Part 33

Dearest Uncle,--On Saturday last the 7th I wrote in answer to your letter giving you full accounts of our private affairs, of the house, and of everything, which I conclude you received. Giannotto was too busy to write, and probably will not even have time to-day, being so occupied with that business you know of; it is in danger in consequence of the sad event of which you have heard. I did not write to you before on account of the universal grief and tribulation, so that not only writing but even thinking about it was difficult. It is true that on Saturday I wrote you word that the Magnificent Lorenzo was at Careggi for change of air, not well, and in pain it was said. In the evening after my letter had gone it was reported that he had a slight fainting fit, but no one was alarmed, chiefly because of that accursed Maestro Piero Leoni of Spoleto, who to the very last insisted that he could not die of that malady. On Saturday arrived the doctor from Milan, who at once saw that he had been wrongly treated, and prepared many remedies, but it was too late. He ought to have had cold things and he was given hot. Finally on Sunday, after the fourth hour of night, according to the will of Him who rules the world, he quitted this life in the flower of his age, and most assuredly far too soon, to the great and bitter sorrow of the whole city; and with every reason, for no doubt we have lost the splendour not only of Tuscany but of all Italy. Every day we shall learn more what we have lost. As yet it cannot be calculated, but time will show.

The other terrible event is the insane death of Maestro Piero Leoni, who when he saw his lying science had deceived him, which some say was allied to necromancy, went out of his mind, and was taken to the house of the Martelli near by, that is to say at S. Gervasio, where he was well treated, and passed the night full of melancholy and without speaking or answering any one. In the early morning he called for a towel and washed his face at a well, and asked a peasant how deep the water was. He was left leaning against the edge, and a short time afterwards a woman went to draw water, and found him head downwards in the well; half of his body was above water. She gave the alarm, and then was seen the miserable end of a man of such erudition who had used his science ill.

This created a great stir among the people who were already much troubled by what had happened. But when it was proved that madness alone had impelled the deed accusations made by idle tongues ceased, and people said it served him right that he should have taken his own life. There was no bruise or hurt on the handsome body, and to those who saw, it was a sad spectacle. For a day it lay there by the well, and was then buried in a field like those who elect to die thus.

On Monday evening at one of the clock [an hour after sundown] the body of Lorenzo was borne by the Company of the Magi into the sacristy of S. Lorenzo in the coffin wherein it had been brought from Careggi the night before, with many torches and tapers. The next day, that is Tuesday, the 10th, the funeral took place without much pomp, as had always been the custom of their ancestors, without banners. There were but three Orders of friars and one of priests; in truth, great pomp could not be shown, for the greatest splendour would have been small for such a man. But wonderful was the number of citizens and nobles, in long black robes touching the ground, who came to do him honour; it was a fine spectacle, and touching to see such manifest signs of sadness and of sorrow.

The visits to Piero have been many of the whole city, and by common accord all agree in maintaining him in the position of his father. As a commencement a motion was carried by acclamation in the Council which is to be published on Monday, declaring that Piero is to be one of the Seventy in his father’s place, and is eligible for all offices, the Council of Eight, the Twelve procurators, the Accopiatori, the Operai of the Palace, and so on, which the Magnificent Lorenzo filled or might have filled, and this notwithstanding his being under age. It was a great thing and carried unanimously, and all united together to do him honour with the hope that he will be a worthy heir of all his father’s virtues.

Lorenzo lived forty-three years three months and six days, having been born on January 2, 1448.[405] He died so nobly and with such patience, understanding, and reverence towards God, as the most religious man and divine soul could show; with such holy words on his lips that he seemed another S. Jerome. God be merciful to him.--Florence, April 14, 1492. Your servant,

Bartolommeo Dei.[406]

Lorenzo was buried by the side of his brother Giuliano under the sarcophagus fashioned by Verrocchio for Cosimo and Piero in the Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, but in 1559 the coffins were removed and placed in a vault under the statue of the Madonna by Michelangelo in the New Sacristy. No epitaph, not even his name, marks the spot where the Magnificent Lorenzo lies. King Ferrante’s words when he heard of his death were prophetic: “This man has lived long enough for his own immortal fame, but not for Italy. God grant that now he is dead men may not attempt that which they dared not do while he was alive.”

FOOTNOTES:

[150] _Renaissance in Italy_, J. A. Symonds, ii. 232. Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1897.

[151] To obtain funds for the exchequer exhausted by the war against Milan in 1426 recourse was had to a curious financial scheme. A _Monte_, or special fund, was created for granting marriage portions to young men and maidens. Every contributor had the right to name a male or female child, to whom at the expiration of fifteen years a sum five times that subscribed was paid when they married. Should the nominee die the money became the property of the _Monte_. As far as I understand these _Monti_ gradually developed into State pawnbrokers’ establishments.

[152] _Istorie di Giovanni Cambi_, Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani, xxi. 64. Firenze, 1785.

[153] I have followed the Ashburnham Codex, now in the Laurentian Library, published by Sigr. Gugliemo Volpi in the _Atti della R. Academia della Crusca_, 1907-1908. There the poem has only twenty octaves instead of fifty, and I think most people will agree that this is the real version and that the other mentioning _quella trista Becca_, evidently alluding to Luigi Pulci’s poem _La Becca di Dicomano_, written later in imitation of Lorenzo’s poem _Nencia_, has interpolations by an inferior hand. Sigr. Volpi has published the poem in a small pamphlet, _Un Nuovo Testo della Nencia_, da G. Volpi. Tipografia Gallileiana, Firenze, 1908.

[154] Heinrich Isaak, a Bohemian composer.

[155] It is probable that the French ambassadors who so often came to Florence found their journey was profitable. This was certainly the case with Philippe de Comines. See p. 312.

[156] _A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome_, by M. Creighton, D.D. Oxon. and Cam., Lord Bishop of London, iv. 162. Longmans, Green & Co., 1897.

[157] _Istorie di Firenze_, Marchese Gino Capponi.

[158] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza 63.

[159] Marsuppini.

[160] _Florentia_, Isidoro del Lungo, p. 119.

[161] Agnolo Poliziano, born in 1454, was the son of Benedetto de’ Cini, commonly called Ambrogini, a lawyer. He dropped his family name and took that of Poliziano from his native town Montepulciano (Mons Politianus). His father was murdered when he was a child of eight and he was sent to Florence to live with an uncle, Cino di Mattei, a poor man who lived near Piazza S. Spirito in Via Saturno. Poliziano studied rhetoric under Cristofero, Landino, and Andronico, philosophy under Argyropoulos and Marsilio Ficino, in the Florentine Studio from his fifteenth to his twentieth year. Lorenzo de’ Medici, after reading his translation of Homer, provided for his education, and he became one of Lorenzo’s most intimate friends, tutor to his children and his librarian. Poliziano took his degree as Doctor of Law, and entering the Church was made a Canon of the cathedral of Florence. He wrote scholia and notes to Ovid, Catullus, Statius, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and the _Historicæ Augustæ_; translated the History of Herodian, the Manuel of Epictetus, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, some Dialogues of Plato, and other works from Greek into Latin. His _Miscellanea_, published in Florence in 1489, were arranged for the press at Lorenzo’s request. Poliziano’s Italian poetry, particularly the _Stanze per la Giostra_, or Tournament, of Giuliano de’ Medici is beautiful, and his _Sylvæ_, odes, epigrams, and other short Latin poems are celebrated. He also wrote _Panepistemon_, a category of the various branches of knowledge, and when quite a lad the _Orfeo_, one of the earliest Italian operas. So popular was the _Orfeo_ that it was printed either separately or with the _Stanze_ twenty times between 1494 and 1541, and thirteen times between 1541 and 1565. For the use of the common people a redaction in octave stanzas was published in Florence in 1558 called _La Historia e Favola d’Orfeo alla dolce lira_. The last reprint was in 1860.

[162] Horses Lorenzo may have seen when he was at Naples in 1468.

[163] Bernardo and Luca were brothers of Luigi Pulci.

[164] Brother-in-law of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

[165] _Lettere di Luigi Pulci_, op. cit. 47.

[166] _Donne Medicee_, op. cit.

[167] A castle and townlet belonging to the Orsini.

[168] Directors of feasts. _Festaiuoli_ still go about in the villages in Tuscany to collect money for processions and church festivals.

[169] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, &c., _op. cit._ ii. 27.

[170] This and the letters from the Cardinal of Pavia (pp. 167-171) relate to Lorenzo’s desire that his brother Giuliano should be created a cardinal in order to have a voice in the Consistory. What he was unable to achieve for his brother he afterwards obtained for his son Giovanni.

[171] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 62.

[172] The _catasto_ of 1427 was a register or list of all who were bound to pay taxes to the Commune of Florence. It runs: “1. Ten officials are to be appointed to compile the register. 2. All families liable to be taxed are to be inscribed in four books; their number, ages, health, capacity, and occupation. 3. All their possessions, movable and immovable, are to be inscribed, whether within the confines of the State or abroad, monies in existence, or what is owing to them, their slaves and whatever belongs to them. 4. In the same way other

## partial _catasti_ shall be drawn up, as of peasants, universities, and

guilds, foreigners and other persons not generally liable to be taxed. 5. The income of each separate possession is to be noted, so that the capital value may be ascertained, and 100 florins shall be taken as the valuation for every 7 florins of income. 6. From such valuation shall be deducted the inherent expenses, rent of houses, of shops, the price of horses for personal use, and 2 florins per head. 7. The net income being thus reduced, 10 golden soldi are to be paid on every 100 golden florins, equal to the tenth part of a percentage at 5 per cent. 8. On every person deducted as above, between eighteen years of age and sixty, an arbitrary tax shall be imposed, not to exceed 2 florins. 9. It is left to the discretion of the officials, in case no surplus remains after the above deductions, to impose a tax to be arranged with the persons taxed. 10. Whoso declares a false income shall have his possessions confiscated. 11. Should any contention arise the decision of the officials is final; they may not diminish the amount of the tax, save for the repayment of a dower, until the new _catasto_, without the approbation of the Great Council, but they may augment it. 12. The _catasto_ is to be corrected and compiled anew every three years. 13. All taxes are henceforward to be regulated by the _catasto_.” _Osservatore Fiorentino_, i. 91. Signor A. Rabbini, _Dell’ accertamento catastale_, &c., defines the _catasto_ as at present existing as “a public document serving as an absolutely legal and fundamental base for the imposition of taxes on landed property and a guide in judicial or administrative procedure involving the settlement of questions regarding landed property and the rights and obligations of the owners thereof.”

[173] Luca Landucci in his Diary (1450-1516) notes: “On June 18, 1472, came a horseman with the olive branch [from Volterra] announcing the capitulation; the people and their property to be respected. Great was the rejoicing. But when we entered the city one of their officers, a Venetian, shouted “Pillage,” and our men began to pillage and we could not stop them or observe the articles of capitulation. The Count Federigo d’Urbino caused the Venetian and a Sienese to be hung.” _Diario Fiorentino di Luca Landucci._ Firenze, 1883. See also _La Vita Italiano nel Rinascimenta, Lorenzo de’ Medici_, E. Masi, i. 31. Milano, 1893.

[174] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 63.

[175] Francesco Filelfo, born at Tolentino in 1398, was a famous classical scholar. He studied at Padua, was sent as Secretary of Legation to Constantinople by the Signoria of Venice, and afterwards taught Greek in Venice, Bologna, Florence, &c. When Cosimo de’ Medici was imprisoned he urged the Signoria to put him to death and poured out abominable accusations against him and his friends in the _Book of Exile_. Poggio replied, accusing Filelfo of the most heinous crimes, and the war of words went on for years. When Cosimo returned to Florence Filelfo fled to Milan and allied himself with Albizzi and the other exiles, but soon made abject advances to Cosimo, which were treated with silent disdain. After Cosimo’s death he sent humble letters to Lorenzo and his brother and wrote _Cosmias_, a poem in praise of the man he had abused. Lorenzo at length allowed him to return to Florence where he died in 1481. He was mean, arrogant, and intensely vain.

[176] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 75.

[177] Filippo de’ Medici.

[178] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 58.

[179] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 59.

[180] The prison at Florence.

[181] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxix. No. 675.

[182] Lorenzo’s sister married to Gugliemo de’ Pazzi.

[183] A piece torn out of the letter.

[184] Lorenzo’s sister married to Bernardo Rucellai.

[185] Probably a slave.

[186] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxix. No. 822.

[187] Born in Florence of poor parents named della Badessa, Matteo, as was often done in the fifteenth century, adopted his father’s Christian name and became Matteo Franco. As a lad he entered the church, and some of his first efforts in poetry are sonnets addressed to the Archbishop of Florence begging in the name of S. Peter for a cloak. He made friends with Angelo Poliziano who probably introduced him to the Medici. Witty, clever, kind-hearted, Matteo soon became indispensable to Lorenzo, who speaks of him as “among the first and best-loved creatures of my house.” He repaid Lorenzo’s affection tenfold by his devotion to his daughter Maddalena, whom he accompanied to Rome when she married Francesco Cibo. Even Lorenzo’s wife Clarice, always ill at ease among her husband’s brilliant friends and at first suspicious of Matteo’s tongue, soon discovered his many excellent qualities, and he became her treasurer, her almoner, and at length her attorney. He taught all Lorenzo’s children to read, and in one of his sonnets feelingly describes the trouble they gave him. Until lately it was supposed that Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco were really friends, and only wrote the ferocious and biting sonnets which amused all Florence to each other to amuse Lorenzo, but Signor Volpi proves, I think, that their animosity was real and that Matteo often had the best in the war of words.

[188] Vermicelli.

[189] _Un Cortigiano di Lorenzo il Magnifico_, G. Volpi, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, xvii. fasc. 50-51.

[190] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxx. No. 394.

[191] _Sylvia hortensis_ or garden warbler.

[192] A famous cook.

[193] A sweet dish.

[194] _Michelangelo Buonarroti, Quellen und Forschungen zu seiner Geschichte und Kunst_, Karl Frey, i. 77. Berlin, 1907. Bertoldo di Giovanni was born between 1410-1420, and two days after his death Bartolommeo Dati wrote: “Bertoldo, an admirable sculptor and medallist, who made many fine works and was always with the Magnificent Lorenzo, has died after two days’ illness at Poggio a Caiano (December 28, 1491). He is a great loss and much regretted by Lorenzo, for in all Tuscany and perhaps in all Italy there is none other of such talent and worth.”

[195] _Renaissance in Italy_, J. A. Symonds, iv. 354. Smith, Elder & Co., 1898.

[196] An instrument used in falconry, made of leather and feathers in the shape of a wing.

[197] Giovanni (afterwards Pope Leo X.) was born on the 11th December.

[198] _Prose Volgari inedite_, &c., di Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano, Isidoro Del Lungo. Barbera, Firenze, 1867.

[199] Ibid., _op. cit._

[200] _Del Bagno a Morba_, Ricordi Storici e Letterari, Luigi Righetti. Roma.

[201] The Duchess of Ferrara, wife of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, and daughter of Ferrante I., King of Naples. She passed through Pisa on her way to Naples to attend her father’s marriage with Giovanna d’Aragona.

[202] The meaning of this word is obscure. Some suggest that it is a kind of fish, others that it is the name of a wine. I think Lucrezia jokingly asked her son to send her some cool sea-wind. The peasants still call the west wind which blows from the sea _marino_.

[203] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxxiv. No. 133.

[204] _Affetti di Famiglia nel Quattrocento_, Gugliemo Volpi, Vita Nuova, No. 503.

[205] _Prose Volgari_, &c., _op. cit._

[206] Son of her daughter Nannina, wife of Bernardo Rucellai.

[207] _Del Bagno a Morba_, op. cit.

[208] Ibid.

[209] Lucrezia de’ Medici had just bought Bagno a Morba from the Commune of Florence.

[210] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza lxxxv. No. 203.

[211] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxxiv. No. 312.

[212] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. p. 168.

[213] _Le Vite de’ piu eccelenti Pittori_, &c., Giorgio Vasari, iii. 374. Sansoni, Firenze, 1878.

[214] Philippe de Comines, who writes: “I remained about a year in Florence and her territory as the guest of the Florentines, who treated me well, better even on the last day of my visit than on the first.”--_Memoires de Messire Philippe de Comines, Seigneur d’Argenton_, i. 395. Brusselle, 1723.

[215] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 119.

[216] _Congiura de’ Pazzi_, narrata in Latino da A. Poliziano volgarizzate con sue note e illustrazioni da Anicio Bonucci, p. 119. Le Monnier, Firenze, 1856.

[217] Lorenzo’s uncle by marriage, sent on a special mission to Milan and to Venice.

[218] The young Cardinal was set at liberty on June 5th, and went for a few days to the Servite monastery in the SS. Annunziata. From there he wrote to the Pope expressing deep gratitude to the Signoria and to Lorenzo de’ Medici for the kind treatment he had received, and bitterly lamented that His Holiness had not acceded to his prayer that the interdict should be taken off. On June 12th he left for Siena, and an old chronicler writes that he was still under the influence of great terror and seemed to feel the rope round his neck. If at the time of the assassination he had not been well guarded the exasperated populace would probably have torn him to pieces.

[219] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza vii. No. 404.

[220] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza vii. No. 404.

[221] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. xi. 131.

[222] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xliii. No. 175.

[223] Philippe de Comines.

[224] Philippe de Comines.

[225] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 187.

[226] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza vii. No. 413.

[227] A piece torn out of the letter.

[228] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxxi. No. 31.

[229] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, &c., _op. cit._ ii. 131.

[230] The address on outside of sheet is: Magnifico Hieronimo Morelli, Oratori florentino, patri meo. (_Arch. Med. ante Principatum_, Filza 124, No. 2.)

[231] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza cxxiv. No. 2.

[232] After the Pazzi conspiracy the Republic engaged in war with Sixtus IV. and the King of Naples. The Pope excommunicated Florence, as he declared out of hatred of the Medici, whose exile he demanded. The Signoria answered by appointing twelve trusty men to be Lorenzo’s bodyguard. “Then,” writes Ammirato, “they obtained the opinion of Bartolommeo Sozzino (probably what Poliziano refers to), Francesco Aretino, Lancillotto Decio, Bulgarino, Andrea Panormita, Pier Filippo Cornio and other masters of canon law and theology, who advised that notwithstanding the Pope’s censures, by whom they had been excommunicated, they, by appealing to the future Council, might cause Divine service to be celebrated in their city,” which was done.

[233] This is one of several letters alluding to Clarice’s dislike of him.

[234] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, &c., _op. cit._ ii. 183.

[235] Matteo Franco, chaplain and devoted adherent of Lorenzo.

[236] _Prose Volgari inedite_, &c., _op. cit._ p. 59.

[237] _Prose Volgari inedite_, &c., _op. cit._ p. 61.

[238] Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who had been named Captain of the Florentine troops.

[239] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 184.

[240] _Prose Volgari inedite_, op. cit. p. 64.

[241] The grammar of Theodoro Gaza, a Greek, was the favourite one in those days.

[242] _Letterine d’un Bambino Fiorentino_, Nozze Bemporad-Vita. Firenze, 1887. Ediz. di 150 esemplari.

[243] _Vita Nuova_, op. cit. No. x. p. 2, Gugliemo Volpi.

[244] A saying still used when a child cries.

[245] Probably Gentile Becchi, Bishop of Arezzo.

[246] _Prose Volgari inedite_, op cit. p. 67.

[247] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 132.

[248] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 186.

[249] _Letterine d’un Bambino Fiorentino_, op. cit.

[250] _Prose Volgari inedite_, &c., _op. cit._ p. 70.

[251] Martino della Comedia, tutor to the Tornabuoni children, took Poliziano’s place for a while after he had been dismissed by Madonna Clarice.

[252] _Letterine d’un Bambino Fiorentino_, op. cit. The letter is undated, but on it is written, “From Piero de’ Medici, 26th May 1479.”

[253] _Laurentius Medicis Vita_, &c., _op. cit._ ii. 288.

[254] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxxvii. No. 389.

[255] _Letterine d’un Bambino Fiorentino_, op. cit.

[256] _Letterine d’un Bambino Fiorentino_, op. cit.

[257] Ibid.

[258] In the Val di Sieve, not far from Cafaggiuolo.

[259] _Laurentii Medicis Vita_, op. cit. ii. 199.

[260] _Affetti di Famiglia_, &c., _op. cit._

[261] _Arch. Med. ante Prin._, Filza xxx. No. 70.

[262] Married to Bernardo Rucellai.

[263] The paper is torn.

[264] _Carteggio Medicis_, Filza di documenti fuori posto, No. 73.

[265] Lucrezia, to whom Poliziano grudges the title of madonna, was Lorenzo’s daughter, afterwards the wife of Jacopo Salviati. She was much attached to her grandmother Lucrezia.