.

[127] _La Fidanzata di Lorenzo de’ Medici_, per nozze Bondi-Levi. Isidoro Del Lungo, 8th July 1897.

[128] _La Giostra di Lorenzo de’ Medici_, erroneously attributed by many writers to his brother Luca.

[129] _Tre Lettere di Lucrezia_, &c., _op. cit._ Rinaldo Orsini was afterwards Archbishop of Florence.

[130] Ibid.

[131] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, &c., vol. ii. p. 39.

[132] A Tuscan white wine still much prized.

[133] Donatello’s David. It was placed in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio after the expulsion of Piero de’ Medici in 1494 and is now in the Bargello.

[134] _Tela di Renza_, or _Rensa_, so-called because it came from Rheims in France.

[135] The illegitimate son of Cosimo, canon of the cathedral of Florence.

[136] Gentile Becchi of Urbino, tutor to Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo.

[137] _Delle Nozze di Lorenzo de’ Medici con Clarice Orsini nel 1469. Informazione di Piero Parenti Fiorentino_, per le Nozze di Florestano ed Elisa dei Conti di Larderel. In Firenze, 1870.

[138] _Donne Medicee avanti il Principato_, Berta Felice, Rassegna Nazionale.

[139] A. Fabronio, _Laurentii Medicis Magnifici Vita_, Annotationes et Monumenta, p. 45. Pisis, 1784.

In _Memoirs of Dukes of Urbino_, by J. Dennistoun, vol. i. p. 186, is the following passage: “Federigo’s [of Urbino] condotta in the papal service had just expired, leaving him free to consult the dictates of policy, his views as to which were stated in an appeal to Pietro de’ Medici on behalf of Rimini, in words which may almost be deemed prophetic. ‘I am constrained to believe that the Pontiff and the Venetian Signory intend to occupy Rimini and all Romagna, and eventually Bologna too. Rimini once lost, the rest will readily follow, and your lordship and the league may easily suppose where Bologna and Imola would then be. Those who will not resist such projects at first may have afterwards to pay a hundredfold, and God grant that it be to good purpose.’” Edited by Edward Hutton. John Lane, London, 1909.

It is a curious coincidence that Bentivoglio and Federigo of Urbino should use almost identical words, unless Dennistoun has made a mistake about the writer.

[140] _Non fare tante melarancie_ (Not make so many oranges): an old proverb.

[141] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Avi, No. i. 474.

[142] The inn still exists.

[143] S. George is the patron saint of Pietrasanta, S. Zita a favourite saint in Lucca.

[144] Sarzana and Sarzanella had been bought the year before by Piero de’ Medici from Lodovico di Campo Fregoso. They were valuable to Florence as Sarzana commanded the direct road from Milan to Florence which near there lay between the mountains and the sea. An invasion from the north was thus rendered difficult, while an attack on Lucca could be carried out without fear of her allies being able to come swiftly to her help. Sarzanella, the fine fortress built by the great Lucchese Ghibelline, Castruccio Castrocane, in its turn commanded Sarzana.

[145] Bernardo Rucellai, husband of Lorenzo’s sister Nannina.

[146] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 54.

[147] Ibid., ii. 56.

[148] See p. 153, Lorenzo’s _Ricordi_.

[149] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza. vii. No. 411.

LORENZO DI PIERO DE’ MEDICI

(1450-1492)

Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose wonderful personality still has the power to excite bitter hatred and an almost passionate admiration, was a marvellously many-sided man. Marsilio Ficino said he possessed the three endowments called “graces” by Orpheus, splendour, light-heartedness, and rejuvenescence--splendour of intellect, light-heartedness in resolution, and a continual renewal of youth in person and in fortune. He was not twenty-one when his father died, worn out by bodily suffering, but Lorenzo had been his right hand for years, had been sent to represent him at foreign courts, and had seen more of the world than most men of double his age. He and his younger brother Giuliano received the education of princes rather than of the sons of a merchant. Gentile Becchi of Urbino, a man of unblemished life and considerable learning, was their tutor, Landino taught them Italian literature, Argyropoulos Greek, and Marsilio Ficino Platonic philosophy. They had also evidently been taught good manners, as Cambi, who never misses an opportunity to decry the Medici, tells us that when Lorenzo was with a citizen older than himself he always gave him the place of honour on his right. Above all, the two lads had the example and the teaching of their mother Lucrezia, a woman of strong good sense and genuine piety, who possessed a sunny nature, that rare gift humour, and a marked poetical temperament. From early childhood she sent Lorenzo to the meetings of the confraternity of S. Paolo, where men met for vigil and prayer, and after the services Messer Gentile by her orders made him distribute alms to the poor. When the boy was thirteen Gentile wrote to his father: “Lorenzo is well, your absence is ever before him. We are well advanced in Ovid and also in Justinian, four books of history and fables. You need not ask how he delights in these studies. His conduct is excellent, and he is very obedient.”

After Piero’s death Lucrezia, who had always been her husband’s trusted helpmate, became the counsellor to whom Lorenzo turned for help, consolation, and advice. He also had the good fortune to have a wise and capable man by his side, Tommaso Soderini, husband of his mother’s sister, Dianora Tornabuoni. Soderini’s influence was considerable, and he used it to induce his fellow-citizens to confirm Lorenzo in the pre-eminent though entirely unofficial position held by his grandfather and his father. There was hardly a dissentient voice when the chief citizens of Florence came to the Medici palace and begged him to take charge of the city as they had done.

Niccolò Valori describes Lorenzo as “above the common stature, with broad shoulders, solidly built, robust, and second to none in agility. Although nature had acted towards him like a stepmother with regard to his personal appearance, in all things connected with the mind she had been a loving mother. His complexion was swarthy, and although his face was not handsome, it was so full of dignity as to command respect. He was short-sighted, his nose was flattened, and he had no sense of smell. This did not trouble him. He was wont to say that he was grateful to nature, disagreeable things being more common than agreeable ones to so delicate a sense.”

Lorenzo was much inferior to his grandfather Cosimo in commercial talent, but he was a genius, and as Symonds writes, “possessed of one of those rare natures, fitted to comprehend all knowledge and to sympathise with the most diverse forms of life. While he never for a moment relaxed his hold on politics, among philosophers he passed as a sage, among men of letters for an original and graceful poet, among scholars for a Grecian, sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom, among artists for an amateur gifted with refined discernment and consummate taste. Pleasure-seekers knew in him the libertine, who jousted with the boldest, danced and masqueraded with the merriest, sought adventures in the streets at night, and joined the people in their May-day games and Carnival festivities. The pious extolled him as an author of devotional lauds and mystery plays, a profound theologian, a critic of sermons. He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims, as good a judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen.”[150]