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Title: Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2)

Author: Alfred von Reumont

Translator: Robert Harrison

Release date: December 5, 2015 [eBook #50624]
Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORENZO DE'
MEDICI, THE MAGNIFICENT (VOL. 1 OF 2) ***

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI

VOL. I.

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI

THE MAGNIFICENT

BY
ALFRED VON REUMONT

TRANSLATED from THE GERMAN by ROBERT HARRISON

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1876

[All rights reserved]

TO

CINO CAPPONI
THE HISTORIAN OF HIS NATIVE CITY
WITH

RESPECTFUL HOMAGE AND

FRIENDSHIP

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

I am bound to confess that it has been no easy task to interpret for English
readers the admirable biography of Lorenzo which Herr von Reumont has
given to the world. His extraordinary talent for research seems to have spent
itself freely over every scrap of paper or parchment written or printed on the
subject of the Medici and their times that has come within his reach. If these
volumes convey to their readers the vivid impression of the Medicean age
which may be derived from the original work my humble but laborious duty
will not have been undertaken in vain.
R. H.

London Library: June 1876.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

The second half of the fifteenth century exhibits, in the development of the
Renaissance in Italy, the singular spectacle of a transformation of the
modern world under the influence of ancient classical culture in conjunction
with the opening out of a new intellectual horizon. In a state the importance
of which cannot be measured by its circumference or material strength, we
see a struggle between form and spirit among a community that had stood
there alone from the Middle Ages. This struggle was the exciting cause of a
new growth, of the production of fresh branches and new foliage on a tree
that had become incurably rotten and hollow. The Christian world has only
once taken up a position like this in the fruitful interpenetration and
transmutation of real and ideal elements. It shows us a man, the product and
consummation of these circumstances and conditions, at once the child and
the pioneer of his age, an age which was filled with the most joyous and
elevated existence both in material and spiritual things. A man like him
could only be born and grow up under such circumstances, in the ferment
and strife of events and of the moral forces of the time. Family and civic
influence as well as the temper of the people and of the century contributed
to this result.
A justly popular life of Lorenzo [by Roscoe] was written when the
knowledge of Italian history was limited and its sources confused and
difficult of access. If a similar attempt is now made eighty years later, it is
under altered circumstances and with expectations greatly enhanced. The
supply of original materials, then very small, however skilfully arranged,
has increased in our day to a degree almost beyond management. At that
period the insight of the historian, not informed as to the internal politics of
Florence, reached no great depth below the dazzling surface of Lorenzo’s

magnificence. At the present day deep places are exposed to view which
had been kept only too dark. A flood of light envelops the personality of the
man who was distinguished by so many things that charm and attract. If the
sum-total of his history conveys a graver impression and comes upon us
with a feeling of pain, our interest in it is scarcely less keen because of the
obstacles through which this brilliant spirit made its own way, or of the
entanglements and dangers against which he had to struggle. Should I
succeed in describing truthfully him and the surroundings from which he
was never separated and without which it is difficult to imagine him, I shall
have completed a thank-offering due for a past full of varied enjoyment and
for many friendly aids, received during the preparation and composition of
this book from the countrymen of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
I am indebted to scholars and art-critics, to keepers of archives and
museums, to librarians, and above all to the man whose name rendered
famous by the history of his native city stands in the front of this book,
which attained its present form for the most part under his roof. To him do I
owe it especially that after a deep and critical change in my own life,
Florence remained to me a second home.
Bonn: Palm Sunday, 1874.

CONTENTS
OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

FIRST BOOK.

FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI TO THE DEATH
OF COSIMO THE ELDER.

CHAPTER I.
THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FLORENTINE
DEMOCRACY.
PAGE

The House of Medici—Original Dwelling-places—The first Appearance of the 3
Medici—Commencement of the Florentine Community—The Community and
the Imperial Power—Ghibellines and Guelfs—Consuls and Podestà—

Government by a Citizen Guard—Captain of the People—Flourishing State of
the Town in the Thirteenth Century—Party Factions in the Last Days of the
Hohenstaufen—Decisive Victory over the Guelfs after King Manfred’s Death—
Internal Condition—Foreign Viceroys—Growth of the Class of Citizens after
the Middle of the Thirteenth Century—Beginnings of the Guild System—The
Seven Great Societies—Government and Magistracy of the Priors—
Democratic Reform of Giano della Bella—Limitation of the Citizens’ Share in
the Government—The Ordinances of Justice against the Nobility—The
Signory, or Upper Governing Department, and the Councillors—Exercise of the
Municipal Franchise—Parliament—Vain Endeavours for Equality of Power
among the Public Authorities

CHAPTER II.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. RULE OF THE
ALBIZZI. GIOVANNI AND AVERARDO DE’ MEDICI.
Origin and Arms of the Medici—Public Affairs in the First Half of the Fourteenth
Century—Mistakes at Home and Misfortunes Abroad—The Duke of Athens—
Party Politics—Guelf Magistracy—Expulsion of the Proscribed (Ammoniti)—
Salvestro de’ Medici—Rebellion of the Lower Classes (Tumulto de’ Ciompi)—
Averardo de’ Medici, called Bicci—Great Authority of the Albizzi Family and
their Friends—Giovanni de’ Medici, son of Averardo—Florence under the Rule
of the Albizzi—Campaign against the Visconti—Plunder of Pisa—The State of
Finance in Florence—Wealth and Activity of John de’ Medici—Florence and
Filippo Maria Visconti—Internal Condition during the War against Milan—
Rinaldo degli Albizzi—Position of the great with regard to the smaller Citizens
—Public Troubles—The Estimo and Loans—Increase and Inequality of the
Taxes—The Cadaster, its Framework, Operations, and Product Position of
Giovanni de’ Medici with regard to the Cadaster—Death of Giovanni de’
Medici—Opinions about him 20

CHAPTER III.
THE CITY OF FLORENCE TO THE BEGINNING OF
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
Situation and Origin of Florence—Roman Times and the Early Part of the Middle 38
Ages—Florence before and in the Time of Dante—Architecture in the
Thirteenth Century—Towers—Rubacon Bridge—Churches—Sta. Maria
Novella and Sta. Croce—Enlargement of the Town and Third Wall—Arnolfo di
Cambio, called di Lapo—St. Maria del Fiore and Palace of the Signoria—
Churches, Hospitals, Castles in the Province—Building of Palaces and Houses

—Style of the Churches—Tuscan Gothic—Cimabue and Giotto—Giotto and
the Cathedral—Belfry of the Cathedral—Taddeo Gaddi—The Hall of Or San
Michele—Enlargement of the Palace of the Podestà—Architecture of the
Middle of the Fourteenth Century—Religious Institutions—St. Anne’s Chapel
in Or San Michele—New Church-building—Society of Artists—Hall of the
Signory (Loggia de Lanzi)—Family Residences—Sculpture—Andrea Pisano
and his School—Painting—Andrea di Cione, called Arcagna—Hospitals and
Monuments—Filippo Brunelleschi—Church of Sta. Maria del Fiore—The
Foundling Hospital (Innocenti)—San Lorenzo—Sto. Spirito—Other Works of
Brunelleschi—Dwelling Houses—Streets and Pavements—Sculpture of the
Fifteenth Century—Ghiberti and Donatello—Painting—Fra Angelico of
Fiesole and Masaccio—General Appearance of the Town—The Environs—
Fortified Villas and Monasteries

CHAPTER IV.
INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND LIFE.
The great Guilds and their Position—Guild of Woollen-weavers (Arte della Lana)—
Guild of Cloth Merchants (Catimala)—Guild of Silk-weavers (Arte della Seta)
—Guild of Money-changers (Cambia)—Tuscan Money-changers Abroad—
Positions of Money-changers in France and England—Bankruptcy of the large
Banks—Financial Distress at Home—Revival of Commerce in the Beginning
of the Fifteenth Century—Customs of the Money Exchange—General Feeling
of the Citizen Class—Regulations for the Beautifying and Security of the Town
—Character of the Populace—Habits and Customs in the Fourteenth Century—
Popular and Church Festivals—St. John’s Day—Merry-making and Pastimes of
the People—The Florentines in the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century 67

CHAPTER V.
THE ALBIZZI AND COSIMO DE’ MEDICI.
Cosimo de’ Medici in his Youth—Countess of Bardi and her Family—The Medici 86
and Pope John XXIII.—Death of John XXIII. in Florence—Public Acts of
Cosimo de’ Medici—The Position of Cosimo towards the Party of Albizzi—
The Albizzi in the Fourteenth Century—Piero degli Albizzi and the Magistracy
of the Guelf Party—The Tumult of the Ciompi, Exile of the Albizzi—Authority
of Maso degli Albizzi—Rinaldo degli Albizzi—Niccolo da Uzzano—Palla
Strozzi and his Family—Flourishing Condition of the Town and
Commonwealth—War against Lucca—Relation of Rinaldo to Cosimo de’
Medici—Proceedings of the Oligarchy against Cosimo—Cosimo’s Capture—
Cosimo’s Banishment—Unsettled State of Things—Rinaldo’s Appeal to Arms
—Cosimo is called back, and returns—Exile of the Albizzi—Cosimo’s

Gonfaloniership—Review of the Albizzi Rule—Florentine Order and its
Formation—The Subjection of the smaller Communes—Conditions of this
Subjection—Statutes—Acquisition of Pistoja, Volterra, Prato, and Arezzo—The
Accomandigia

CHAPTER VI.
SUPREMACY OF COSIMO DE’ MEDICI TO THE
REFORM OF LUCCA PITTI.
Pope Eugene in Florence—Political Positions on Cosimo’s return Home—
Antecedents of the Medici Party—Lucca Pitti—Neri Capponi—The Acciaiuoli
—Agnolo and Donate Acciaiuoli—Diotisalvi Neroni—The Giugni and other
Friends of the Medici, the Pandolfini, Salviati, Guicciardini—Cosimo’s Party-
management—Restriction of free Voting by the Practice of Nominating to the
Magistracy—Abrogation of the Law against the Nobles—Relations towards his
Opponents—Palla Strozzi—Troubled Lot of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and his
Family—Cosimo’s Attitude towards his own Party—Neri Capponi—Baldaccio
d’Anghiari—Disunion in the Dominant Party—Termination of Extra-legal
Authority—Re-introduction of the Selection of Magistrates by Vote—The
Formation of the Cadaster—Progressive Scale—Taxation in the Hands of the
Medici—Revision of the Cadaster in 1458—Discontent of powerful Burghers
of the Medici Party—Luca Pitti, Gonfalonier—Change in the Government—
New Commission for the Choice of Magistrates and for Taxation—Weakening
of Cosimo’s Authority—Violence of his Adherents 114

CHAPTER VII.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. PEACE AND WAR. COUNCIL OF
UNION.
War with Milan and Naples—Filippo Maria Visconti and Alfonso of Naples—End of
the Visconti—Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan—Relations of Sforza with
Florence and Cosimo de’ Medici—Alliance of Venice and Naples against
Florence—War in the Valley of Chiana and in the Maremma—Peace of Lodi—
The Sack of Constantinople—Triumph of the House of Aragon in Naples—
Pope Eugene IV.—Contest of the Holy See with the Council of Basle—Council
of Union at Florence—Reunion of the Churches of the East and West—Sojourn
of Pope Eugenius IV. in Florence—Consecration of the Cathedral and of the
Church of Sta. Croce—The Eugenius College—Political Complications—René
of Anjou in Florence—Return of the Pope to Rome—Pope Pius II. in Florence
—Death of Archbishop St. Antonine—Charlotte of Lusignan in Florence 139

CHAPTER VIII.
LAST DAYS OF COSIMO DE MEDICI.
Cosimo in Advanced Age—Death of his Brother Lorenzo—His sons Piero and
Giovanni—Piero’s Marriage to Lucrezia Tornabuoni—Death of Giovanni—
Piero’s Children—Cosimo’s Manner of Life—Cosimo’s Disposition and
Character—Cosimo in Outward Demeanour and in Business—Cosimo’s
Ecclesiastical Edifices—Churches and Monasteries, Palace and Villas—
Buildings and Foundations Abroad—Cosimo’s Last Days at Careggi Villa—
Piero’s Letter to his Sons—Death of Cosimo—Marsilio Ficino on Cosimo—
Cosimo de’ Medici the Father of his Country 153

SECOND BOOK.

PIERO DE’ MEDICI. FIRST YEARS OF LORENZO
THE MAGNIFICENT.

CHAPTER I.
PIERO DE’ MEDICI, HIS RELATIONS AND FRIENDS.
Piero de’ Medici and his Family—Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici—Lorenzo de’
Medici—Lorenzo’s Education—Gentile de’ Becchi of Urbino—His Youthful
Years and Dispositions—Giuliano de’ Medici—Bianca de’ Medici Pazzi—The
Family of Pazzi—Andrea, Piero, Jacopo de’ Pazzi and their Relatives—
Nannina de’ Medici Rucellai—The Rucellai—Giovanni and his Son Bernardo
—The Soderini—Lorenzo Soderini and his Sons Niccolò and Tommaso 167

CHAPTER II.
LORENZO’S YOUTH. CONSPIRACY OF DIOTISALVI
NERONI AND HIS COMPANIONS.
Meeting of Lorenzo de’ Medici with Federigo d’Aragona, younger Son of King
Ferrante of Naples—Florence in relation to the Aragonese and to Sforza—
Lorenzo in Upper Italy—The Pulci—Luigi Pulci—Lorenzo in Rome—Pope
Paul II.—Death of Francesco Sforza—Piero de’ Medici and the House of
Sforza—Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan—The Medici Party after the Death of
Cosimo—Piero de’ Medici and Diotisalvi Neroni—Diotisalvi’s Designs against
the Medici—His connection with Niccolò Soderini and Luca Pitti—Agnolo
Acciaiuoli—The Causes of Discord—Niccolò Soderini as Gonfalonier—
Neglected Opportunities of Trade—Fruitless Attempt at Compensation—
Conspiracy against the Medici—Lorenzo with King Ferrante in Naples—
Preparations on both Sides—The Villa of Careggi—Piero’s Illness there—
Lorenzo’s Presence of Mind at an Attempt on his Father’s Life—The Medici in
the City—Both Factions appeal to Arms—Indecision of the Leaders—
Negotiations and Defection—Luca Pitti and the Medici—Failure of the
Conspiracy and Banishment of its Leaders—End of Luca Pitti 179

CHAPTER III.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS. FRANCE, VENICE, THE
ROMAGNA. THE WAR OF COLLEONE.
The Medici after the Neroni Conspiracy—King Ferrante to Lorenzo—Louis XI. of
France and the Medici—The Florentine Exiles and Venice—The Relations of
Venice with Florence—Bartolommeo Colleone—Colleone and the exiled
Florentines—State of the Romagna—The Popes and the Dynasties—Relations
of the Romagna with Venice and Florence—The Raccomandati of the Romagna
—The Este Counts of Montefeltro and Urbino—The Malatesta of Rimini—The
Ordelaffi of Forli—The Manfredi, Alidosi, Sforza of Pesaro—Bologna and the
Bentivogli—Sante and Giovanni Bentivoglio.—Relations with Florence and
the Papacy—Preparations of the Allies against Colleone—Colleone in the
Romagna.—Battle at La Molinella—Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Venice—
Ineffective Meeting of the Allies—Miserable Condition of the Army—Close of
the War—Pope Paul II.—End of Colleone and the Florentine Exiles—Attack on
Lucrezia de’ Medici 197

CHAPTER IV.
LATTER DAYS OF PIERO DE’ MEDICI. LORENZO’S
MARRIAGE.
Battle near Rimini—Robert Malatesta—Finances of Florence—Purchase of Sarzano
—Gay Life amid Financial Difficulties—Position and Life of Lorenzo de’
Medici—Lucrezia Donati—Lorenzo’s Tournament—Lorenzo’s Engagement—
Clarice Orsini and her Relations—Lucrezia de’ Medici in Rome—Intelligence
of Clarice Orsini—Conclusion of the Engagement, and Marriage Ceremony in
Rome—Marriage Festival in Florence—Lorenzo’s Journey to Milan to the
Christening of Gian Galeazzo Sforza—Death of Piero de’ Medici, and his
Character—Piero’s Relation to his Party and to the Exiles—King Ferrante and
Piero de’ Medici 222

CHAPTER V.
EVENTS AT HOME AND ABROAD DURING THE
FIRST YEARS OF LORENZO’S SUPREMACY.
Nature and Form of the Medici Rule—The Heads of the Medici Party after Piero’s
death—Tommaso Soderini—Council in St. Antonio—Accession of the Sons of
Piero de’ Medici to the Position of their Father and Grand-father—Position of
Lorenzo before the Party—Appointment of the Civic Officers—The Electors—
Lorenzo assumes the Direction of Affairs—Foreign Affairs—Pope Paul II. and
Naples—Alliance between Florence, Naples, and Milan—General Alliance
against the Osmanli—Death of Pope Paul II 244

CHAPTER VI.
POSITION AND RELATIONS OF THE MEDICI.
Splendour of the Medici Family—Their Position at Home and their Connections 255
Abroad—The Royal Family of Naples—Ippolita Maria, Duchess of Calabria—
The Queen of Bosnia—Luigi Pulci in relation to the Medici—Pulci’s Journeys
and Missions—Camerino and Naples—Unfortunate Attack against Piombino—
Galeazzo Maria Sforza and his Wife, Bona of Savoy, in Florence—Visit of
King Christian of Denmark—Giovanni Bentivoglio in relation to the Medici—
Proceedings of King Louis XI. and Lorenzo concerning King Ferrante of
Naples—The Relation of Lorenzo towards his Fellow Citizens—His Manner of

Life, Residence in the Country, and Travels—Madonna Clarice in Umbria and
Rome—Visit to Zoe Palæologa—Lucrezia de’ Medici in Bagno a Morba—The
Death of Madonna Contessina

CHAPTER VII.
LORENZO DE’ MEDICI IN ROME. PRATO AND
VOLTERRA.
Accession of Sixtus IV. to the Papal Chair—Congratulatory Embassy from Florence
—Lorenzo accompanies it—Disposition of the new Pope—Attempted
Insurrection in Prato—Bernardo Nardi—Connection of Volterra with Florence
—Alum Pits of Volterra—Dispute about Leasing the Alum—Intervention of
Florence—Tumult in Volterra—Various Views in Florence—Triumph of the
Reigning Faction—Expedition against Volterra—Its Capture and Sack—
Volterra and Florence—Misery of the Volterraneans 274

CHAPTER VIII.
POPE SIXTUS IV., KING FERRANTE, AND THE
MEDICI.
Feelings of Sixtus IV. towards the Medici—Plan for obtaining the Cardinalate for
Giuliano—Cardinal Pietro Riario, Archbishop of Florence—Eleanor of Aragon
Este in Florence—Arrival of Cardinal-Archbishop Riario—Beginning of the
Misunderstanding between Sixtus and the Medici—Dynastic Ambition of the
Pope—Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola—Affairs of the City of Castello—The
Vitelli—Niccolò Vitelli in Contention with the Pope—Florence supports the
Vitelli—Displeasure of Sixtus at the Policy of Florence—Federigo of
Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, won by the Pope—King Ferrante in the Conflict
with Venice and the Pope—Complications in the East—Alliance of Florence
with Milan and Venice—Alliance of Sixtus IV. with Naples—Uncertain Policy
—Second Marriage of King Ferrante 284

CHAPTER IX.
MILAN, GENOA, AND SIENA.
Cheerful Life in Florence—Tournament of Giuliano de’ Medici—Death of Galeazzo 298
Maria Sforza—Exertions of Florence on behalf of the Duchess Bona—Roberto
da Sanseverino—Parties in Milan—The Brothers Sforza—Disturbances in

Genoa—Relations of Genoa with France and Milan—Revolt of the Genoese
against the Domination of Milan, and its Suppression—Intrigues of the
Brothers Sforza against the Duchess-Regent, and their Banishment—Rupture
between the Pope and Lorenzo—Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa—
Causes of the Animosity between Lorenzo and the Archbishop—Carlo
Fortebraccio of Montone opposed to Siena—Equivocal Conduct of the
Florentines—The Pope and Naples in Favour of Siena—Retreat of Carlo
Fortebraccio—Troubled Relations between the Pope, Siena, and Florence

THIRD BOOK.

CONSPIRACY OF THE PAZZI. WAR WITH ROME
AND NAPLES.

CHAPTER I.
PAZZI CONSPIRACY.
State of Affairs at Home and Abroad—Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Pazzi—Causes of
Enmity—Attitude of Sixtus IV. and Girolamo Riario towards the Medici—The
Plot against the Medici—Girolamo Riario, Francesco de’ Pazzi, and Francesco
Salviati—Preparations for the Enterprise—Invitation to Lorenzo to visit Rome
—Consultations in Rome—Giovanni Batista da Montesecco—Meeting of the
Conspirators—The Conspirators and the Papacy—Francesco de’ Pazzi and
Montesecco in Florence—Agreement with Jacopo de’ Pazzi—Francesco
Salviati and Cardinal Raffael Riario—The other Participators in the Plot—The
26th April, 1478—Attempt in the Cathedral—Death of Giuliano—Rescue of
Lorenzo—The Archbishop of Pisa in the Palace of the Signory—Conflict
around the Palace—Deeds of Blood in the Palace and in the Streets—
Executions and Murder—Lorenzo’s Address to the People—Legal Measures
against the Pazzi—The Funeral of Giuliano de’ Medici—His Son Giulio 313

CHAPTER II.
ALLIANCES AND COUNTER-ALLIANCES.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT.
Dangerous Position and Measures of Precaution—Donato Acciaiuoli in Rome—The
Florentines and the Papacy—Demands of Sixtus IV.—Florentines in the Castle
of St. Angelo—Cardinal Riario in Florence—His Return to Rome—Bull of
Excommunication against Lorenzo de’ Medici—King Ferrante and Lorenzo—
Relations of the King with Florence and Siena—The Papacy and Bologna—
Sixtus IV.’s Observations on the Events at Florence—The Republic of Venice
and the Florentines—Representations of Venice to the Papacy—King Louis XI.
and his Relation to Florence and the Papacy—Naples and Burgundy—Mission
of Philippe de Commines, Lord of Argenton—Commines in Florence and
Rome—His Opinion of the States of the Church 337

CHAPTER III.
CAMPAIGN OF 1478.
Allies and Opponents of the Florentines—The Duke of Urbino on Lorenzo de’
Medici and the Political Situation of Milan and Venice—Florentine
Preparations—The Papal and Neapolitan Forces—The Valley of the Chiana—
Commencement of the Campaign at Montepulciano—Brief of Pope Sixtus IV.
to the Florentines—Lorenzo de’ Medici before the Council—Opposition of the
Clergy to the Curia—Official Vindication of the Republic—Reply of Pope
Sixtus IV. to the Florentine Document—Death of Donato Acciaiuoli—Revolt in
Genoa in the Interest of the Brothers Sforza and King Ferrante—War in the
Valley of the Chiana—Bad Condition of the Florentine Troops—Gian Jacopo
Trivulzio—Siege and Capture of Castellina in Chianti—Ercole of Este Captain-
General of the Florentines—Wretched Management of the War—Loss of
Monte San Savino—Unfavourable Position of the Florentines—Lukewarm
Assistance from the Allies—Plans for the Second Campaign 356

CHAPTER IV.
LOUIS XI. AND SIXTUS IV. SECOND YEAR OF THE
WAR.

Philip de Commines on the Condition of Florence—His Second Residence in
Florence and Milan—Louis XI. and Italian Affairs—French Embassy to Rome
—The Envoys and Sixtus IV.—The Pope’s Stipulations for Peace—Answer of
the Florentines—Ineffectual Negotiations—Departure of the Envoys from
Rome—State of Affairs in Naples and the Papal Court—Disorder in Milan—
Conspiracy of Roberto da Sanseverino and the Brothers Sforza against the
Duchess-Regent—Seizure of Pisa—Recommencement of the Conflict in the
Valley of the Chiana—War in Perugia—Discord in Florence—Enterprise of
Sanseverino and Ludovico Sforza against Milan—Ludovico Sforza il Moro
Governor-General in Milan—Blowing up of the Florentine Head-quarters at
Poggibonzi in the Valley of the Elsa—Cessation of Hostilities 371

CHAPTER V.
FLORENCE AND HER ALLIES. LODOVICO IL MORO.
Unfavourable Condition of Florence—Lorenzo’s Position—King Louis XI. and
Italian Intrigues—Negotiations between King and Pope—Necessity, for
Lorenzo, of an Agreement—Diplomatic Transaction with Lodovico il Moro—
Lodovico’s Character and Position—Lodovico il Moro as Governor—Lodovico
on the Condition of the Florentines—Advice for an Arrangement with Naples
—Filippo Strozzi’s Mission to Naples—Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Resolve on a
Journey to Naples—Departure for Pisa and Bada 386

CHAPTER VI.
LORENZO DE’ MEDICI IN NAPLES. PEACE WITH
KING AND POPE.
Lorenzo’s Arrival in Naples—Lorenzo and King Ferrante—Impression produced in
Florence by his Decision and the Variety of Opinions—Uncertainty in Florence
and in the Romagna—Sixtus IV. and the Peace Negotiations—Sixtus IV. on the
Management of the Dispute—Lorenzo’s insecure Position—The Dynasties of
the Romagna—Diomede Carafa, Count of Maddalini—Lorenzo’s Connections
in Naples—The Royal Family—The Duchess of Calabria—Lorenzo’s Return
Home—Proclamation and Conditions of Peace—Insecure Relations with Sixtus
IV.—Difficulties of the Affairs of Romagna—The Ordelaffi—Forli in
Possession of Girolamo Riario—The Condition of Siena—The Duke of
Calabria and the Sienese—Political Agitation in Siena in Favour of the
Nobility, at the Instigation of the Duke of Calabria—Conquest of Otranto by
the Turks—Retirement of the Duke of Calabria from Siena—Florentine
Embassy to Sixtus IV.—Reconciliation and Peace 401

FOURTH BOOK.

THE MEDICI IN RELATION TO LITERATURE AND
ART.

First Part.

HUMANIST AND POPULAR LITERATURE TO
THE SECOND HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY.

CHAPTER I.
BEGINNINGS OF HUMANISM. COLUCCIO SALUTATI
AND POGGIO BRACCIOLINI. THE BOOK TRADE.
Contrast between Mediæval Culture and Humanism—Character and Significance of
Humanism—Florentine Education—Lapo da Castiglionichio and Luigi
Marsigli—The University—Greek Studies—Manuel Chrysoloras—Early Study
of Greek Learning in Florence—Poggio Bracciolini and his Discoveries—The
Manuscript Business of the Fourteenth Century—Ancient Book Trade—
Copyists in the Universities and Monasteries—Scarcity of Books and their
High Prices—Increase of the Trade in Manuscripts—Paper Manufacture 425

CHAPTER II.

LEONARDO BRUNI AND THE FLORENTINE
HUMANISTS. FRANCESCO FILELFO. COSIMO DE’
MEDICI.
Leonardo Bruni Aretino—Ambrogio Traversari—The Camaldula Convent of the
Angeli—Niccolò Niccoli—Niccoli’s Collection of Books—Carlo Marsuppini
Aretino—Beginning of the Translation of the Iliad—Giannozzo Manetti—
Higher Education and the Universities—Jurisprudence and Statute Law—Palla
Strozzi and the University—Rinaldo degli Albizzi, and his Political Writings—
Francesco Filelfo of Tolentino in Florence—Filelfo as Teacher and Politician—
The Brothers Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici in the World of Letters—Their
Connection with Poggio Bracciolini—Cosimo as a Collector—Ciriaco
Pizzicolli of Ancona—Roman Want of Culture—Enoch of Ascoli and Antonio
of Todi 440

CHAPTER III.
THE COUNCIL OF UNION AND PLATONISM.
COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER YEARS.
Pope Eugene IV. and the Papal Court in Florence—The Greeks in Florence—
Gemisto’s Plethon—Origin of the Platonic Academy—Youth of Marsilio Ficino
—John Argyropulos—Philosophical Studies—Cristoforo Landino Saint
Antoninus Archbishop of Florence—Orlando Bonarli as Archbishop—
Epistolaries and Dedications—Hermaphroditus—Literature and Life—Agnolo
Pandolfini—Villa Life—Franco Sachetti—Poggio Bracciolini’s Country Life—
Learned Connections of Florence with Foreign Countries—William Grey, Earl
of Worcester, and others—The Humanists during the Last Years of Cosimo de’
Medici—Erudition and the Vernacular 457

CHAPTER IV.
LIBRARIES AND THE BOOK TRADE. VESPASIANO
DA BISTICCI.
Cosimo de’ Medici’s Library Establishments—San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice—
Library of the San Marco Convent—The Niccolo Manuscripts—Library of the
Abbey of Fiesole—Inscriptions of the Codices—The Duke of Urbino and
Vespasiano da Bisticci—The Copyists of the Fifteenth Century—The Material
Perfection of the Copies—Prices—Manuscripts and Printed Matter 472

CHAPTER V.
LITERATURE OF THE VULGAR TONGUE. POPULAR
AND SACRED POETRY OF THE PEOPLE.
The Italian Language and Literature at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century—Fra
Giovanni de’ Medici’s Book on Domestic Life—Leon Batista Alberti and the
Vulgar Tongue—Poetical Competition in the Cathedral—Corruption of the
Language in the Hands of the Learned—The Vulgar Tongue—Caterina of Siena
Letters—Religious Sentiment among the People and in their Literature—
Sacred Poetry of the People—The Fraternities and their Hymns—The Jesuits
and their Poetry—Substance and Melody of the Hymns—Feo Belcari; his
Poems and Prose Writings—Girolamo Benivieni—Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’
Medici as a Sacred Poetess—Historical Writings in the Vulgar Tongue—Gino
Capponi—Buonaccorso Pitti—Jacopo Salviati—Neri Capponi—Domenico
Buoninsegni—Goro Dati—Giovanni Cavalcanti 482

FIRST BOOK

FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI TO THE
DEATH OF COSIMO THE ELDER

CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE AND FAMILY OF THE MEDICI—
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FLORENTINE DEMOCRACY.

At the entrance of the Via Larga in Florence there rises to view, at the
corner of one of the cross streets leading to the church of San Lorenzo, one
of the most magnificent palaces of that rich and beautiful city. The recent
enlargement of the passage to the neighbouring cathedral square—the Via
de’ Martelli—has exposed to view the southern aspect of the palace, and
displays the harmony of its proportions on a side that formerly was not to
be seen. The traditions of mediæval life are still manifest in the building,
notwithstanding the modification introduced by the large windows on the
ground-floor, and by the additional wing that prolongs the façade. Huge
blocks of stone, rough-hewn, with deep incisions, lend to the basement of
the edifice the appearance of a fortress. They recall to mind the fortified
palaces of the ancient nobles who, when transplanted from the country to
the town, found themselves associated, willingly or unwillingly, with the
burghers, and before long under the control of men who vied with them in
the erection of towers and strongholds that overawed their own. The great
town-hall was as solid a structure as any castle, even at a time when milder
manners had subdued, if not the violence of party spirit, at least the fury of
street riots, and had proscribed the towers which once by hundreds
dominated the narrow streets, with their heavy iron chains ready for a
barricade. The progress of civic life may be traced in other parts of the
building—in the bow windows of the upper stories, divided by slender
pilasters, in the renaissance decoration, and in the Corinthian pillars which
ornament the quadrangle of the courtyard. Inscriptions and antiques
introduced at a later period adorn the walls of the portico of the courtyard;

but the statue of David has disappeared from the centre, and although
fountains still exist in the second court—once a garden—the figure of
Alessandro de’ Medici, yet visible, indicates a century later. Though much
altered in modern times, the original plan of the interior, which was regular
and commodious, can be traced. Such a design was uncommon in days
when the comparatively small area of the houses made a large suite of
rooms a matter of rare occurrence, and when generally one story rose above
another, with steep stairs and narrow passages into which a scanty supply of
light was admitted from courtyards deep as wells.
The house was built by Michelozzo di Bartolommeo, then forty years
old, for Cosimo de’ Medici, in the first half of the fifteenth century. Filippo
Brunelleschi, the greatest architect of modern Italy, had made a design for
the palace of the rich and art-loving citizen, who was one of his best
friends. It was the plan of a vast building, unenclosed on all sides, and
fronting towards the square of San Lorenzo, where stood the church, the
restoration of which had been begun by the same artist for Cosimo’s father.
But cautious, calculating Cosimo, fearing that a house on so magnificent a
scale as that designed by Brunelleschi, even if not beyond his means, would
exceed the ordinary dimensions of a citizen’s dwelling, and might excite
popular jealousy, gave the preference to Michelozzo’s more limited design.
[1]
Brunelleschi took offence at this neglect of himself, and destroyed his
model. Yet Cosimo acted more prudently than did, at a later period, a
countryman of his, who began to build from the design of the same master
the largest edifice that perhaps a private citizen ever undertook, and who
consequently lost much in public estimation and respect.
In the second half of the fourteenth century the Medici had removed
into the neighbourhood of San Lorenzo’s church, where their residence
occupied the ground adjoining Cosimo’s palace on the north, and remained
in the possession of his brother Lorenzo, the founder of the subsequent
ducal line.[2] Their original dwelling-place was in the centre of the old
town, on the market-place, inside the first wall. Many of the foremost
families were once settled here, and even now the lover of history and
antiquity will find among the damp stalls of the butcher, fishmonger, and
dealer in vegetables, sparse remains of past and, so far as concerns this part
of the town, better days. The little church of San Tommaso in this place was
in the patronage of the Medici from time immemorial.

The Medici did not belong to the historic families of the city on the
Arno. The first trace of them is to be found about the end of the twelfth
century in Giambuono, of whose extraction nothing is known. The coat of
arms exhibits red balls in a gold field, whose number and arrangement were
different at different times, until, under Cosimo’s son, the coat of arms
assumed the form which it has ever since retained. From these balls (palle)
the dependents of the family bore the name of Palleschi. From whence the
Medici came, what was the meaning of the coat of arms, no one knew.
Genealogical dreams have gone as far back as Perseus and the apples of the
Hesperides, whilst modest historians have contented themselves with the
time of Charlemagne, and the mountainous land north of Florence, known
by the name of Mugello, where the family had always held important
possessions, designated as their home.
The only dispute now is whether they descend from a knight who in
days of yore received on his shield the blows of a giant’s iron flail, or from
a physician who chose for his sign, in his small beginnings, three pills or
cupping-glasses.
Giambuono’s son Chiarissimo sat in the Council of the Commune in
1201, when an alliance was formed with the town of Siena for the purpose
of attacking the castle Semifonte in the Elsethal, which lay between the
territories of the two towns, and was soon after destroyed. This was the first
step towards the extension of territory and the overthrow of the landed
aristocracy. The thirteenth century, at the beginning of which the Medici
first stand forward in history, was the period in which the community of
Florence, after many vicissitudes, received its definitive form. Just at the
time of the first attempts of the Florentines to acquire an independent self-
government do we meet with the first of that race which three centuries
later strove successfully to transform what had become a powerful republic
into a monarchy.
The province of Tuscany, divided into two duchies, in the time of the
Longobards formed, first under dukes, then under margraves, a part of the
Roman Teutonic kingdom, whose dependence on the later powerful
emperors, and also on margraves ruling over wide stretches of land to the
north of the Apennines, was more nominal than real, yet still existed
according to right.

In the summer of 1115, after the death of the great Countess Mathilda—
daughter and heiress to the last Margrave Bonifacius, who lived mostly in
Lucca—first began the freer movement of the Tuscan Commune. At this
time the men who afterwards attained to the lordship over the greater part of
the country occupied anything but a prominent position. The great changes
in the strength and extent of the imperial power in Italy as it was under the
last of the Franconians, under Lothair of Saxony, and the two first
Hohenstaufen, necessarily affected the position of these Communes. Their
form of government under consuls changed just as their dependence or
independence of the imperial authority was affected by the prevailing
political condition of the empire. The landed nobility, of Germanic origin
for the most part, were supported by Frederic Barbarossa against the
Commune of Florence, with which several great families, headed by the
Uberti, had engaged in a bloody and protracted feud on account of their
claims to an authority which was not compatible with consular government.
Henry VI. exercised his imperial rights and privileges in Tuscany still more
vigorously than his father had done. His brother Philip, invested with this
province as a dukedom, maintained a command such as, perhaps, no other
vice-emperor had possessed. In a part of the country claimed by the Popes
as the patrimony of Mathilda, Philip’s power overcame the Guelfic element
which was so much opposed to the ‘Imperium,’ and which in most of the
towns was the predominant principle.
Suddenly, however, all was changed, when the Emperor died in the
prime of his manhood, leaving behind him an infant son, three years old,
and a distracted kingdom, which never fully resumed its ancient greatness.
In the Papal chair, on the other hand, sat one of the most aspiring and
successful of the Pontiffs—Innocent III., who at once assumed that
authority in the legations which Henry VI. had taken so much pains to put
down. The Tuscans, however, were not more disposed to submit patiently to
the Papal sovereignty than they had been to that of the Emperor, and this the
Pope was not slow to perceive. But while he avoided all direct assertions of
sovereign power over the towns, he made use of his influence to form a
Tuscan Union, that should be closely allied with the ecclesiastical
government at Rome, and firmly opposed to the Imperial authority. In 1198
a Union was formed at San Genesio, which lies at the foot of the hills in the
lower valley of the Arno, and within sight of the venerable towers of San
Miniato. The negotiators on this occasion were two Cardinals representing

the Pope on one side, and on the other deputies elected by the several towns
interested. Pisa, which was Ghibelline, alone of the great towns held aloof.
The federation was intended to form a bulwark against Imperial
encroachments, and all matters of internal administration and municipal
government were left untouched. The supremacy of the Papacy was felt to
be a lighter yoke than that of the Empire.
It is worthy of remark that this practical protest against Imperial
domination should have its starting-point in a spot where the Guelfs,
especially the Florentines, were reminded that their liberties depended on
the pleasure of the Emperors. For the lofty towers that from the hill of San
Miniato look down upon the Val d’Arno, and across the well-watered plain
that stretches to the borders of Lucca, formed part of the palace of
Barbarossa, and from it his high decrees were sent forth in the name of the
Arch-chancellor of the Empire, the Archbishop of Cologne. Here tarried
Henry VI. and Frederick II., and here the Vicar of the Empire, under Rudolf
of Hapsburg, received the oath of allegiance. At a later period, in March
1355, Charles IV. revived the ancient dignity by stopping at San Miniato
both before and after his coronation. The deputies of the place, called from
these circumstances San Miniato the German (al Tedesco), had gone to Pisa
to pay their obeisance to Charles.
Events like those enumerated above were favourable to the territorial
extension of the Florentine Commune. Their progress would have been
greater, had not an ancient feud among the nobles come to a bloody
outbreak in the second decade of the thirteenth century. The effect of this
factious contest, which was embittered by religious animosity and the
quarrel of Frederic II. with the Pope, was to enfeeble the nobility, and react
mischievously on the people. The murder of Messer Buondelmonte de’
Buondelmonti at the entrance of the old bridge in 1215 is celebrated in
history and poetry as the presumed origin of the hostile factions of Guelf
and Ghibelline. A stone cross in the small square, called, from the junction
of three streets, the Trebbio, commemorates the victory of the orthodox
citizens, led by Peter Martyr of Verona, against the Patarian heretics. About
1247 the most violent civil war raged. Although the Ghibelline faction had
the upper hand at first, and Frederick of Antioch, the Emperor’s son and
Imperial Vicar in Tuscany, drove out the Guelf nobility, the tables were
turned when heavy losses overtook Frederick in Lombardy and were
followed by his death. The year of Frederick’s death, 1250, marks the

victory of the Guelfic cause in Florence, for although their adversaries had a
momentary triumph they could not hold out, and the city so famous under
the Salieri for its devotion to the Emperor, became the stronghold of the
Guelfs. This decisive change, which brought constitutional changes with it,
took place towards the end of October 1250, a little before the Emperor’s
death.
Up to that time, from the beginning of the twelfth century, the city had
been governed by a magistracy consisting of first four and then six consuls,
assisted by a council of one hundred good men (Buonuomini). From 1207
the administration was entrusted to a foreign knight, learned in the law, and
called the Podestà. After the fashion of the Lombard cities, he was elected
for six months, then for twelve, and had the assistance of a general council.
Encouraged by the factiousness and weakness of the nobility, who had till
then been supreme in the place, the citizen class banded together in an
organised insurrection, and initiated great political reforms. The town was
divided into sixths, (Sestieri), each sixth into twenty militia companies (the
number being subject to change, under different standard-bearers, or
gonfaloniers, each of whom had a distinguishing mark). At the head of all,
in place of the Ghibelline Podestà, who was done away with, was a captain
of the people (Capitano del Popolo), assisted by a council of twelve elders,
two for every sixth, and six and thirty corporals. At a later period these
institutions developed into the small and the great councils. The standard of
the people, put into the hands of the captain, was half red, half white, and
was subsequently replaced by one bearing a red cross on a white ground.
The banner of the Commune, displayed by the Podestà, bore first a white
lily on a field of red, then a red lily on white ground. The civic militia were
called to arms by the tolling of a bell from the Lion’s Tower, which has long
disappeared, but stood probably near the palace of the Capitano, on the site
of which the palace of the Signoria, now the Palazzo Vecchio, was erected
in the sixteenth century. The country districts also received a military
organisation. To the Capitano was attributed authority over both the civil
and criminal administration, with the co-operation of the elders, but the
Podestà subsequently resumed his criminal jurisdiction. The latter also
occupied the palace, built originally in 1255 as a council-chamber for the
Capitano and his assessors, but much enlarged in the following century. It is
still called after the Podestà, and, restored after long neglect to somewhat of

its ancient dignity, now looks down in lofty grandeur upon the bustle of
modern life going on around its walls.
Though not free from factious disturbance the city continued to prosper
for years after the revolt against the nobility. Its commerce was extended
and its influence over neighbouring communes strengthened either by treaty
or by force of arms. No better witness of this prosperity can be cited than
the number of buildings erected for the public good about this time. Besides
this, many religious houses arose at the time when the order called the
Humiliates were manifesting extraordinary activity. In the year 1252 also
was coined the golden florin which, exercising a patent influence on the
currency of mediæval and modern times, contributed largely to the
influence of Florence among men of commerce, and shadowed forth her
subsequent supremacy. As yet the two hostile factions of the city, though
coming frequently into jealous collision, dwelt near together. In the summer
of 1258 an attempt was made to overthrow the Constitution as settled by the
Guelfs, and bind Florence to the Imperial interests, to which Pisa and Siena
were already attached. The promoters of this revolution were the family of
the Uberti, champions of the Ghibelline cause, in alliance with King
Manfred, the Emperor Frederick’s son.
It was plain that the triumph of the Imperialists in the South of Italy
would be incomplete without the acquisition of Tuscany. The attempt
miscarried and the natural consequences ensued. All the great Ghibelline
families were sent into exile, and they took refuge for the most part in
Siena. The refusal on the part of the conquerors to respect any obligations
that had been previously entered into with the banished families led to a war
in 1260. On September 4 in that year the Tuscan Guelfs suffered a severe
defeat at Montaperti on the Arbia, in view of the walls of Siena, whose
inhabitants, assisted by the horsemen of Manfred, were the victors. The
effect in Florence was instantaneous. Without waiting for the return of their
enemies, the principal Guelf families, patrician and plebeian, at once quitted
the city and sought shelter in Lucca. The Guelfs of the dependent towns
soon followed this example, and in three days the Ghibellines were installed
in Florence, with Giordano of Anglona, a captain of Manfred’s, at their
head, as the king’s vicegerent. Guido Novello, of the race of the Palsgrave
of Tuscany, assumed the office of Podestà. The Guelfs were compelled to
abandon Lucca and retire to Bologna, leaving the Ghibellines masters of the
whole of Tuscany. Affairs continued in this state for six years, when King

Manfred overthrew at Benevento the army of Charles of Anjou, Count of
Provence, who had been called in by the Pope, and who was assisted by
many Tuscan Guelfs.
An attempt at compromise between the two factions and a settlement of
the differences of the nobility and the burghers was made by appointing two
Knights of the Order of the Virgin Mary to the joint exercise of the office of
Podestà. With these fratres gaudentes was associated a Council of thirty,
selected from the trading classes. The arrangement was made with the
consent of Pope Clement IV., and accepted by the threatened Ghibellines as
an expedient. It was soon discovered, however, that a real reconciliation
was impossible, and that the Pope was pursuing extensive political schemes
that were agreeable to no party.
On November 11, nearly nine months after the battle of Benevento, an
insurrection against a tax, forced the Ghibellines and Germans to evacuate
Florence. The Knights of Mary were replaced by two knights from Orvieto,
who were respectively appointed Podestà and Capitano. Again efforts were
made at a reconciliation by the recall of the more moderate among the
exiles, and by offers of family alliances, but without success.
Charles of Anjou, now King of Sicily and Naples, was striving, like
Manfred, to strengthen his influence in Tuscany, and being secretly incited
by Guelf leaders he sent a troop of 800 armed men to Florence, under Guy
de Montfort, in 1267. The Ghibellines proved irreconcileable, and left the
city on the night of Good Friday in that year. Further endeavours at
pacification were alike unavailing. The party spirit was too strong, and
resisted the authority of Pope Gregory X. in the spring of 1273, as steadily
as that of Cardinal Latino Malabranca (a nephew of Pope Nicholas III.), in
February 1279. Nor was the influence of the two holders of supreme power
of much avail even after the accession of Rudolf of Hapsburg to the throne
of Germany had altered the relations between Church and State.
Meanwhile two changes occurred in the internal government of the city
of great, if unequal, importance. The first was the vice-regency of foreign
princes, who now held in the Commune the position formerly belonging to
the chief of the empire, with this difference, that the Commune awarded the
dignity to foreign princes on certain conditions, and for a certain number of
years. The supremacy of King Manfred was followed in 1267 by that of
Charles of Anjou, which the city bore for ten years. The authority of these

princes and their representatives was limited. A committee of twelve good
men selected from the municipal nobility sat as assessors to the viceroy.
Besides this there were both the council-boards already named, to which
was now added a third body, the secret council of the Guelf burghers,
making together a general or common council. The statutes introduced by
the viceroy were sent to the united councils as to a court of general
jurisdiction, before they were definitively accepted by the Council of Three
Hundred. The limits of the viceroy’s authority were not easily fixed. In the
first half of the ensuing century, when the city was unable to hold out
against the arms of the Ghibellines without the aid of Charles of Anjou, this
part of the Constitution was remodelled more than once. The Anjou
viceroyalty, in concert with the Guelfs, thoroughly rooted out the suspected
Ghibellines. In 1268-69 some three thousand were banished, many of
whom went to the south of France. Their goods were sold, and the profits
devoted to the interests of the victorious party. A special Commission was
appointed to manage the ‘capitani di parte Guelfa,’ and was assisted by a
committee of the Council, composed of nobles and burghers. In the course
of years this body acquired almost dictatorial power in the State.
The second fact alluded to above was of far more importance in its
social and political bearing than the position of the vice-kings of Tuscany. It
was the enfranchisement of the lower class of Florentine citizens. The
population of the city was divided into three classes: 1, the feudal nobility;
2, the municipal nobility, or wealthy burgher families; 3, the common
people. The influence of the first, who were never very numerous, was
based on their landed possessions in the provinces; that of the second on
their wealth in money and their trade; while the third class were held in no
consideration, and up to the middle of the thirteenth century had no share in
the government of the State. When Frederic II. died a democratic spirit
manifested itself in union with the Guelfic feeling of opposition to the
Imperial authority, and made rapid progress. The old and new nobility
united to resist the popular movement; but the people, who had increased in
numbers and in substance by the free exercise of their skill in arts,
manufactures, and commerce, aspired to a share in the civil government,
and made an effort to attain it. The discords of the nobility and the
confusion of the government in 1250 gave the people an opportunity of
forming an independent body, half political, half military. While the Podestà
remained at the head of the administration of justice, the ‘Capitano del

Popolo’ was military chief of the third or lower class, who, set on securing
their own rights, paid little attention to the quarrels of the factions. After the
overthrow of King Manfred and the Ghibelline party the third class
advanced a step forward by the definite formation of guilds. The object of
the organisation of 1250 was mainly military; the end now in view was to
give a more solid form and more popular character to the civil relations. An
excellent means for the attainment of this was at hand in the corporations,
already large, to which the richest and most respectable members of the
third class already belonged.
The industrial and commercial societies, the origin of which is traceable
to Roman times, kept pace in development with the Commune of the
twelfth century. We shall presently see how, at the end of this century, their
influence extended abroad, and at the beginning of the next was felt through
their delegates in matters of state. They gave themselves statutes and
exercised influence before they assumed that form which erelong enabled
them to take the chief share in the executive as well as in the legislative
power. They consisted principally of professional men, traders, and the
higher class of artisans, and these represented the whole class of lower
citizens. There were seven guilds: the lawyers, merchants, money-changers,
weavers, silkworkers, doctors and apothecaries, and the furriers. These were
the grand guilds which always retained exceptional privileges. Each one
had a first and a second delegate or consul elected every four months, and
representing severally two quarters of the town. There was a syndic and
other officers with jurisdiction over all the members of the guild. They bore
arms and banners, and were commanded by a gonfalonier or captain, thus
forming a complete society, having its own residence or guild-hall.
Supreme over all the seven guilds was a proconsul, whose place was among
the highest officers of the Commune, and who was chosen from the first, or
lawyer’s guild. He superintended the general interests of these incorporated
societies, decided questions of competency and the like. The presidents and
officers formed a council, called the ‘Consiglio delle Capitudini delli
Maggiore,’ to which were referred the enactments which had previously
been laid before the ‘Consiglio del Popolo.’ There is still in Florence much
that wears the stamp of the power of these city liveries of the Middle Ages.
The architecture of the guildhalls bears witness to the greatness of the
institution which, soon exceeding its original purpose, was blended with the
powers of the State. Coats of arms and names of streets and other things

give similar testimony. In the course of sixteen years fourteen guilds—
called the smaller—were added to the original seven; and, with slight
modifications, the same number has been preserved in the same relative
position.
It is natural that an institution like this should grow stronger with the
increasing strength of the people and the decay of the nobility. In 1279,
when Cardinal Latino first extinguished the strife of the leading Guelfs,
tormented by continual intestine discords, and then reconciled them to the
Ghibellines, a supreme magistracy of fourteen Buonuomini was instituted,
consisting of eight Guelfs and six Ghibellines, both nobles and citizens.
This harmony lasted but a short time. In 1282, the Sicilian Vespers having
given a heavy blow to the house of Anjou, the Ghibelline party raised its
head once more, but was again defeated. Hereupon the guilds resolved to
take the government into their own hands, and that they were able to do so
without serious opposition shows to what a height their power had risen.
The new administration was styled ‘The Priors of the Guilds,’ the chief
being the Captain of the People, who was called ‘Defender of the Guilds.’
At first three, then six priors were elected from the Grand Guilds—being
one for every sestieri, or sixth part of the city. The term of office was two
months, except for those of the Lawyer Guild, who took part in the
administration in any other way. Subsequent changes made the number of
priors eight, two for each quarter of the city. The magnates, or grandi, as
they were called, might belong to the administration if they became
members of a guild. This gave a powerful check to the popular tendencies
which were already so far advanced. The nobility made no difficulty of
entering the guilds; and before long two jealous classes stood face to face
and threatened the destruction of the government, by corporations which the
people had set up as a defence against the aristocracy.
The reform of 1293, when Guelfism was in the ascendant, was carried
by Prior Giano della Bella, a respected popular tribune, who, with the
consent of his colleagues, and of the higher magistracy, did the work very
thoroughly. It was declared essential to everyone who desired to take part in
the administration that he must really practice the art or craft of the guild he
belonged to. This declaration was tantamount to an exclusion of the nobles,
so tenacious of their dignity, from all civil offices. Stringent orders, called
‘Orders of Justice,’ were issued against the noble class,[3] the execution of
which was entrusted to a newly made officer, called the gonfalonier of

justice, who, at his pleasure, could summon to his banner, the red cross on
the white field, 1,000 or 2,000 of the popular militia. The office of
gonfalonier, who, in conjunction with the priors, formed the Signoria,
afterwards became the highest in the community. In 1306 the special
application of the penal laws against the aristocrats was committed to the
‘esecutore degli ordini di giustizia,’ whose attributes resembled those of a
Roman tribune. This new addition to the number of upper magistrates
increased the evils arising from a conflict of jurisdiction, and, like the
number and frequent changes of the larger council-boards, became a source
of confusion and weakness in the State. The age of the gonfalonier was to
be not less than forty-five, that of the prior thirty, the term of office two
months. The elections to the new Signory were originally left to the retiring
members, the president of the guilds, and a number of deputies, summoned
from different parts of the town by the priors. But electoral practices were
subject to change according to the pleasure of the ruling faction. At the time
when the fortune of the family which deprived the city of its freedom was at
the highest the whole business of the elections was a mere pretext, as only
the names of supporters found their way into the bag, while the drawing by
lot depended on commissaries chosen from among the adherents of the
actual chief of the State. The Signory held its sittings in the beginning, and
for some time after, in the convent (Badia) opposite the palace of the
Podestà. Later on, a magnificent palace was erected, worthy of the first
magistracy of a large community, and with its prominent tower indicative of
a stormy period replete with heroic deeds.
There was vested in the Signory the highest deliberative, legislative, and
executive power, spite of many modifications and changes more or less
illusory. In connexion with the Signory under the name of Colleges were
the gonfaloniers of the militia companies, now sixteen in number, with the
Captain of the People, and after 1312 a magistracy of twelve Buonuomini,
without whom nothing of importance was decided. The projects of law
finally went to the General Council. The exercise of authority thus came
into the hands of the people who formed the great guilds—the fat people, as
they were called—popolo grasso. In course of time, it is true, the latter had
to share political power with the smaller guilds; but the nobility was shut
out, as well as the common people who paid no taxes nor belonged to any
guild. Citizens pronounced guilty of any civil or political offence
(ammoniti) were excluded from the franchise and from office for life or for

a certain period, as were also persons marked in the register as negligent in
the payment of dues. This ostracism was a weapon of great power in the
hands of the factions during the fourteenth century, by which they kept the
road to office clear for their own followers. The Balia was another and
effective means to the same end. When a signory or party dreaded any
hostile influence they called the people together by means of a great bell.
Assembled in the square in front of the palace, the signory came out to them
on the tribune, or ringhiera and asked them if they would like to grant
power to a certain number of citizens to change the laws and constitution.
The square being surrounded by armed men a refusal of this request was not
to be expected. The select few, invested thus with discretionary power,
nominated a second group to the task of naming citizens eligible for office.
The privileges of these accoppiatori, as they were called, sometimes lasted
for years, so that freedom of election to the magistracy and other offices
became illusory in respect to many citizens who were eligible. It will
presently be seen what resulted, in the second half of the fourteenth century,
from the abuse of the Ammonire and the Balia. When the citizens of
Florence reformed their constitution they had a twofold object in view.
They wanted first to have the chief power in their own hands, and secondly
to prevent internal dissensions by a wide distribution of places among the
citizens, which was to be effected by short terms of office and frequent
changes. The first of these objects was attained, but the endeavour to
accomplish the second was not successful. The rigour of the suspensive
laws augmented the opposition of the class who suffered by them, and the
Guelf faction shook the city to its very foundations. The quarrel of the Neri
and Bianchi, made famous by the greatest poet of the Middle Ages, induced
consequences that were fatal to the Liberal and popular party, and restored
for a time the nobles to power. But again the lapse of a few years was
sufficient to show their weakness. This brought disorder and violence into
the town, and led to the recovery of political power by the citizen class at
the very moment when the efforts of the Imperialists to reconquer their old
position in Italy more than ever demanded strength in the popular element
of the governing power.

CHAPTER II.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY—RULE OF THE ALBIZZI—
GIOVANNO D’AVERARDO DE’ MEDICI.

The sanguinary conflict of Campaldino was fought, in 1289, in the plain on
the Arno which is overlooked by Poppi, the principal place in the Tuscan
valley of the Casentino, where stood the stronghold of those Counts Guidi,
who were the protectors of the Guelf cause when brought to its lowest ebb
by the war of the Vespers. Two years after the battle, in 1291, Ardingo de’
Medici first sat among the Priors of Florence, and in 1296, when the office
was still a new one, he was appointed Gonfalonier, as also was his brother
Guccio three years later. Of the last-named there exists a memento, the
oldest relating to the family, in the sarcophagus that once held his bones and
was immured in the outer wall of the Baptistery. This antique, which is
carved in relief with a representation of the chase in Calydon, was placed in
the courtyard of the Medici palace, and bears on its modern cover the arms
of the family, as well as those of the Guild of Woolstaplers, to which the
Medici belonged. Thus, at the end of the thirteenth century we see members
of the family in a position of respectable burghers in the enjoyment of civic
honours.
Nothing remarkable is heard of them until the middle of the fourteenth
century. They formed part, in their numerous branches, of the large family
of the people who were increasing more and more their trade and
manufactures, and shared on an equal footing in the government of their
city.
In the second half of the century two of them became remarkable in
different ways, Averardo, called Bicci, son of Salvestro, called Chiarissimo,

and Salvestro, son of Alamanno, two cousins in the fourth degree. Of the
first we shall speak presently. Salvestro played the chief part in a
transaction that shed a lurid light on the history of Florence of that period,
but which was the beginning of that influence which ended in the sole
supremacy of the Medici.
The heroic age of Florence terminated with the first decade of the
fourteenth century. The city, at the head of the Tuscan league, which bound
together the Anjous and the Guelfs of Rome and Upper Italy, had manfully
resisted Henry of Luxemburg, but succumbed to Louis of Bavaria and the
Ghibellines, spite of the aid of foreign auxiliaries. At the same time the
rulers from Naples, as well as the foreigners who were appointed to enforce
established ordinances, were in a certain measure above the law, and in the
exercise of arbitrary power. Fortune smiled on none of their undertakings,
nor was the State guided to any better state of things by what the poet of the
‘Divine Comedy’ called ‘the new people and the sudden gains.’ Strength in
arms began to decline, and an undue preponderance of material interests to
prevail. No period of Florentine history is so poor in men distinguished by
arms or policy as that which followed the repulse of Henry VII. Material
interests even were not adequately protected. For although the springs of
gain had yielded copiously, and still continued partially to flow, the cost of
war and the taxes pressed with proportionate weight; and in the third decade
of the century began the failures of the great banking houses, from which
they did not recover for a long time, if they ever did completely. To this
must be added distressing losses occasioned by inundations and epidemics.
Confusion in the government, due on the one hand to the resentment of the
aristocracy, on the other to the ill-feeling of the lower classes, brought
matters at length to a crisis in 1342. A foreign adventurer, closely connected
with the house of Anjou, Walter de Brienne, Count of Lecce and Duke of
Athens, was enabled by the assistance of the lowest class of artisans, and
some adherents of the nobler families, to make himself for a short time
absolute master of Florence. The tyranny, indeed, was overthrown in the
following year by a union of the upper and lower classes, who were not,
however, long in falling out again, to the great detriment of the nobility. On
the pretext of purging the Guelf party the system of Ammonirism—i.e.
exclusion from public offices—was put in practice. It was directed against
the decaying nobility on the one hand, and on the other against certain
suspected persons in the lower classes. In this way, some thirty years after

the expulsion of the Duke, the supreme power was vested in an oligarchy, at
the head of which was the Captain of the Guelf faction. They had the whole
machinery of government under their control, and were mainly supported
by a few families of the wealthier burghers.[4] Among these were the
Albizzi, who, originally from Arezzo, having acquired great riches and a
high position, stood first in the city of Florence.
Salvestro de’ Medici, who in 1370 had held the office of Gonfalonier,
sought to put an end to the tyranny of party when he was again appointed
Gonfalonier in the spring of 1378. The reigning faction, though mistrusting
him, dared not oppose him, for fear of the multitude, who were in his
favour. His attempt to diminish the authority of the Capitano and re-open
the way to office to the excluded ones (Ammoniti) brought on a violent
insurrection of the common people. This ‘tumulto dei ciompi,’ as it was
called, placed Florence for a time under mob-rule, and would have
degenerated into the wildest anarchy but for the energy of one poor man,
Michele di Lando, the woolcomber, whom the infuriated populace had
raised to the chief magistracy, and who, with remarkable instinct, steered
the State safely through the storm which threatened its ruin. This state of
things lasted three years, during which the all-powerful mob became the
tool of designing men, who wreaked their vengeance on the party that had
so lately been supreme. The latter, however, in their turn seized the
opportunity when the better sort among the populace were disgusted with
the tyranny of their fellows, and overthrew the mobocracy, setting up in its
place a conservative government, formed of the Optimates, or better
citizens, under the lead of the Albizzi. Salvestro de’ Medici, the original
author of the revolt, contributed nothing to its suppression. It was, perhaps,
beyond his power to do anything. He died in 1388, and the name of the
Medici became identical with that of representatives of the interests of the
people. Five years later, when the oppressions of the Albizzi had excited
general discontent, an armed body of the people marched to the house of
Vieri de’ Medici, and asked him to be their leader. He was of the same
branch of the family as Salvestro, but he prudently declined the proposed
honour, and appeased the revolters.
Averardo, styled Bicci, was the founder of the line that came to be
talked of in the world. Little more is known of him than that in 1357 he was
employed on behalf of the Republic in the Mugello. His grandfather, of the
same name, was Gonfalonier in 1314, when Florence, to escape from the

pressure of the Ghibellines, submitted to the Anjous. He was, it is said, the
first of the family that amassed wealth by trade, and laid the basis of that
prosperity which was a potent factor in the political transactions of his
successors. The real splendour of the family, however, began with his son
Giovanni d’Averardo, commonly called Giovanni di Bicci, who was born in
1360, and was in the bloom of manhood when the Albizzi held undisputed
sway over Florence. The position of the Medici was a difficult one, for the
favour they enjoyed among the people exposed them to the suspicion and
dislike of the upper class. An attempt made in 1397 to restrict the power of
Maso degli Albizzi, head of his family and of the State, ended in the exile
and execution of the ringleaders, among whom were found some of the
Medici. The prudence and foresight which Giovanni exhibited not only
preserved his authority among his friends, but extorted respect from his
opponents.
There were stirring times in Giovanni’s maturer years. The government
of the conservative party was burdensome on the people and their friends,
who were heavily taxed, but it was a successful government in the conduct
of foreign affairs, and in the production of public works at home. Florence
increased in political importance. The war against the Visconti of Milan,
who were extending their power, and aiming at the establishment of a
kingdom in Italy, was very costly and not always fortunate to the Guelf
republic. Among the vicissitudes undergone by the latter was the defeat of
their German champion, King Ruprecht of the Palatinate, whom they had
summoned across the Alps. Nevertheless, the ultimate issue was favourable
to Florence, which at this time enjoyed a brilliant and comparatively quiet
existence. The death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, in 1402, relieved her of an
enemy who had already set foot in Tuscany, and in 1406 she took
possession of Pisa, which, weakened by centuries of war and internal
commotion, surrendered after an heroic resistance. With varying fortune,
Florence made war against Ladislaus, King of Naples, with whom expired
in 1414 the male branch of that house of Anjou with whom she had once
been so closely allied. She also extended her political influence to Umbria,
took Cortona in 1411, and, ten years later, Livorno. With all this her trade
and manufactures expanded and matured, increasing her resources and
preparing her for other emergencies. The republic which had been the most
steadfast friend of the Holy See, was in bitter dispute with it during the later
period of the Avignon Papacy. Actively desirous for the restoration of

ecclesiastical unity, Florence, in the midst of the great schism, witnessed in
her newly acquired territory of Pisa an attempt to reunite the adherents of
both Popes, the one at Avignon and the one at Rome. The attempt was a
failure, and only added to the confusion by setting up a third Pope, but it
gave occasion to the next General Council of Constance, which brought the
rupture to a close in 1417.
Notwithstanding so large a military expenditure the wealth of the
republic continued to flourish. There was a discrepancy, indeed, in the
account of private wealth and public revenue. Two hundred thousand gold
guilders were promised for Pisa, sixty thousand were paid to King
Ladislaus for Cortona, and a hundred thousand to the Genoese for Livorno.
In this way the balance of income and revenue was seriously disturbed. An
attempt was made in 1411 to avoid the risks of large grants of money by
increasing the number of courts that had to consider the projects of law laid
before the Signory. In the fourteenth century was manifested the canker in
the finances of Florence that was never quite eradicated. It is true the
income of 1328 amounted to more than 300,000 gold guilders, while the
regular expenditure was only 40,000, showing a surplus of more than
260,000. The sum was raised in great part by the excise or other indirect
taxes, detailed statistical accounts of which still exist.[5] This surplus was so
far inadequate to meet the oppressive military expenditure, the pay of the
Anjou and other leaders hired by the republic, the cost of fortifications, the
purchase of new territory, and the outlay on public works, that by degrees a
considerable State debt was contracted, which we hear of under the name of
Monte Comune. The growth of this debt is made intelligible by the fact that
in the twenty-nine years from 1377 to 1406, eleven and a half million
guilders were spent in war, while the sojourn of Duke Charles of Calabria in
the city, cost 900,000, and that of the Duke of Athens 400,000. In the wealth
of families great changes had taken place. The fourteenth century exhibited
remarkable peculiarities in the matter of private property. Shortly before the
middle of the century, the insolvency of England had brought to the ground
most of the Florentine bankers, some of them for ever. Immediately after
that, famine and the Black Death produced a change, which was intensified
by the measures taken against the families of those nobles and the ruling
party who were hated or suspected. Most of the old families became poor,
while a crowd of small folks grew into importance; and the haste to grow
rich, infinitely greater than it was in the time of the author of the ‘Divine

Comedy,’ whose admonishing voice we have heard, augmented the
recklessness and corruption which greatly contributed to the great
revolution of 1378. In spite of considerable fluctuation an aristocracy of
wealth was formed consisting chiefly of members of the seven great guilds,
in whose hands, after the close of the thirteenth century, lay the government
of the State. The guilds of the money-changers and of the woolstaplers were
the principal, for the first gave the law to all foreign banks, the last, to
which smaller societies were subject, governed all foreign markets.
Giovanni di Bicci was one of those who knew how to avail himself
skilfully of the favourable opportunities offered by the conclusion of peace
at the beginning of the fifteenth century. At the time of the Council of
Constance, which agitated the world to an unusual degree, all the great
monetary affairs in which Italy was concerned passed through Giovanni’s
hands. He is said to have gained enormous sums of money, which were
increased when the acquisition of Livorno afforded an advantageous outlet
to the commerce of Florence. The advantage would have been lasting, but
for the war with Milan, which broke out a few years later, and caused grave
troubles. If Giovanni gained much, he was generous with his gains. Where
need was, he showed no stint, and for public works his contribution was
always ready. Having promised a chapel and sacristy for San Lorenzo,
when the enlargement of the whole church was taken in hand (1419) he
prompted Filippo Brunelleschi to design a grand plan for its entire
reconstruction, which was begun in 1421, and in which the Medici and
seven other families took an especial interest. Giovanni, though he did not
seek offices in the State, never refused any to which he was called. He
conducted negotiations with Ladislaus, King of Naples, went to
congratulate Alexander V. on his election as Pope by the Council of Pisa,
and accompanied Martin V. when the latter, on his return from Constance,
passed through Florence to Rome. Giovanni was elected to the office of
Podestà in Pistoja, and in 1421 was chosen Gonfalonier in Florence. The
choice was not quite agreeable to the ruling party, for popular traditions
were associated with the name of Medici, and Giovanni stood so high in the
favour of the multitude that he could, if he had wished, easily have stirred
up an insurrection against the oligarchy. Niccolo Uzzano, a prudent and
moderate man, who, after Maso degli Albizzi’s death in 1417, shared with
Rinaldo the leadership of the conservative party, opposed the election of
Giovanni, but did not push his opposition to extremes, for he saw there was

a struggle coming on. Giovanni, on his side, made no attempt during his
term of office at anything that would disturb the peace.
Ere long external causes placed the party in danger. The antagonism
between Florence and Milan could not be removed by mere treaties of
peace. Gian Galeazzo’s only remaining son, Filippo Maria, was treading in
his father’s steps. He had not only recovered the dominion which, at his
father’s death, fell to pieces, but had added Genoa to it. He now stretched
out his hand to the Romagna, where he came into collision with the
interests of Florence, for the small gentry of that province, hitherto in
connection with the republic, were in danger of being subjected to the will
of a powerful and ambitious neighbour. Out of this arose the war of 1423,
which was far from being successful. As in earlier times, the Florentine
forces in 1424 were unable to cope with the Milanese, whom they
encountered, first in the Romagna and afterwards in their own territory. The
fault lay not so much in the men and their officers as in the absurd system
of directing the movement of troops by a committee of civilians, called the
Board of War, seated at home. Rinaldo degli Albizzi succeeded in calming
the agitation of the people after the severe defeat of Zagonara on July 24th,
but the damage done to his party only increased the ascendancy of Giovanni
di Bicci. At the beginning of the war he had advised that the Duke of Milan
should not be followed into the Romagna, but should be waited for on this
side of the Apennines, but his advice was overruled.
In the beginning of 1426 Florence succeeded in forming an alliance
with Venice, which, though a rival in mercantile interests, was as sensitive
about the encroachments of Milan in the north as was the sister republic
about his encroachments in the centre of the peninsula. The lords of Ferrara,
Mantua, and others joined the alliance. The disasters of the war and increase
of expenditure gave rise to much dissatisfaction, more loudly expressed
among the higher than by the lower classes, the fear of whom led the
administration to press their fiscal measures most heavily on the richer
citizens. Rinaldo degli Albizzi thought to effect a change by weakening the
democratic element in the Council. At a meeting of the heads of his party in
the Church of Sto. Stefano, near the old bridge, he proposed that the
number of lesser guilds should be reduced one half, and the votes of the
smaller citizens diminished correspondingly. Changes in the relative
numbers of the guilds had always been the means employed by either party
for securing political preponderance; for the relative position of the parties

was not strong enough to make manœuvres of this kind superfluous.
Besides the twenty-one guilds, there was a number of smaller corporations
representing branches of the different trades. No less than twenty-five such
societies were the offspring of the largest of the guilds, that of the
woolstaplers. They had their delegates too, but were dependent on the
greater guilds, who represented them in the State. On one occasion, in 1300,
the representatives of seventy-two companies, were gathered together in
council. The Duke of Athens, who relied on the lower classes, made the
smaller companies independent, and put their consuls on a level with the
others, but this did not last. The same thing happened at the insurrection of
1378, but the members of the small companies were again unable to keep
their independence long. The diminution of the small companies, proposed
by Rinaldo degli Albizzi, was at this time a question of some delicacy.
Nicolò da Uzzano remarked that before anything was proposed against the
people it would be advisable to come to an understanding with their friends.
On this Rinaldo conferred with Giovanni di Bicci, whom, of course, he
found opposed to the innovation. Had he wished to see a new insurrection
he might have agreed to the project, but his native prudence had increased
with years. Anyhow, he reaped this advantage, that, as the matter could not
remain secret, to him would be ascribed the merit of thwarting a scheme
intended for the oppression of the lower classes. Ere long they had to face
another great undertaking.
The distribution of the public burdens among individual contributors
was for a long time connected with serious evils, that were the more
conspicuous in proportion to the severity of the taxation. The scale was
furnished by the estimo or assessment of real and personal property,[6]
which was in use as early as the eleventh century, and resembled the
colletta that prevailed in the Two Sicilies after the time of King Roger. The
tax-system of Florence, where Neapolitan rulers had often exercised power,
bore the mark of Southern Italy. At the time of its fullest application, when
the Anjou Viceroys were supreme the estimo attached to land, capital and
personal income. It extended from the city to the country, where its
operation was regulated in districts. The framework underwent frequent
revisions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, particularly in the latter,
when the example of Naples increased the rigour of the fiscal authorities
and gave rise to frequent complaints and petitions for a reform of the
taxation. The arbitrium was often called into play before 1346, when the

Government of the Duke of Athens ordered a register of all estates. The
estimo was the standard on which the public loans were based. These, with
the excise and other indirect taxes—which, in the palmy days of commerce,
were very productive—served to cover the public expenditure. Loans were
made in the first half of the thirteenth century, and before its close the taille
was introduced by the Viceroy of Anjou for the maintenance of the French
and other mercenaries. There were two methods of raising a loan. By the
first, the treasurers of the commune made an agreement with one or more of
the great banking-houses, who, on an assignment of the custom duties to
them, advanced the money and distributed the loan among their customers
and friends.[7] By the second method, the government itself announced the
loan and allotted it to the citizens according to their income, as recorded on
the estimo, the security being in this case also the customs duties for a
certain definite period. Instead of a percentage the contributors received a
monopoly of salt, with the privilege of selling it to the retail dealers at an
enhanced price.
As the necessities of the State increased, other sources of revenue were
looked for. In 1343 the hearth or fire tax was adopted (fumanti or focatico).
Before that attempts had been made to tax the clergy. In the war against
Mastino della Scala, Lord of Verona, which ended in 1339, the loans
amounted to 350,000 gold guilders, and exceeded the annual revenue from
the excise by 50,000 guilders. The accumulation of the debt after the
expulsion of the Duke of Athens necessitated the continuance of the monte
comune, already mentioned, for the administration of the public debt. In the
previous century, when payment of the debt due to the citizens became
impossible, a ‘great book’ was opened, which in the course of forty years
was superseded. During the war of 1325, against Castruccio Castracane,
resort was had to similar means for raising money, and the Republic, being
unable to pay the debt without borrowing again, established the monte
comune. The interest paid was at the rate of five per cent., though at other
times it reached as high as twenty-five.[8]
At the beginning of the fifteenth century the taxation was continually
rising, and in the war with King Ladislaus the whole of the income
registered on the estimo was charged with a tax of five per cent. for three
years. Nonpayment of the tax was punished by exclusion from office. The
defaulter’s name was entered in a register called the ‘looking-glass’

(specchio), whence the expression netto di specchio applied to a man
eligible for office. According to a regulation of 1421 no man was so eligible
unless he, his father, or grandfather, had been regular in paying his taxes for
thirty years.
Of course there were manifold murmurs at these extraordinary
proceedings. The real evil, however, and cause of discontent was not only
the high rate of taxation, but its arbitrary and partial distribution. When the
partition of the burdens was made an arm of offence against which the
citizens rose to defend themselves by violence it was necessary to find
some other basis, if the State economy were to be preserved from ruin. The
regulation of the cadastre in 1427 had a twofold object in view, namely,
first to raise the public income by putting together the property tax, the
income tax, and the interest on the national debt (paghe or luoghi di monte);
secondly, to make the distribution of the imposts independent of personal
and political opinions. This financial reform, which changed nothing in the
nature of the tax, but only established a better partition of it, was not a new
thing. At bottom it was but a complement of the estimo, and the expression
catasto for census, from accatastare, to pile together, was used in Florence
a century earlier. That it was brought forward with a view to adjust more
equally the incidence of taxation may be gathered from the preamble of the
ordinance of May 22, 1427: ‘It is hard to express in speech or writing how
much the citizens have suffered in their goods and their liberty by the
inequality of the public burdens. They have been robbed and driven to
desperation. How many, who would gladly have returned to their homes,
have been kept back in doubt and uncertainty, exposed to all the ills that
flow therefrom.’
A commission of ten members was appointed to make within the year a
register of property. Arranged methodically, it was to specify the various
families in each quarter of the town, the name and age of the several
members of the family, the estimated value of each one’s property, real and
personal, in town and country, and in foreign parts. In the estimate were
reckoned the domestic animals of value, merchandise, ready cash, money in
the funds, and all good debts. The rent of houses was specified, and in the
case of land cultivated by the owner the average crop was taken. The
mezzeria, or lands let out to farm, were valued according to the market-
price of produce, allowance being made for the working material furnished
to the farmer by the proprietor. The capitalised value of property was

estimated at 100 for 7 per cent. produce, and on this capital half a guilder,
that is, one-half per cent., was levied. In casting up the various elements of
personal property and income the same principle prevailed as when it was
capitalised. Both sources of revenue united furnished the total of what was
called the sostanza, according to which the quota of taxes was fixed.
Certain deductions were allowed by law, so that the tax-paying portion of
the income was only the surplus over the sum required for the strict
necessaries of life. Among these deductions was the rent of the dwelling-
house, and of the warehouse, stall, or booth used in the way of business.
The fiscal legislation adhered to the principle of burdening the old nobility
of the city, nor did it spare the magnates of the provinces, many of whom,
up to the time of the French Revolution, preserved an exceptional position.
They had to pay twice, nay, three and four times, as much in taxes as other
people, and were charged with rates from which the ordinary inhabitants of
the country were free. The valuation held good for three years. Five
registers were opened. The first was for the burghers; the second for
country-people of various shades and degrees, including the peasantry; the
third for the clergy; the fourth for guilds and corporations holding land,
such as the woolstaplers’, silkmercers’, and money-changers’ guilds; the
fifth and last for persons not belonging to the State, yet possessed of
territory or engaged in commerce.
An examination of the first cadastre for the years 1427-30 gives a clear
insight into the condition of property in town and country. The gross
income of the citizens of Florence, then 90,000 to 95,000 in number, was
estimated in round numbers at 620,000 gold guilders, which, allowing for
the triple value of money, would be equal to 5,000,000 thalers (750,000l.
sterling) at the present day. The town duties produced 25,300 guilders, those
of the country 18,500. Thirty-two families paid upwards of a hundred
guilders in taxes, two hundred paid in all more than 12,800 guilders. The
highest tax—that paid by Palla Strozzi—was 507 guilders, which
presupposes a fortune of 101,400 guilders, or, in present currency, 820,000
thalers (123,000l.). Second in the list of rich contributors is Giovanni de’
Medici, who pays 397 guilders. Then come two branches of the
Panchiatichi, Francesco Tornabuoni, Niccolò da Uzzano, and Bernardo
Lamberteschi, with more than 200 others. The landed property belonging to
the clergy, to most of the benevolent institutions, and to the guilds within
the jurisdiction of the Republic, was valued at 1,577,000 guilders, while the

revenues of the clergy and the charities were put down at 130,000 guilders.
The value of the untaxed monasteries was registered at 152,000 guilders. A
few years later than this Cosimo de’ Medici, with his sons and relatives,
were charged with a tax of 428 guilders for his business transactions.
Seventy guilders of this amount were paid by the bank at Florence, as much
by the branches at London and Bruges, 96 by those of Avignon and Geneva,
65 by that of Venice, and the rest by the partners in the firm.
Undoubtedly the new mode of taxation distributed taxation more
equally than before. All those—some 3,000 in number—who, divested of
property, lived only by the labour of their hands, were valued pro formâ,
and counted by heads; but the payment of rates was not strictly enforced on
them. They constituted a particular class, known as miserabili. Another
class, one degree better off than these, and numbering more than 5,000,
came to terms with the revenue officers for the payment of a small quota of
taxes. If, however, the poorer classes were very lightly burdened, the
charges on the rich were enormously heavy. Many among them paid the
estimo ten and twenty times over, and could not as formerly obtain
exemption from any charge on the plea of expenses incurred in the public
service by the discharge of official duties confided to them. Malcontents
were numerous. Those who owned land and capital, which are easy to get at
and to tax, complained of the favour extended to trade and commerce. The
lower classes, however, still dissatisfied, demanded political power, and a
revision of the old payments. Giovanni di Bicci, by acting as mediator
between the classes, did more than anyone in keeping off injudicious
demands and maintaining peace. To him is generally ascribed the merit of
the measure which aimed at a more just distribution of the public burdens.
But in the deliberations on the subject that took place after 1426 he played
but a secondary part, and at the last sitting declared that his adhesion to the
measure was due not to his confidence in its success, but to his feelings of
deference for the many citizens who had recommended it.[9] Rinaldo degli
Albizzi and Niccolò da Uzzano were, for political reasons, both secret and
avowed, foremost in supporting the proposal, although, as it happened, they
and their friends were the most seriously affected by the new mode of
taxation. There were insinuations against Medici that he profited by the
embarrassments of his country in time of war, as he did by the distresses of
individuals in time of panic, for all came to him for advances. It must be
remembered, however, that his business extended far beyond Italy to all

parts of France, and to Flanders especially, and that his trading interests
would be best promoted by the peace of his country and the prosperity of
his neighbours. With Pope Martin V., as with his predecessor, John XXIII.,
Di Bicci was on the best terms. The former made him Count of
Monteverde, in the province of Fermo, on May 8, 1422.
Giovanni di Bicci lived to be sixty-nine. Only two sons remained to
him, the children of his wife Piccarda, daughter of Odoardo Bueri. She
survived her husband three years. He, on feeling his end approach, called
his sons to him, and bade them follow his example—to be prudent,
benevolent, and on friendly terms with those who wished them well. ‘Do
nothing,’ he said, ‘against the wish of the people, and if they wish what they
ought not, endeavour to turn them from it by friendly remonstrance rather
than by arrogant dictation. Do not make the government-house your
workshop, but wait until you are called to it, then show yourselves obedient,
and avoid big swelling words. Strive to keep the people at peace, and the
strong places well cared for. Engage in no legal complications, for he who
impedes the law shall perish by the law. Do not draw public attention on
yourselves, yet keep free from blemish as I leave you. Take care of my
wife, your mother, and let her keep the place she now has.’[10] He expired
on February 20, 1429, and was carried to San Lorenzo on an open bier. His
remains were followed by his two sons, and twenty-eight members of the
family, accompanied by the ambassadors of Venice and of King Sigismund,
with many other persons, including the magistrates. The obsequies cost
more than 3,000 guilders, and Cosimo and Lorenzo presented to the chapter
a sum of 800 guilders for the institution of an annual festival in memory of
the departed, to be held on the day of his death.[11] There, in the sacristy
built at his own cost, lies Giovanni di Bicci, with his spouse, in a
sarcophagus worked by the hand of Donatello, with genii holding the coat-
of-arms carved in semi-relief on the cover, and inscriptions cut on the lower
parts.[12] The contemporary already mentioned has described the personal
appearance of Giovanni.[13] ‘He was tall and strong in figure, and broad in
the face, with a dark, sallow complexion. His sense of humour was greater
than anyone would have imagined from his melancholy expression. In
business transactions he was straightforward, though not exactly eloquent,
for nature had not endowed him with the graces of speech. Yet in public he
was always ready with a good argument and sound advice. No one spoke ill

of him. Niccolò da Uzzano, who passed for his rival, said to his sons, with
tears in his eyes, “Your excellent father has left you in favour with the
people, and beloved by the burghers, with splendid and improving
pecuniary prospects.” He loved the good, and pitied the bad. The wicked, he
said, existed for their own misfortune, and the good by the grace and good
providence of God. He never complained of other citizens, nor they of him.
The poor excited his compassion, and the rich enjoyed his friendship and
support. He strove against misery, and promoted the happiness of mankind,
when he could do so without injury to the Commonwealth. His hands were
clean, and not seldom he neglected his own interests in the service of
others. For others, too, he would often ask favours of the Government,
never for himself. Yet, the fewer the pretensions he had, the more did the
duties of State devolve upon him.’

CHAPTER III.

THE CITY OF FLORENCE UP TO THE BEGINNING OF THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

During the two centuries that laid the foundation of the power of the Medici
the city of Florence had reached the size which it has retained to our day,
and presented much the same internal appearance as it did down to a very
recent period. The site was a favourable one. About midway between its
source and its mouth the Arno issues from the narrow valleys of the
Casentino, Aretino, and the upper Arno, and flows down the western slope
of Tuscany towards the Mediterranean. On a spot where there rises a group
of low hills, close to the left bank of the river, the city was founded. On the
right bank a semicircle of hills, crowned with the tower and ruined walls of
the ancient Etruscan city of Fiesole, recedes in gentle declivities. Not long
before the decline of the Roman Republic the community was formed
which was destined in the course of centuries to be the ruling power in
Tuscany, to promote the revival of literature and art, and to recall to life the
culture of the ancients, under the influence of Christianity.
Many circumstances combined to promote the prosperity of the city.
Although the river had neither any great volume nor steadiness in its flow it
afforded a means of communication, and its course lay through flowery
meadows which, watered by brooks descending from the sunny hillsides,
were well fitted for the cultivation of the vine and olive, inexhaustible
sources of wealth to the inhabitants of those southern regions. The pure air
of the mountains, which glistened with the snow upon them until late in
spring, together with the powerful influence of the sun, removed all fear of
the malaria incident to such low-lying districts. These advantages seem to

have attracted settlers from Fiesole, who established here a fair for the
convenience of trade. A Roman military colony augmented the population
and importance of the settlement; and although the ancient inhabitants of
the city were proud of their Roman descent, their posterity attributed the
inflexibility of the popular character, ‘which still retains its stony and rocky
nature,’ to the admixture of their blood with that of the mountaineers of
Fiesole. The oldest traditions speak of the special veneration in which the
God of War was held; and if the opinion that the baptistery built on the
northern boundary of the original city was his temple be false, at all events
the figure of Mars was to be seen on the old bridge, until it was swept away
by one of the frequent inundations of the Arno.
Moreover, in the Roman town there are reminiscences of the Capitol in
fragments of the amphitheatre which have been dug up at different times,
and have been used in edifices of later date. Evidences of the same are said
to have existed in the church of Santa Maria di Campidoglio, once standing
in the old market-place. The circuit of the walls of the Roman town, which
was connected with the opposite shore by the bridge above mentioned, may
be roughly traced by following the direction of the narrow streets of the
crowded quarter between the river and the cathedral square, and the Piazza
of Santa Trinità and Santa Firenze. When the declining Roman Empire
could no longer resist the pressure of the northern nations Florence was
besieged by the wild hordes of Radagaïs. They were, however, utterly
destroyed by the general Honorius Flavius Stilicho, when the city was
relieved. The storm of Gothic and Lombard war subsequently swept over
the country, until at length Charlemagne, who in legends is called the
Restorer of Florence, established peace, and set up a form of government,
founded on Lombard institutions, which, with various changes, was
maintained until the uprising of the free Communes.
Towards the latter end of the eleventh century the portion of the city on
the right bank of the river had been considerably enlarged, so that it
extended eastward as far as the piazza of Santa Croce, northward to that of
San Lorenzo, and westward to where subsequently the Carraia bridge was
built. The city enclosed also within its walls, which not long afterwards
withstood an assault of the Emperor Henry IV., that portion of the left bank
of the river which extends as far as the Piazza de’ Pitti. This was the city
that was seen in his youth by the author of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ who was
born in 1265, a year before the Guelfs obtained supreme authority. But

Dante beheld it already changed in its internal aspect, and in the character
of its population, hurried along as they were on the path of conquest, with
which this change in character was closely connected. He has described the
manners and customs of the ancient citizens, ‘when they were still purely
reflected in the lowest artisan,’ that is, before peasants and men of the lower
classes had immigrated from the subjugated villages of the neighbourhood,
attracted both by the protection they enjoyed in a powerful city and the
promise of gain from the daily increasing value of their industry. This was,
to use the poet’s words, before citizens of Roman descent had to endure the
stench of peasants from Aguglione and Signa, whom avarice alone had
allured to Florence.[14] Dante Alighieri lived to see likewise the
commencement of the great architectural transformation. Numerous
churches had long adorned the city, which reverenced in Zanobi a saintly
bishop, and had numbered among its illustrious citizens St. John Gualbert,
the founder of the Order of Vallombrosa. Beside the church of St. John, the
supposed Temple of Mars, there had arisen in the first half of the eighth
century Santa Reparata, the subsequent cathedral, and in the tenth and
eleventh Santa Felicità, San Martino, Sant’Ambrogio, Santa Maria
Maggiore, San Remigio, San Salvi, San Lorenzo, San Piero Scheraggio,
San Romolo, Santa Trinità, etc., in and near the city, were either newly
founded or rebuilt. Nothing now remains of the original structure of any of
these churches, many of which have quite disappeared. Specimens of the
Roman style are still preserved in the city and its environs, in the octagon of
San Giovanni, the little Basilica of Sant’Apostolo, that of San Miniato on a
neighbouring eminence,[15] and the façade of the Abbey-church at the foot
of the hill of Fiesole. These buildings all belong to the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, and were probably completed before the end of the latter, and the
conception and finish of this architecture serve to explain how Gothic
architecture, which arose in the following century, was never entirely free
from reminiscences of the older style, and, notwithstanding its more
graceful characteristics, declined before attaining the same degree of
perfection.
The architectural industry of the thirteenth century was very great, and
was exercised as much for ecclesiastical as for secular purposes. Before that
period narrow streets and small, irregular squares made the city gloomy.

On every side rose lofty square brick towers without any break or
ornament whatever, sometimes so close together as to be within arm’s
length of one another. The dwelling-houses, which were built of freestone,
were small in size and built with a view to purposes of defence and attack
as much as for habitation. The streets were first paved in 1237, in which
year the Milanese knight, Rubaconte da Mandello, Podestà of the
corporation, built over the Arno, at that spot within the city where the river
is at its broadest, the bridge named after him, but generally known by the
name of the chapel of Sta. Maria delle Grazie. Bricks placed on end were
used for the purposes of paving as well as for the bridges. About the middle
of the century a partial demolition of the towers became necessary. This,
however, by no means put an end to the civil conflicts, or even deprived
them of their ferocious character. Stones were used for building the city
walls, particularly on the left bank of the river. At the present day many
towers, both in the oldest portion of the city between the old bridge and that
of the Trinity, and also by San Pier Maggiore, and in the quarter beyond the
Arno, recall the bloody feuds of the irreconcilable factions of the nobility.
In these conflicts the strife was carried on from tower to tower, from house
to house; streets were barricaded with heavy chains, and homes made
desolate with fire and sword.
At this period the construction of those great buildings began, some of
which still impart to the city its peculiar aspect, and of these some have
already been named in the introduction to this history. Amongst the first
were the original bridge of Sta. Trinità, the Oratory of Confuggio, out of
which grew the brilliant Servite church of the Annunziata, the old Town-
hall, afterwards enlarged and named after the Podestà, the Carmelite church
beyond the Arno, and the magnificent Sta. Maria Novella, which is,
perhaps, the purest and most graceful example of the so-called Tuscan
Gothic.
The Dominicans, who are said to have come to Florence in 1219 and
who at first lived in hospitals, were presented two years later by the Bishop
and Chapter with the little church of St. Mary, which was extended in size
till it became one of the largest houses of Divine worship, with the addition
of a spacious cloister. Not long after the arrival of the Dominicans the order
of the Franciscan Minorites was established in Florence, and about the
middle of the century they rebuilt their great church of Sta. Croce, situated
by the wall on the east side, and transformed it into the majestic temple we

behold at the present day.[16] The corporation had already purchased pieces
of ground and also houses in various places, to make room for widening the
older streets and laying out others. In this way space was found for the Hall
of Or San Michele, which was built about the middle of the century, and
which took its name from a church of the Archangel, pulled down to make
room.[17] Similarly space was obtained in 1282 and following years in the
quarter of the city beyond the Arno and in the west suburb, for laying out
the older square by Sta. Maria Novella.[18] About the same time the final
enlargement of the city was commenced by laying out the line of wall
which those now living have seen still perfect with its gates and towers. But
of all this nothing more remains on the right bank of the river, since
Florence, which for centuries had been content with its mediæval
boundaries, was extended as far as the foot of the hill of Fiesole, and
numerous conventual and other gardens were transformed into squares and
streets, while fields and meadows were enclosed within the city. The
character of its circuit has thus been materially altered, although remains of
the ancient style of architecture are still visible here and there. The great
work of the new boundary wall is ascribed to the two Dominican brothers,
Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, who built Sta. Maria Novella and were employed
in Rome in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, and to Arnolfo, who stands in the
first rank of the historical architects of Florence. Arnolfo, the son of
Cambio, a native of Colle in the valley of the Elsa, was named after his
master Arnolfo di Lasso, who was a German by origin, and known as
architect of the castle of Poppi and the Palazzo del Podestà.
The development of the political power of Florence, now fully
conscious of its importance, was coincident with an increase in material
wealth and with an awakening of intellectual life. Arnolfo had the good
fortune to be born in the period when that great movement began, which,
furthered rather than hindered by the animosity of civil strife, led to a
remarkable revival in Italy of literature and art. It must be remembered that
the way to it was paved by the age of the Hohenstaufen.
The great poet who is so much identified with this eventful time[19] saw
the foundations laid for the palace of the Signory and the new Cathedral,
Sta. Maria del Fiore, Sta. Croce, and Sto. Spirito; he witnessed the
construction of the Corn Exchange of Or San Michele, and the gloomy
prison which still recalls the memory of party-strife.[20] In his banishment

he thought of his beautiful San Giovanni, and in order to picture the steep
ascent in Purgatory drew a comparison with the straight path, that now no
longer exists, leading to the church of San Miniato, which looked down on
the Rubaconte bridge, and commanded a view of the city.[21] Beside it in his
time Bishop Andrea de’ Mozzi had begun to build the first embattled
episcopal palace, which was completed by his successor, Antonio d’Orso,
the same who instigated the populace to rise against the Emperor Henry IV.
Dante was a witness of the indefatigable zeal with which corporation and
citizens emulated each other in the erection of churches, great public
buildings, the city-wall and defensive castles for the environs. No will was
held valid unless a legacy was left by it towards the expenses of building
the wall, while immunity from taxes was granted to the architect of the
cathedral in gratitude for his excellent work. Benevolence had long been
engaged in relieving human misery, and now with increase of means it was
still more displayed. Folco Portinari, the father of him whose name has
become celebrated far and wide through Dante Alighieri, founded the
hospital of Sta. Maria, now one of the largest in any country, by extending a
charitable institution commenced by Mona Tessa, a servant of his house.
The corporation built the hospital at the Porto al Prato and took under their
superintendence the one long since founded by a pious citizen at Porta San
Gallo. The hospital of San Jacopo and that of Sta. Maria della Scala were
annexed later. Contributions were everywhere given for churches and
convents, for that of the Camaldulensians in the Angeli, the Servites in
Cafaggio, the Silvestrines in San Marco, and others. An especial magistrate
was appointed for the care of the streets and sewers, and the Carraia bridge
was rebuilt.
In the midst of this activity, in June 1304, a conflagration laid a great
part of the city in ashes, during a violent feud between the populace and the
nobility. It is said that 1,700 noblemen’s palaces, towers, and houses of
citizens were destroyed, besides incalculable wealth, and many monuments
of the old town. The prior of San Piero Scheraggio, Ser Freri Abbati, was
the incendiary. As an example of the ferocity of the manners of the times it
may be here mentioned that in the year 1307 the belfry of the Benedictine
abbey was partially demolished because the monks had rung the alarm-bell
during a quarrel which had arisen respecting taxation of the clergy. Activity
in construction was not, as we have said before, confined to the defence and
adornment of the city itself, for at this period the building of numerous forts

was determined upon for the protection of the environs, the completion of
which was afterwards vigorously carried on. Such defences were necessary
in times of perpetual warfare, like the feuds of the communes; and the
marches upon Rome led by Henry of Luxembourg and Louis of Bavaria,
with the enterprises of Uguccione della Faggiuola and Castruccio
Castracane, in connection with these, gave immediate occasion for them. In
much later times they were still an effectual protection, for the art of
besieging was still in its infancy when the art of defence had already made
important progress, and armies under celebrated generals were stayed for
months by inconsiderable villages, as the history of the second half of the
fifteenth century will show.
The style of palaces and houses remained faithful to the older traditions.
The public palaces were like castles. For centuries those of the Podestà and
the Signory, for example, had been carefully strengthened and kept in a
state of defence. From the towers, the bells of which summoned the
citizens, there was a wide prospect over the city and its environs. The
battlements, of the square form customary among the Guelfs, were adapted
for defensive purposes. The windows on the ground storey were few and
narrow, the gates were strengthened by double doors. The building material,
consisting of heavy stones, or macigni, was furnished by the neighbouring
stone-quarries of the hills of Fiesole and Golfolina on the Arno, at the spot
where the river forces a narrow passage from the Florentine to the broad
lower valley.[22] Great blocks of freestone, rough-hewn and gradually
blackened by exposure to the air, formed those massive walls that seemed
as though built for eternity. These walls have stamped their character on the
later Florentine architecture; for the fifteenth and even the sixteenth century
remained faithful to this opus rusticum, which has been transmitted down to
our own days—modified, it is true, in its harsher features, but essentially
unchanged. The windows of the upper storeys, divided first by slender
marble columns, and then by various ornaments in the spaces of the pointed
arch, relieve the gloominess of the fortress. The halls of the guilds and the
palaces of the nobility exhibit the same style, though in them the
embossments are partly or entirely smoothed away, and the windows are
quite plain. Many of them are still preserved in the older quarters of the
city, in the Borgo Sant’Apostolo, in the Via delle Terme, in the Mercato
Nuovo, in the Via de’ Cerchi and Condotta, in the narrow streets behind the
Old Palace in Via de’ Neri and de’ Rustici, and in Piazza Peruzzi, where

they have even nestled in the Roman amphitheatre and elsewhere. The
former palace of the Spini, between the Arno and the Piazza of Santa
Trinità, the restoration of which has been undertaken by the present
municipal authorities, presents, with its massive crown of battlements, the
severe character of a fortress. The houses of the Mozzi at the south end of
the Rubaconte bridge, and those of the Manelli on the Ponte Vecchio,
among others, represent, in spite of change, the age of Dante; some, indeed,
are now, after a lapse of six centuries, occupied by descendants of the very
families that then possessed them.[23] The ground floors often show the
traces of walled-up loggie, an indication of more peaceful days, for this
style of building was continued even when party quarrels were fought out
more by change of constitution and by proscription than by force of arms.
The numerous religious institutions show of themselves how important
a field was offered to ecclesiastical architecture. At the most flourishing
period of German architecture, Sta. Maria Novella furnishes the first
example of the endeavour to obtain as wide and slight an arching to the
vault as possible, by employing antique pilasters, composed of semi-
columns and pillar corners. This attempt has met with comparative success
in Sta. Maria del Fiore, in which plain pillars adorned with more developed
capitals composed of acanthus leaves have been used, while for the gigantic
central nave of Sta. Croce the vaulting is relinquished, and the open
principle of the Christian basilica of Rome adopted. The same plan is also
to be seen in San Miniato al Monte. If, however, the management of the
material in Sta. Maria del Fiore exhibits extraordinary skill, a certain
baldness was, on the other hand, scarcely to be avoided; and this forms a
contrast with the awkwardly set cupola of the choir and transept—a fault,
perhaps, less to be charged upon the first architect than is generally
assumed. The exterior marble facing of the first two of these churches was
similar to that of San Giovanni, but displayed a greater tendency to
picturesque effect, which was increased by the additions of later times. The
marble was supplied from native quarries, those of Prato and the Maremma,
and after 1343 particularly from Carrara.[24] The craft of the painter was and
remained combined with that of the architect, as a fine art, distinguished in
fact only by the employment of different materials. That same painter, to
whom art history—which in the fifteenth century was just awakening, and
in the next, although not yet critical, reached descriptive perfection—has
given, following tradition, a higher position than belongs to him, painted

both with the brush and with coloured pastilles, and his most distinguished
pupil adorned the city with its most graceful architecture. Dante has
extolled them both, the one as a setting and the other as a rising star. The
legend derives the ancient family name of Borgo Allegri from the popular
rejoicing which accompanied Charles of Anjou on his way to inspect the
great Madonna picture in the studio of Giovanni Cimabue, which now
adorns the church of Sta. Maria Novella. It was Giotto di Bondone who
broke through the narrow circle of typical painting in the Byzantine style,
and, both in single figures of Madonnas and Saints and in grand historico-
allegorical compositions, opened a way to freer spiritual development, in
which he was followed by a large school. Although, as was natural,
considering the large number of its followers, its original principles did not
continue unmodified, this school in all essentials became the authority for
the fourteenth century. No new creative peculiarity, however, was evinced,
and constant repetition of the same motive can be observed in form of face,
drapery, architecture, and colouring. The admiration that Giotto’s works,
which adorned all Italy, had excited in his native city, the talents that were
ascribed to him outside the art to which he had especially devoted himself,
are shown by a decree passed by the Signory on April 12, 1334,[25] in
concert with the Buonuomini—an act redounding no less to the honour of
the State than of the painter. By this decree Giotto was nominated architect
of the Sta. Maria del Fiore, of the boundary wall, and of the other
architectural undertakings of the Corporation. ‘Let it be done,’ so it ran, ‘in
order that the public works may progress effectually and in fitting manner,
which can only be the case if a practised and celebrated man conduct the
management of them, and for this purpose no one can be found in the whole
world able to do more excellently in this, as in many other things, than
Master Giotto di Bondone of Florence, painter, whom, as a great artist, his
native city will lovingly receive and honour.’ Giotto lived two years after
his praises were thus proclaimed. After death he was honoured with the
erection in the cathedral, with the building of which he had been entrusted,
of a monument adorned by one of the finest inscriptions of the Renaissance
period.
During the time that the façade of this church, which was destined to
undergo many a change, was building, together with its side-walls, doors,
and the walls and gates of the quarter Oltr’arno; and while the belfry of the
cathedral, the most graceful, rich, and perfect work of its style, arose, great

efforts had to be made to clear away the last traces of the fire of 1304, and
the ravages of the great inundation of November 1, 1333. Three bridges
were broken up; the old bridge, with those of Santa Trinità and Carraia, and
even the column before the Baptistery, which had been raised in memory of
St. Zanobi, was thrown down. Every nerve was strained to the work of
restoration. One of the most active among the artists was Giotto’s pupil,
Taddeo Gaddi, who, in the summer of 1337, began building the new Hall of
Or San Michele, on the site of the one burnt down, which was, however, no
longer destined to serve the former purpose, but to be used as an Oratorium,
while two upper stories were to be employed for the garnering of corn. So
arose this magnificent edifice, which forms one of the most remarkable
ornaments of Florence, and, seen from the neighbouring hills, towers above
the clustering houses. It forms a quadrangle, of which the sides are of
unequal length. The character of a hall is still visible in the ground-floor,
with its wide tripartite arched windows, which are richly panelled, and in
the two upper stories with their arched windows, in groups, alternately, of
two and three, divided by columns; the whole being surmounted by a
moulded cornice. In this cornice are niches with statues and groups of
marble, which had been built at the cost of the guilds, and set on the
pilasters of the older hall; and here, as on the middle storey, are placed the
arms of these guilds with those of the commonwealth.[26] Two years later
Taddeo Gaddi began rebuilding the old bridge in essentially the same form
as at present. The palace of the Podestà had been already considerably
enlarged and beautified when in 1326 it served Duke Charles of Calabria,
the son of King Robert of Naples, as a residence; but in February 1332 it
had suffered by fire, and in the year following by the inundation, so that a
thorough restoration was necessary. The Carraia bridge was finished in
1337; that of the Trinità required several years more; the belfry of the
Benedictine abbey had been rebuilt in 1330. The short reign of the Duke of
Athens caused no cessation in the process of construction. A new front was
built to the palace of the Signory, in which the Duke took up his residence,
which did not, however, protect him from the resentment of the populace;
and in the palace of the Podestà, of which the picturesque courtyard was
then building, with arcades running round three sides of the ground-floor,
his coats of arms bear witness to his activity. The following years were so
restless and disturbed, owing to the peril the country was in from the
swarms of freebooters, who, towards the middle of the century, laid all Italy

under contribution, and from the fearful ravages of the Black Death, that
architecture was rather called into requisition for the safety of the city than
for its adornment.
The brigandage and pestilence that prevailed might well cripple
constructive progress for a time, but it was soon aroused to renewed
activity. If the last fearful calamity led to immorality among the lower
orders, it yet induced many to relinquish the bustle of the world for grave
meditations and pious works. The means of charitable institutions were
considerably increased by alms and legacies. In 1349 was decreed the
erection of a chapel to St. Anne, in the hall of Or San Michele, in
commemoration of the expulsion of the Duke of Athens on the day of that
saint. The work was conducted by Neri de’ Fioravante, who, on the
occasion of that event, superintended the erection of the barricades at the
Place of the Signory, and by Benci di Cione of Como. Three years later
Andrea Orcagna began in the same place the rich chapel of the Madonna,
which may be considered as the best work of architectural sculpture
belonging to this period. The graceful loggia which, in the year 1351, were
commenced opposite San Giovanni, as frontage to the Oratorium, are
probably by the same artist. This Oratorium originally belonged to the
brotherhood of the Misericordia, a society formed after the plague in 1326,
and still in meritorious activity. It came later into the hands of another
benevolent society, that of the Capitani del Bigallo.[27] The building of the
Certosa, which was commenced by Nicola Acciaiuoli, in the year 1341, on
the neighbouring hill of Montaguto, was carried on with vigour, and the
mausoleum containing the beautiful monuments of the family belongs
likewise to these years. In 1360 the building of Santa Maria del Fiore,
which had been so continually interrupted, was fairly proceeded with, and
four years later the cupola was commenced. In the neighbourhood of the
palace of the Signory the site for the new Mint was obtained in 1361.
Several churches were altered or rebuilt, and the façade of the church
opposite to Or San Michele—now named after St. Charles Borromeo, but
formerly dedicated to the archangel—is a monument of the graceful style of
the period, though of small dimensions, and sparely ornamented. An
endeavour was made in 1351 to fill the voids left by the plague in the ranks
of the artists, by granting permission to strangers to carry on both sculpture
and architecture. The tendency of the period towards the formation of guilds
had manifested itself in the year previous by the institution of the Society of

Painters, under the patronage of St. Luke, which, altered and enlarged,
exists at the present day.
The Hall of the Signory, which, since the 16th century, has been
generally called the Loggia de’ Lanzi, is the most important architectural
work of the latter part of the 14th century. In the architecture of this
building the spirit of the Renaissance breaks boldly through the barriers of
the Gothic style, without entirely renouncing it. A hall in which the whole
members and friends of a family could meet was looked upon as a
necessary distinction of the high rank of the owner, and, indeed, no house of
any importance was without such an adjunct. This hall was afterwards
gradually converted into a separate and public building. Even in the middle
of the following century Leon Battista Alberti wrote thus: ‘Streets and
markets will be adorned by halls in which older people may assemble to
avoid the heat and discuss their business, while their presence will act as a
restraint upon the young in their games.’ Even private family affairs were
transacted here, and it is related of Giovanni Rucellai, a rich citizen of the
15th century, who built a new loggia opposite his house, that he arranged
his daughter’s wedding there. None of these loggias are at present in
complete preservation,[28] for even where the exterior form has been
preserved the arches have been walled up, and the building has been
diverted to other uses, the original destination being uncalled for by altered
customs. Numerous traces of them, however, still exist, notably of the
Loggias of the Cerchi, the Agli, the Buondelmonti, the Cavalcanti, the
Tornaquinci, the Peruzzi, the Alberti, the Canigiani, Burdi, Frescobaldi,
Guiccardini, in the quarter of Oltr’arno, and, of later origin, those of the
Albizzi and Rucellai.
A commodious hall was naturally desired for the Signory in view of the
public nature of the business transacted by them, and the unsuitableness of
the Tribune of Ringhiera, which was added to the façade of their palaces in
1349 and pulled down during the domination of Napoleon.
Notwithstanding, however, the utility of such a building and the practice of
annexing loggias to private dwellings, when the square of the Signory was
enlarged in 1356, to make room for the hall, by pulling down the church of
San Romolo, a part of the Mint, and several houses, the general opinion
was, that a great public hall was better fitted for a despotism than for a free
city.[29]

As already mentioned, it was not until twenty years later that the hall of
the Signory was commenced.[30] Benci di Cione and Simone Talenti were
the architects. The former was an artist much in request, and was not only
incessantly engaged in the architectural works of the city, but also in the
construction of the fortifications. His death happened in 1388. The
superintendence of this building was entrusted likewise to the directors of
Sta. Maria del Fiore, their funds exceeding their necessities. Although the
building of the loggia of the Signory is ascribed to Orcagna in error, seeing
that he had died eight years before, and had not lived even to see the square
cleared, the way for it was prepared by the hall of the Bigallos, which was
undoubtedly by his hands. The Gothic style had, even at the end of the
previous century, displayed great boldness in the treatment of the pointed
arch. The circular arch was now adopted, which in bold sweeps forms three
openings on the façade, and one at each side. An architrave rises above the
capitals of lofty but strongly built pillars, surmounted by a boldly projecting
cornice, with wide cross-vaulting inside. Antique tradition was nowhere so
perceptible as in this building, the unsurpassed, nay, unattainable, model for
all later ones of the kind until the present day. In the year 1380, in which
Antonio di Puccio, the ancestor of the yet flourishing family of the Pucci,
executed the third vaulting, the building seems to have approached its
completion, but eleven years longer sculptors and painters were occupied
with its adornment by numerous sculptures in high and low relief, in which
mosaic and colouring were employed to heighten the effect.[31]
Florentine sculpture of the latter part of the thirteenth and the fourteenth
centuries followed essentially the bent of Giovanni Pisano, who
endeavoured to unite the decided tendencies of his father Nicolò towards
the antique with those of the Gothic style, which then began to assert itself;
and he thus traced out for his followers the way which they have long
pursued. Andrea Pisano, the son of one Ugolino of Pontedera, was the chief
representative of Giovanni’s school during the first half of the fourteenth
century. If there is any question as to whether the design of the bronze door
of the Baptistery, worked by him in 1330, being Giotto’s, the great
influence exercised by Giotto on the sculpture of his time is undoubted.
Neither Orcagna, whose most important work, the altar to the Virgin in Or
San Michele, has already been mentioned, and who displays both in
painting and in sculpture the greatest originality in conception and in form
of any artist of this epoch, nor Andrea Pisano’s pupil, Alberto di Arnoldo, to

whom the grave and noble group of the Virgin with Angels in the Oratorium
of Bigallo is owing, was able to escape the influence of Giotto. The
decoration of the façade of the cathedral, of the belfry and interior of the
baptistery, as also of the side doors of the cathedral, with sculpture, statues,
reliefs, and ornaments, gave employment, irrespectively of others, to
numerous artists from foreign parts, but much of their work has
unfortunately been destroyed or mutilated. Meanwhile the churches were
being adorned with numerous frescoes and altar panels, particularly Sta.
Croce, so rich in chapels, which was only completed in the following
century, Sta. Trinità, which was enlarged in 1383, Sta. Maria Novella,
Ognissanti, and others, in which work Agnolo Gaddi, Orcagna, Giovanni da
Milano, Jacopo del Casentino, and many others were employed. Before the
middle of the century the great chapter hall of Sta. Maria Novella,
commonly called Capellone degli Spagnuoli, which contains the mural
paintings ascribed, without ground, to the Siennese painter, Simon Martini,
and Taddeo Gaddi, had been built by a citizen of Florence, named
Buonamico di Lapo Guidalotti. The frescoes from the history of St.
Benedict, by Spinello of Aretino, in San Miniato al Monte, date after the
year 1380, and those from the New Testament in the Rinuccini chapel,
probably by Giovanni da Milano,[32] somewhat earlier. Orcagna, who next
to Giotto possessed the most catholic spirit of the century, had breathed a
fresher and more original life into the school then dominant. He was
followed pre-eminently by the two last-named masters, who,
notwithstanding the duration of the Giottoesque traditions, herald in the
coming epoch.
Not alone the end of the thirteenth, but the onward marching fourteenth
century likewise beheld the establishment of great charitable institutions. In
the year 1377 the building of the hospital was commenced, which Bonifacio
de’ Lupi of Soragna, from Parma, formerly Podestà and Capitano del
Popolo, dedicated as a mark of attachment to the city which had bestowed
its freedom on him. In the course of centuries it has been much changed,
but still exists as the Spedale di Bonifazio. Seven years later Lemmo
Balducci, of Monticatini, founded the hospital of San Matteo, on the site
now occupied by the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1400 the hospital Sta. Maria
dell’Umiltà (San Giovanni di Dio) was erected by Simone Vespucci, near
the houses of his family. Churches and monasteries followed one another,
and, as the enlargement of the square of the Signory necessitated the

demolition of a church, it was rebuilt in another place. In 1394 Bishop
Onofrio Visdomini consecrated the magnificent charter-house of the
Acciaiuoli, which was established at the public cost. In 1392 the convent Il
Paradiso, before Porta San Nicolò, on the slope of the hill of Arcetri and
Miniato, was founded by Messer Antonio degli Alberti, under the influence
of the excitement created in the ecclesiastical world, then distracted with
the great schism, by the report of the prophecies and piety of Bridget of
Sweden, whose fame extended far beyond Rome, where she passed so
many years of her life. This period showed itself grateful towards men of
merit. In 1393 the directors of San Maria del Fiore received permission to
raise a monument to John Hawkwood, who, as a commander under the
name of Giovanni Aguto, had the thanks of the Republic for his faithful
services. A year later it was resolved to erect in the same church a
monument to the learned and useful public servant, the Augustine monk
Luigi Marsigli. By a decree passed in the year 1396 it was intended to
perpetuate in the same manner the memory of the lawyer Accursio, Zanobi
da Strada, also Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The decree was, however,
never carried out.
The power of the aristocracy, at the head of which were the Albizzi,
now approached its height. After the unfortunate attempt of 1397 to obtain
some popular balance to this domination, a less violent state of affairs came
gradually about, one manifestation of which was the great expenditure of
money, both by the State and private individuals, in the prosecution of
important and valuable works. This activity renders the period worthy to be
compared with the end of the previous century, and formed a new epoch in
the history of art. It was formerly the custom to associate the name of the
Medici with the outburst of the Italian Renaissance, and likewise with the
height of its perfection at the beginning of the fifteenth century. They had,
however, only followed in the footsteps of their predecessors the Albizzi,
and Pope Julius II.
The stages of the progress of the Renaissance are visible, in following
the history of art, from Benci di Cione, to Brunellesco, from Orcagna and
Alberto d’Arnoldo to Ghiberti and Donatello, from Orcagna again,
Spinello, and Nicolò di Pietro, to Masolino and Masaccio. In the province
of architecture, classical art entered again upon its rights under the
influence of the new spirit. Brunellesco, who, while in his native town, had
fixed his attention on Roman edifices, accustomed his eye when in Rome to

the large dimensions and simple yet harmonious forms of ancient art. The
Italian Gothic, which is not of one cast, but more or less dependent upon the
older forms of art, must, in comparison with the latter, appear arbitrary in its
character. Yet the classical principle obtained by no means an easy victory.
The greatest work of the period, the dome of Sta. Maria del Fiore, is the
result of a compromise, which under the circumstances was unavoidable,
between the traditions of two epochs, and between the characters of two
different tendencies. The requirements both of a strict division and
demarcation of masses, and the perception of grand beauty and ample space
had also to be reconciled. So in other branches of art the Gothic style
asserted itself for a length of time by the side of the new tendency.
In February 1393 a commission was first appointed for the building of
the dome, the sacristy, and the canonica of the cathedral.[33] But it was a full
quarter of a century before the work was fairly begun. On August 19, 1418,
the famous competition, which has since been celebrated in a novel, was
invited for models of the dome. On November 14, 1419, a commission of
‘Officiales Cupolæ’ was appointed, consisting of four of the principal
citizens. April 16, 1420, the office of Proveditores was conferred on Filippo
Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Battista d’Antonio; and on August 12,
1434, it was resolved that the lantern with which the dome was to be closed
should be built after Brunellesco’s model. The lantern was, however, only
completed in 1462, sixteen years after the great artist’s death.[34] The
greatest and most complex work of modern architecture belongs
consequently to the time when the Albizzis held power. Meanwhile many
other buildings were undertaken. In 1411 an illustrious citizen, Nicolò
Davanzati Bostichi, began the construction of the convent S. Michele of
Doccia, near Fiesole, which, built against the dark background of the
wooded hillside, can be seen far and wide. In 1416 the plan for the
rebuilding of San Lorenzo was sketched out; in 1421 the great foundling
hospital of the Innocents, with its beautiful portico on the Piazzi of the
Annunziata, was begun; and twelve years later Sto. Spirito, the two latter
after Brunellesco’s designs. Notwithstanding some defects, owing chiefly to
the difficulty, imperfectly surmounted, of continuing the colonnade from
the nave through the transept and choir, and to the unsuitability of the dome
to this form, Sto. Spirito is the finest example of the independent adoption
of the Roman basilica style for modern ecclesiastical architecture. Sta.
Maria Novella was consecrated September 8, 1420, by Pope Martin V., for

whom a part of the adjoining convent had been converted into a dwelling
the year before. This was followed the next day by the consecration of Sta.
Maria Nuova (Sant’Egidio) by Cardinal Antonio Correr, Bishop of
Bologna, to which ceremony the frescoes refer with which Bicci di
Lorenzo, who superintended the building, adorned the façade under the
modern portico of the present day.
Filippo degli Scolari, who, under the name of Pippo Spano, had been
influential in Hungary in the days of King Sigismund, ordered upon his
death, in 1426, the construction, by Brunellesco, of a great central building
for the Camaldolensians of the Angeli, but it went no further than a portion
of the vast octagon, which was vulgarly called Il Castellaccio.[35] The Place
of the Signory was still too small, and the wish to procure more space for
the palace on the south side occasioned the demolition in 1410 of a side-
aisle of San Piero Scheraggio. This church, after being gradually more and
more mutilated, made way a century and a half later for the edifice of the
Uffizi, by whom this quarter of the city, in which streets and houses were
crowded together down to the river-side, was completely transformed.
The splendour and beauty of the public buildings necessarily influenced
the construction of private dwellings. The narrow houses, lofty in
proportion to their base, fell gradually into disuse, the more as the city,
which had been considerably enlarged, afforded greater space. The
beginning of the fifteenth century, which reached its climax in the
Florentine palaces, turned the scale in this respect; but, as already remarked
in the introduction, the mediæval traditions were here more faithfully
adhered to than in ecclesiastical architecture. Moreover, a sense of timidity
in passing certain limits existed in this case, which was connected with the
circumstances of a free republic. This feeling has been recognised in Cosmo
de’ Medici, and will be found again in Filippo Strozzi. We are reminded of
the same fact even in the following century by the history of the Bartoline
house on the Piazza Sta. Trinità, the door and window frames of which were
considered unsuitable for a private dwelling, though they were soon to
appear simple enough. In earlier times, too, there were large private houses,
but their number appears to have been inconsiderable. In the first decade of
the fifteenth century several were erected, which we still behold essentially
in their original form. The house of Nicolò da Uzzano in Via de’ Bardi,
already mentioned, built probably about 1420, is of large proportions, but
perfectly plain, and without any sign of the modern spirit. The palace of the

Bardi family in Via del Fosso indicates, both by its straight-sided façade
and by the square courtyard with the antique arrangement of the columns,
the innovations of the new style; while the broad, projecting, wooden roof
and the plain windows recall an earlier time. On the Trinity bridge the
houses of the Capponi and Gianfigliazzi retain something of the ancient
style. In the seventeenth century the interior of the house of the Albizzi, the
residence of Piero, Maso, Rinaldo, was rebuilt. This building is in the street
named after them, in which palace follows palace, though the full effect is
lost, owing to the narrow space. The exterior bears, however, decidedly the
mark of time, which is still more the case with the neighbouring palace of
the Alessandri.
The streets were mostly paved with flagstones (lastrico), even in the
suburbs—a custom which gradually replaced the causeways of tiles
(ammattonato) or of small stones (selciato); and when adopted in the
smaller Tuscan towns contributed to give them a clean and well-to-do
appearance. Even before the end of the thirteenth century this kind of
pavement is said to have been used. The stones were procured from the hill
of San Giorgio, adjoining the city on the left bank of the river, and the
immediate neighbourhood, as well as from the quarries of Fiesole and
Golfolina, already mentioned. For a long time the stones were left in their
polygonal quarry form, until in recent times it was preferred to hew them
square. The laborious and costly work required by a strong and perfectly
uniform embankment to the sewers of the city would progress but slowly. It
was placed under the careful superintendence of the commissariat officials
(officiales grasciæ), to whom was especially entrusted the charge of those
streets in which the Barbary-horse races took place.[36] The paving of the
Place of the Annunziata—the centre of which remains, however, at the
present day unpaved, like those of Sta. Maria Novella, San Marco, and
others—was first undertaken, in 1421, by the Servite monks, who solicited
subsidies for the purpose, in consideration of the crowds which thronged to
the miraculous image in their church.
It is comprehensible that the noticeable revolution in architecture should
likewise affect the sister arts. Here, however, we encounter in the first rank
two artistic characters essentially differing from one another. With Lorenzo
Ghiberti the influence of the school of Giotto is very perceptible, and in the
reliefs, his master-pieces, he allows the picturesque principle to
predominate to a certain extent, and with a careful calculation of the effect,

which to some degree surpasses the ability or courage of the painter so
active in his youth. The attitudes and drapery, however, of Ghiberti’s figures
are in harmony with the spirit of antiquity which had inspired Nicolò Pisano
more than a century and a half earlier. The full outbreak of realism in
conception and form is displayed in the somewhat younger Donatello, who,
unpoetical and less imaginative than Ghiberti, depends for models rather
upon real, if even less beautiful, nature, than upon works of antiquity, of
which, indeed, Rome afforded him but scanty and doubtful specimens. Both
were goldsmiths, whose art had at that time reached a high degree of
perfection, and was distinguished by the production of great works. It was
the profession which Brunellesco had originally followed, and for centuries
remained connected with that of the sculptor. In 1408 Ghiberti, then only
twenty-two, received the commission for his first bronze door of the
Baptistery, the completion of which required more than twenty years. In
1414 he executed the statue of St. John, and six years later that of St.
Matthew, for two niches on the exterior of the ground-floor of Or San
Michele, the sculptural adornment of which, at the cost of the guilds, had
been determined upon in 1406. In 1424 the execution of the second door of
the Baptistery was entrusted to him, which was finished twenty-eight years
after, three years before his death. One work of less importance remains
from the year 1428—the bronze chest executed for the brothers Cosimo and
Lorenzo de’ Medici for the reception of the relics belonging to the
Camaldulensian convent of the Angeli.[37] In 1411 Donatello began the
statue of St. Mark, which he produced, together with that of St. Peter, for Or
San Michele; about 1420 he began the monument for Pope John XXIII.;
and in 1427 he was commissioned by the Medici to execute the monument
of Cardinal Rinaldo Brancacci for Naples. His most excellent work in
respect to lightness and grace, and which is without a touch of the heaviness
so often characteristic of him, is the statue of St. George for Or San
Michele. The date of the production of this work can as little be determined
as that of the excellent figures of the Prophets which adorn the niches on
the belfry of Sta. Maria del Fiore.
In painting the spirit of realism gained the victory much more slowly,
and to a far less extent. Even when this victory had been obtained in
Florence, the softer feeling and typical form derived from Giotto prevailed
in other parts of central and upper Italy in peculiar and flourishing schools.
Not long before Masaccio had begun his frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in

the Carmine, which was consecrated in 1422, the Camaldulensian Don
Lorenzo had painted his beautiful pictures, which still represent the
tendency of the previous century, although with a freshness and freedom far
superior to the later Giottesque style. And Fra Angelico da Fiesole, who in
1407 entered the Dominican cloister of the little town whence he derived
his name, remained his whole life long true to the tradition to which he has
given the consecration of gentle poverty, pious fervency, religious
sensibility, and at the same time, naïve simplicity. Not even Gentile da
Fabriano, a son of the Anconite border, who was gifted with a more lively
natural feeling and graceful freshness and serenity, and in 1421 had himself
inscribed in the list of Florentine painters, succeeded in breaking through
this narrow circle, which did not afford sufficient scope to the creative
power of the new spirit of art. Masaccio has given expression to this spirit
in a manner which has served as example to the most highly developed
periods, by uniting the most true, lifelike, and varied expression with free
but nobly naturalistic form. The artists who stand more or less under the
influence of Masaccio, and also of the modern plastic art, belong chiefly to
the period which we shall contemplate further on.
Thus had the city of Florence, when the fifteenth century entered on its
fourth decade, developed in both severe and graceful beauty, under the
influence of an art which, notwithstanding foreign traditions, was,
nevertheless, in its peculiarity and luxuriance, the growth of its own soil. In
external appearance, likewise, Florence was the city of a rich, active,
sovereign republic, which sought its honour rather in the grandeur and
brilliancy of its public buildings, both for ecclesiastical and secular
purposes, than in the luxury of private houses. The city was at once
munificent and thrifty, and, through all change, however precipitate, held
firmly by old tradition, as was expressed by the prevailing similarity of the
character of the architecture, notwithstanding the development of
successive styles. Most of the streets were and remained narrow, the
number of large squares was inconsiderable, but these streets were well
paved, when in Rome people waded for years longer in the deep mire and
dust of streets provided only with a tile causeway on each side. The greater
number of houses were built of massive stone. The number of projecting
upper storeys which darkened the streets had lessened more and more in the
course of years. Some restriction was put on this mode of building by the
imposition of a tax, which in Giovanni Villani’s time brought in 7,000

florins. Subsequently, however, it was expressly forbidden by law, and
under the first Duke many of the projecting storeys were pulled down, so
that their number is now proportionally small. A greater evil was the
projection of the roofs over the street, but this was not removed till 1766.
Although no fortress was assigned to the chief magistrate of the city, he was
provided with a secure residence, and one befitting the dignity of his
position. The boundary wall of Florence was a remarkable work. It enclosed
the foremost height on the left bank of the river, and was fortified with
towers. The gates were magnificent, among which that of St. Nicolò, with
its projecting double storey, offers an example of its kind as the only one in
complete preservation since the transformation undertaken in the sixteenth
century.
The frame to the beautiful picture was afforded by the environs. As at
the present day, so in late mediæval times, the city seemed to extend on
every side into the plain, as well as up into the neighbouring mountains
which skirted the flowery plain watered by the Arno. At the gates were
hospitals and lazarettos for the sick and for pilgrims, particularly for all
whose residence in the city seemed unadvisable, such as lepers and other
sufferers from skin diseases. These charitable institutions were founded
chiefly in the fourteenth century, and owe their origin to the benevolence of
wealthy citizens and the companies. There were, moreover, convents, which
were increased in number and extent from year to year, some of them
situated immediately before the walls, some on the hills by the bridges
leading across the streams and brooks of Mugnone, Terzolle, Mensola,
Ema, and Greve. Celebrated names are connected with the history of many
of these foundations. We may mention that of Cardinal Ottaviano degli
Ubaldini, who founded in 1260 the nunnery of Monticelli, opposite the
Porta Romana; also that of his relative, the saintly Chiara, who was its first
abbess. We may likewise allude to the family of the Acciaiuoli, who, both in
politics and in Church history, played so great a part in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Even in Dante’s time numerous villas had risen, and one
of these reminds us of the poet himself—the one in possession of his family
before Porta Pinti, where the ground rises towards Fiesole; while the
graceful narrator of the fourteenth century brings country life in the
Florentine environs in bright pictures before us. The number of villas
already foreshadowed the time in which Ludovico Ariosto sang; they would
exceed a twofold Rome if enclosed by a wall. The necessities of the period

converted many convents and villas into fortresses, and many have retained
their castellated character, as San Miniato, the Charterhouse, and
Passignano, the villa of Petraja, the former villa of Salviati at the base of the
hill of Fiesole, Castle Pulci on the left bank of the Arno below the town, and
Torre del Gallo on the hill of Arcetri; not to speak of the mountain fortresses
of a more ancient period, as Castle Vincigliata on the eastern hills, which
has been restored in modern times. Such fastnesses rendered good service
when, in 1363 and 1364, the Pisans pressed up to the walls with their
foreign mercenaries, and stormed the gates. While the German mercenaries
under the lord of Bongard, and the English under Hawkwood, at that time
an adversary, saw the villas on the hills of Montughi, Bellosguardo, Arcetri,
and Pozzolatico perish in flames, they could not touch the Charterhouse;
and from the strong tower of Petraja the Brunelleschi, the possessors of the
villa, courageously repulsed the attack of the English. In March 1397, the
Abbot of Passignano withstood the troops of Alberigo of Barbiano, who had
come to Pisa in the service of the Visconti, and laid waste the Florentine
territory. Even in later times security from surprise was as much considered
in the construction of a villa as picturesque effect and artistic adornment.

CHAPTER IV.

INDUSTRY, TRADE, AND LIFE IN FLORENCE.

The large sums which were continually expended by the Government as
well as the citizens of Florence, from the middle of the thirteenth century,
for public objects—such as the enlargement, fortification, and
embellishment of the city, for palaces and the residences of officers of the
State, bridges and streets, churches and convents, hospitals and charitable
institutions—would lead us to infer pecuniary means apparently out of
proportion with the extent and resources of the territory and the site of the
town, excluded as it was from the unrestricted use of the sea route till far
into the fifteenth century. The great industrial activity and unusual
intelligence of the inhabitants profited by favourable and conquered
unfavourable circumstances so far, that while the Pisans still commanded
the port which bore the name of their town, and was afterwards replaced by
that of Leghorn—while Lucca possessed the harbour of Motrone, and Siena
that of Talamone, and could thus shut out the inland state from the sea—the
trade and industry of Florence had long surpassed theirs. The political
importance attained by the great guilds so soon after their institution shows
how firmly rooted was their power, even at the commencement of their
existence, and that they really represented the most respected and affluent
part of the community. We are vividly reminded of these corporations when
we stand before the magnificent building of Or San Michele, or, at the
eastern end of the Piazza della Signoria, gaze upon the arms graven in stone
upon the residence of the Magistrate of Trade, who had to decide in all
disputes and questions of competition between the magistrates of the
different guilds. Four of these guilds come under consideration when we
treat of industrial and commercial activity on a large scale—viz., the cloth-

weavers, merchants or traders in foreign cloth, silk-weavers, and money-
changers.
The woollen manufacture arose perhaps earliest of all, to satisfy one of
the most important demands; and though it is doubtful whether native
productions are spoken of in a Lucchese document of the year 840
respecting woollen and silk goods, we certainly do not err in the inference
that Florence knew and practised this branch of industry at least from the
time of her political rise, after the death of the Countess Matilda. In the
beginning of the following century, a corporation of cloth-weavers existed,
whose consuls signed a treaty of peace between their fellow-citizens and
Siena in the year 1202. Thirty-seven years later, this branch of industry
received an important accession from the Lombard order of the Humiliates,
founded by Bishop Pietro Manadori. They settled first in the neighbourhood
of the city, where the extensive buildings and gardens of the Villa San
Donato are now to be seen, and finally, removed in 1256, to the monastery
of Ognissanti, where they were long actively employed in their own
interests and the welfare of the community who protected them, and did
much to promote and perfect the woollen manufacture. On the neighbouring
banks of the Arno arose workshops, houses for dyeing and washing wool,
warehouses and booths of these brethren, who also aided essentially in the
draining and cultivation of a somewhat marshy district. By the time the
useful activity of the order slackened (about 1330 it entirely ceased), the
Florentines had learnt all they could teach, and the city was full of cloth-
weavers, as the names of several streets still remind us. From the ordinary
kinds of cloth, with which they began, when the finer still came from the
Levant, they advanced to better and best qualities, and strict regulations
after the fashion of the guilds in the Middle Ages, certainly not to the
disadvantage of the producers and their wares, guaranteed their excellence.
The extensive sale and higher prices testified to their value. The wool was
imported principally from France and Flanders, and also in considerable
quantity from England and Scotland, especially from the wealthy abbeys
and convents; and in the eighth decade of the thirteenth century we hear of
Florentine agents in London buying up the wool for several years in
advance. These agents stood in connection with no less than two hundred
convents.[38]
In close and varied connection with the Arte della Lana was that of the
Mercatanti, usually called Arte di Calimala, the oldest statutes of which date

from 1339. As the native cloth manufacture did not suffice for the demand,
and at first only supplied ordinary kinds, French and Flemish cloth was
imported from abroad in great quantity, in a raw state, to Florence, where it
was dyed, shorn and dressed, and returned to foreign countries, often to the
place whence it had come. The skill of the dyers and other workmen in
Florence, whose processes long remained a carefully guarded secret, made
this profitable trade a monopoly until the rise of manufactures in the
western countries of Europe. The guild had its representatives, couriers,
settlements, and hostelries in France. It is clear that only the most
conscientious honesty could sustain their credit, wherefore the strictest
statutes respecting the different qualities of the cloth, the dyeing, and all
other things to be taken into consideration, regulated the manufacture as
well as the sale. The dyers formed a special guild, which, however, was
subordinate to the consuls of Calimala, to whom also, rather singularly, the
gold and silver smiths were subject. Another guild belonging to that of the
Arte della Lana was that of the washers and combers of wool, which still
exists as Compagnia dei Battilani, and has its meeting-place in Via delle
Ruote, near Via San Gallo. Its church, whose sacristy is adorned by the
portrait of Michele di Lando, was publicly exhibited every year on the feast
of the Assumption of the Virgin, the high festival of the company. That such
subordinate connections gave rise to misunderstandings in troublous times,
and that new guilds arose without being able to maintain themselves
permanently, has been already stated.
In the year 1338 the number of workshops (botteghe) of the clothiers’
guild amounted to more than 200, which supplied from seventy to eighty
thousand pieces of cloth at the price of 1,200,000 gold florins, the third of
which sum at least remained in the city as workmen’s wages, not to mention
the profits of cloth merchants. The number of workmen amounted to
30,000. In the first years of this century the number of workshops had been
a third more, and that of the pieces of cloth above 100,000; but the quality
and price were lower, as they had not then the excellent English wool. The
number of the magazines (fondachi) of the Calimala guild amounted to
twenty. These imported yearly more than 10,000 pieces of foreign cloth, to
the worth of 300,000 gold florins, for sale in the city itself, besides those
which were again exported.[39] Among the proprietors of such magazines,
we find the names Acciaiuoli, Alberti, Albizzi, Bardi, Buonaccorsi,
Capponi, Corsini, Peruzzi, Pucci, Ricci, Ridolfi, Rinuccini—names which

are mentioned a hundred times in the annals of the city, and which mostly
are still heard there. Even in the second half of the thirteenth century, and
therefore some time before their political power, these two guilds were very
active in France, and we find their agents in 1281, beside those of the
Genoese in Nismes, where, fifteen years later, we meet with the
representatives of the trading companies of the Cerchi, Mozzi, Spini, Scali,
and Folchi. In 1325, Filippo Villani and Cione di Lapo Ghini conducted the
business of the Peruzzi and the Scali as Florentine consuls at Paris. The
great fairs of Beaucaire and Forcalquier, with those of Provins, Lagny,
Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube, etc., were of the greatest importance for this branch
of industry.[40] In Italy, Venice was an important emporium for this trade,
for Germany and Hungary as well as for the Levant. Till a few years ago,
the extensive barn-like building which served for the dyeing and washing of
the wool was still to be seen on the Lung’arno above the Uffizi; and on
several palaces we still see the rings for holding the wooden staves on
which the woollen fabrics were hung out as an indication that the houses
belonged to the guild. The guild-hall of the Arte della Lana was the present
Canonica of Or San Michele, where the coat of arms—the lamb with the
flag, and the comb with the lily above it, in a blue field—still reminds one
of its former destination, as well as an inscription of the date of 1308. The
guild-hall of the Calimala, which had as a device a golden eagle standing
over a ball of wool in a red field, stood in the little street leading from the
Piazza della Signoria to the New Market, which is now called Calimaruzza:
though it was converted into private houses after the abolition of the guild,
the old devices may still be seen upon them. The street leading from the
New to the Old Market still preserves the name Calimala, respecting the
origin of which only untenable conjectures exist, and which in its present
aspect reminds us as little as does any part of the whole centre of the old
city of the former flourishing state of the trade.[41]
Of no less importance, and perhaps hardly less ancient than the cloth
manufactures, was the weaving of silk, which, after its introduction into
Sicily by King Roger, had been in a short time transplanted to Central Italy,
if, indeed, it was not previously cultivated in Lucca. Of all the great
branches of industry of the Middle Ages, this is the only one which has
preserved a certain importance down to our day. The Arte della Seta was
usually called the Por Sta. Maria, after the St. Mary’s Gate, or Porta Regina,
opposite the Ponte Vecchio, at the entrance of the street still called Via di

Por Sta. Maria (usually Mercato Nuovo), where the former guild-hall still
stands, near the church of Sta. Maria sopra Porta, in the Via di Capaccio,
distinguished by the coat of arms, a closed red door in a white field. The
silk-weavers appear already, in the twelfth and oftener still in the thirteenth
century, as a corporation in public acts and treaties, in the conclusions of
peace and other compacts. In the list of the masters of the guild in the year
1225 their number is given as more than 350, and probably they had even
then statutes; but the oldest still extant date from 1335, and therefore from a
time when this industry seems to have attained considerable importance
under the Guelfs from Lucca, who had emigrated to Florence in great
numbers in 1316. The dyeing of silk was pursued here with great skill, and
in particular the crimsoned tissue stood in high reputation in the fourteenth
century. We shall speak later of the most brilliant epoch, the fifteenth
century. The Vicolo della Seta, in the vicinity of the former hall, and the Via
de’ Velluti, on the left bank of the river, near Via Maggio, where numerous
silk-weavers and other mechanics originally lived, and where the still
flourishing family of the Velluti took its rise, remind us of their former great
activity.[42]
Though the branches of industry we have mentioned contributed much
to increase the wealth of the Florentine people, and make their name
famous in foreign lands, they were not the chief source of national wealth.
The business of money-changing seemed thoroughly at home here, and it is
not surprising that the invention of bills of exchange, which we first meet
with in 1199 in the relations between England and Italy, should be ascribed
to Florence. The money trade seems to have flourished as early as the
twelfth century, towards the end of which a Marquis of Ferrara raised
money on his lands from the Florentines. In 1204 we find the money-
changers as one of the corporations. In 1228, and probably from the
beginning of the century, several Florentines were settled in London as
changers to King Henry III.; and here, as in France, they conducted the
money transactions of the Papal chair in conjunction with the Sienese. Their
oldest known statute, which established rules for the whole conduct of trade
(Statuto dell’Università della Mercatanzia) drawn up by a commission
consisting of five members of the great guilds, is dated 1280. Their guild-
hall was in the Via Calimaruzza, opposite that of the Calimala, and was
later included in the buildings of the post-office, on the site of which, after
the post-office had been removed to what was formerly the mint, a building

was lately erected, similar in architecture to the Palazzo of the Signoria,
which stands opposite. Their coat of arms displayed gold coins laid one
beside another on a red field. At the end of the thirteenth century their
activity, especially in France and England, was extraordinarily great. But if
wealth surpassing all previous conception was attained, it not seldom
involved loss of repute, and those who pursued the calling ran the risk of
immense losses from fiscal measures to the carrying out of which they
themselves contributed, as well as those which were caused by insolvency
or dishonesty. These losses would indeed have ruined the trade and credit of
the Florentines in the fourteenth century, had not their resources been so
varied, and their intelligent activity so great. The names of Tuscans and
Lombards, and that of Cahorsiens in France, no longer indicated the origin,
but the trade of the money-changers, who drew down the ancient hatred
upon themselves which the fœneratores had incurred from too frequently
confounding usury with rightful gains. It is this which the Divina
Commedia describes where it speaks of shadows sitting mournfully
shielding themselves from the glow of vapours with their hands, and with
bags round their necks on which they feed their eyes.[43] France possessed
at this time the greatest attraction for the Florentine money-makers,
although they were sometimes severely oppressed, which is sufficient proof
that their winnings were still greater than their occasional losses. In 1277,
they, with other Italians, were obliged to compound for a sum of 120,000
gold florins, when King Philip III. took advantage of a decree of the
Council to proceed against the usurers, a manœuvre which Philip IV. the
Fair repeated fourteen years later.
If Florentines suffered among those prosecuted by this king for ‘money
coining on the Seine,’[44] Florentines certainly aided him in other extortions
and dishonesties in France and in Flanders, and it was the bank of the
Peruzzi which paid the sum by means of which the constables of Philip the
Fair, and chief among them the Tuscan knight and financier Musciatto
Franzesi, accomplished the attempt on Pope Boniface VIII. in 1303 at
Anagni.[45] New oppressions arose under Philip VI., in whose person the
line of Valois ascended the French throne. He not only again debased the
coinage for the necessities of the English war, but also extorted a heavy
forced loan from all foreign merchants and bankers, and furthermore
assisted the Duke of Athens, after his expulsion, in his reprisals against the
Florentine trade. But notwithstanding all partial losses, and the great

catastrophes which befell the Florentine trade in the same century, it
remained, even in the following, mistress of the French money transactions,
and, in certain respects, of French trade.
The Florentine money market suffered the severest blow from England.
At the end of the twelfth century there were already Florentine houses of
exchange in London, and if Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians managed the
trade by sea in the times of the Crusades, it was the Florentines mostly who
looked after financial affairs in connection with the Papal chair, as we have
seen. Numerous banks appeared about the middle of the thirteenth century,
among which the Frescobaldi, a family of ancient nobility, and as such
attainted by the prosecutions against it, took the lead, and were referred to
the custom-house of the country for re-imbursement of the loans made to
the kings Edward I. and II. Later, the two great trading companies of the
Bardi and Peruzzi came into notice, and with their money Edward III.
began the French war against Philip of Valois. But even in the first year of
this war, which began with an unsuccessful attack upon Flanders, the king
suspended the payments to the creditors of the State by a decree of May 6,
1339. The advances made by the Bardi amounted to 180,000 marks sterling,
those of the Peruzzi to above 135,000, according to Giovanni Villani,[46]
who knew only too well about these things, since he was ruined by them
himself to the extent of ‘a sum of more than 1,355,000 gold florins,
equivalent to the value of a kingdom.’ Bonifazio Peruzzi, the head of the
house, hastened to London, where he died of grief in the following year.
The blow fell on the whole city, for, as may be supposed, numerous families
were interested in the business of the great houses, which not only counted
a number of partners or shareholders, but had also money from all sides,
from the city and from foreign countries, to keep as deposits or to invest
profitably. The injury to credit was very threatening. In the year 1326, the
fall of one of the oldest and most important of the banking companies, that
of the Scali, Amieri, and Petri, had occurred just as the war against
Castruccio, the lord of Lucca, took an evil turn. But the position of affairs
was now far more critical. Both houses began at once to liquidate, and the
prevailing disturbance contributed not a little to the early success of the
ambitious plans of the Duke of Athens. The real bankruptcy ensued,
however, in January 1346, when new losses had occurred in Sicily on
account of the measures of the French Government which we have already
mentioned. The banks of the Acciaiuoli, Bonaccorsi, Cocchi, Antellesi,

Corsini, da Uzzano, Perendoli, and many smaller ones, as well as numerous
private persons, were involved in the ruin. ‘The immense loans to foreign
sovereigns,’ adds Villani, ‘drew down ruin upon our city, the like of which
it had never known.’ There was a complete lack of cash. Estates in the city
found no purchasers at a third of their former value; those in the country
were disposed of at two-thirds their value, and fell even lower than this. The
chronicler who gives us this sad information was imprisoned for debt on
account of the failure of the Bonaccorsi, whose partner he was.
As the first result of these misfortunes was the impoverishment of
numerous families, the community at large was soon involved in it; as the
revenues diminished quickly with the public affluence, money was only to
be obtained at unheard-of usurious interest, and the prestige of the
Florentine trade lost considerably in foreign countries. The famine and
pestilence of 1347 and 1348, the oppressions of the mercenary bands and
the heavy expenses caused by them, the cost of the war against Pope
Gregory XI., and finally the tumult of the Ciompi, left Florence no peace
for a long time. The aristocracy, which came into power in 1382, at last
succeeded in restoring the equilibrium, opening new resources to industry
and trade, and rendering the old connections again secure. Thus, at the
beginning of the fifteenth century industry was again flourishing in all its
branches in Florence, financial operations were extended, and foreign
countries filled with Florentine banks and mercantile houses. After the fall
of Pisa the last restrictions on navigation were removed, and it was no
longer necessary, as in past times, to hire French vessels in Aiguesmortes
for conveyance to the insecure and small roadsteads of Motrone or
Pietrasanta, or to conclude treaties with the Sienese for the use of the bad
and pestilential harbour of Talamone. The number of Florentine settlements
and offices had been already very considerable a century earlier. In London
the most important firms had their representatives, Bruges was the chief
place for Flanders, and we shall see how these connections lasted to the
time of the greatest splendour of the Medici. France is frequently
mentioned. The official representatives of the Florentine nation resided in
the capital, while numerous houses established themselves in Lyons, in
Avignon (since the removal of the Papal chair to this town), in Nismes,
Narbonne, Carcassonne, Marseilles, &c. Large transactions were made in
Upper Italy at Venice and Genoa, at Castel di Castro in Sardinia, in Apulia,
Barletta, and at Palermo in the island of Sicily; Rome and Naples saw in the

fifteenth century the greater part of the banking business and a considerable
portion of other trade in Florentine hands. There were Florentine colonies in
Majorca, at Tunis, at Chiarenza in the Morea, in Rhodes under the
supremacy of the Knights of St. John, and in Cyprus under that of Guy de
Lusignan; while Florentine merchants carried trade into Asia Minor,
Armenia, the Crimea, far into Central Asia and Northern China. The house
of the Peruzzi alone had sixteen counting-houses in the fourteenth century,
from London to Cyprus.
The prudence and careful calculation which were in general
characteristic of the Florentine trade prevailed in everything relating to the
transmission and receipt of money and the term of payments. Not only have
we general rules from Balducci Pegolotti, in the first thirty years of the
fourteenth century, as to how they should proceed in calculating the money
to be paid abroad, but detailed notes on the fluctuations of the money
market in consequence of fairs, expeditions of galleys, regular proceedings
of the State, purchase of wool, etc., in the most important places, as Naples,
Genoa, Bologna, Venice, Avignon, Paris, Bruges, Barcelona, etc. The Papal
court, with which such extensive business was pursued—whether Rome or
Avignon, or for the time another town, were its residence—seemed to the
experienced Florentine to deserve especial remark. ‘Wherever the Pope
goes, money is dear, because from all sides one has to pay so much to him.
When he goes away, an ebb sets in, because the members of his court, if
they are not rich, must borrow.’ The times when the bills fell due were
regulated generally by the distance. An order drawn at Florence on Pisa or
Venice was due on the fifth day after the money was paid in; in Rome and
Genoa it was the fifteenth day; in Naples the twentieth; in Provence,
Majorca, and France, the sixtieth; in Flanders the seventieth; in England the
seventy-fifth; and in Spain, after three months. The contracting parties
could, however, make arrangements at will.[47] According to the report of an
annalist,[48] seventy-two exchange houses and tables were counted in
Florence, in the Mercato Nuovo and its vicinity, in the year 1422, and the
sum of money in circulation was calculated at two millions of gold florins;
while the value of the wares, the letters of credit, and other property defied
calculation.
While industry and trade had accumulated great wealth in Florence, the
spirit of the community accorded well with it. In spite of the many wars and

other disturbances the city rose to such prosperity in the first decades of the
fourteenth century (when its territory included only Pistoja, Colle, and
Arezzo, and therefore scarcely a third of Tuscany in later times) that
Giovanni Villani could remark in 1336-1338 that her revenues exceeded
those of the kings of Naples, of Sicily, and of Aragon. With all the changes
after the rise of the new wealthy families at the beginning of the century the
style of living had remained simple, and even continued so after the luxury
of the court of Anjou, partly supported by Florentine money, had affected
Florentine manners unfavourably; yet there was no stinting for public
works. The citizens were in general beneficent: the number and importance
of the charitable institutions prove it. As with the Government, so with the
corporations, a lively sense was always displayed of the dignity and
grandeur of the city and community. And even if that oft-mentioned decree
of the republic of the year 1294,[49] according to which the architect
Arnolfo shall be charged to design the model of a cathedral church ‘of such
splendour that human power should be unable to invent anything grander or
more beautiful, in consideration that a people of noble origin ought so to
arrange its affairs that even in the exterior works a wise and lofty mind may
be recognised’—even if this decree appears to be a production of the
sixteenth instead of the thirteenth century, there are not wanting reliable
records which announce the same spirit, and, still more, works which testify
to it. In the year 1296, legacies in aid of this church were made a duty for
every one; notaries were obliged to enjoin them in drawing up wills, and
omissions were punished.[50] In 1338 the community granted subsidies for
this same building, ‘that a work so beautifully and honourably begun might
be continued and completed still more beautifully, and the grants made by
the community appear liberal and considerable.’ When a pavement for the
Piazza della Signoria was ordered in June 1351 it was especially insisted
upon that the dignity and importance of the whole town were concerned, as
well as the stateliness and beauty of the palace of the chief magistrate of
state. When in August 1373 the public reading and exposition of the Divina
Commedia was applied for and permitted, the petitioners assigned as the
ground of their request the wish that, even if otherwise unlearned, they
themselves, their fellow-citizens, children, and posterity, be instructed in
eloquence, guided to virtue, and warned against vice. When in 1409 the
fabrication of the bronze gates of the shrine of St. Zanobius was entrusted
to Lorenzo Ghiberti, it was said that he must have regard to the ancient

veneration for the saint, as well as to the high dignity of the community, and
respect to the cathedral in which this work was to have the most honourable
place possible allotted to it. At the first mention of the building of the
Foundling Hospital, begun in 1421 at the expense of the silk-weavers’
company, it is remarked that ‘this beautiful building is destined for the
reception of those whose father and mother have maliciously forsaken
them, contrary to the rights of nature.’ As the silk guild here, so was the
woollen guild in Sta. Maria del Fiore entrusted with the guidance of the
works, beside the regular building committee (Opera del Duomo). The
share of the companies in the building and decoration of Or San Michele is
repeatedly mentioned. As a matter of course, all that concerned the
adornment of the city, the churches not excepted, must be subordinate to the
requirements of safety and defence. In 1353, when the people were fighting
against Giovanni Visconti, and afterwards, when the enterprise of Cardinal
d’Albornoz for regaining Romagna for the Holy See gave a prospect of
unsettled times, and the disorder of the freebooters led by the Knight of St.
John of Montreal (Fra Moriale) began, the money held in readiness for the
bell-tower was employed in enlisting men. As late as October 1368, when
the city fell to bickerings with the Emperor Charles IV., which were then, as
usual, made use of by the Visconti for the extension of their own power
over Tuscany, and when their mercenary bands penetrated to the gates of
Florence, a decree was passed that the sums destined for the completion of
Sta. Maria del Fiore should be employed for strengthening and repairing the
walls. The architects of the church were soon afterwards commanded to
build a wall along the river, from the Castell Altafronte, which is still in
partial preservation, and which joins the Uffizi, built in the sixteenth
century, to the Rubaconte bridge, and to level the road ‘as should appear
most suitable to the adornment of the city.’
A people which accomplished such great things must have possessed
unusual civic virtues, apart from their more brilliant intellectual qualities,
and spite of the weaknesses and faults which the greatest of the sons of
Florence has scourged in angry love and loving anger. A despot can in a
short time heap splendour on splendour; the activity of spirit of a popular
commonwealth is different and more steady. The two free States in which
we meet with the most perfect expression of this, Venice and Florence,
show that this is not dependent on the form of government, but on a firm
will and clear conception. The Florentine people combined these in a high

degree. In the midst of political troubles and civil disturbances they
constantly advanced; the final gain was greater than the losses through
momentary retrogression, however violent. The people were contented,
frugal, industrious, and attached at all times to ancient customs. That great
changes were gradually made in customs and modes of life was according
to the law of all ages, and of natural development, though some aspects of it
did not seem the most pleasing. Manners and feelings of those days, which
the Paradiso in the ‘Divina Commedia’ describes with such incomparable
beauty and at the same time with such melancholy, when ‘in the old
encircling walls, Florence was peaceful, moderate, and modest,’ the ‘civic
life so calm, so beautiful, the society so reliable,’—a state of things which
the poet closes with the time ‘before Frederic had fought out his
quarrel,’[51]—they indeed lay far behind him who has lent to their memory
form and duration for all future time. But the greatest change was to come
after his death. The influence of the numerous foreigners, especially the
French and Frenchified Neapolitans who came with the Angevins and their
regents, was by no means beneficial; and the various sumptuary laws which
were to restrain the women point especially to the example set in 1326, by
Charles Duke of Calabria and his consort, Marie of Valois, the parents of
the unhappy Joanna I., with their whole court. Then came the times of the
Duke of Athens; soon after, the pestilence with its evil results, which are
open to all in the stories of the ‘Decamerone.’ Giovanni Villani, who died in
the year 1348, says once that the Florentines of the thirteenth century in
their simple life and poverty achieved more than those of his time in the
midst of their wealth and luxury.
Nevertheless, the age was in many respects simple, and remained so
even after communication had been rendered easier in all directions, wealth
accumulated, and more connections formed. The houses were simple, with
their windows closed, not yet by panes of glass, but by wooden shutters,
with their steep staircases and narrow courtyards; the furniture and the
meals were simple, even of the foremost citizens and high magistrates; the
clothing of the men was simple—and all this lasted to the fifteenth century,
and during a part of it. The loggie have been already spoken of, in which,
about the middle of this century, important family affairs were still
despatched. At weddings and other family festivals, those who were invited
assembled before the house, which often had not space to hold them all—as
may be easily comprehended, when we find that the statutes of 1415

decreed that the number of the guests on both sides should not exceed two
hundred. Notwithstanding Dante’s complaint that a father, at the birth of a
daughter, thought with terror on the time of her marriage, the dowry was
still, a century after his time, small in comparison with the wealth of the
family. They saved at home, in order to gain means for public purposes, for
ecclesiastical buildings and endowments, for beneficent institutions and
patriotic festivals. The building of churches and hospitals came before the
expenses for decorating town-house and villa. The public festivals were
brilliant, and united spiritual and worldly interests. First in rank were those
on the day of John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city, to which all the
towns, villages, and protégés of the territory brought votive offerings, and
races were held in the afternoon, a custom which dated from 1288, when
the Florentines had besieged Arezzo on that day. Races were customary on
other festivals also, either with riders or free horses (barberi), as in the
present day in Florence and other towns of Italy. The prizes consisted of
large pieces of gold and silk brocades, called palio. Beside the feast of St.
John, in which the whole city with the signoria and other magistrates took a
part, and that on St. Peter’s day, various others celebrated patriotic events.
Thus the feast on St. Romulus’ day commemorated deliverance from the
threatening hordes of Radagaïs; that on St. Barnabas’ day the victory over
the Ghiellines on Campaldino in 1279; that on St. Anne’s day the expulsion
of the Duke of Athens; St. Victor’s day the victory over the Pisans in 1364.
Church festivals were frequently united with mysteries in Carmine, Sto.
Spirito, San Felice, &c.; representations which we find shared in by the
highest classes, and customary even in the second half of the fifteenth
century. Various kinds of amusements took place in the open air; and the
history of the Carraia bridge tells of the accident which occurred on May 1,
1304, when the bridge fell in, during a representation of the infernal regions
by means of a grand apparatus.
May 1, the Calendimaggio, was the high day for the people, and the
green branches on the door-posts have preserved the name of May in Italian
as well as in German (and in English). It was on this day that Dante first
saw Beatrice Portinari at an entertainment for children. Among the popular
festivals were the Epiphany (Befana), celebrated by processions and
masquerades, which are still carried on; and the Ferragosto, the Roman
August holidays, where a donkey-race took place, with a buffalo-race as
counterpart. Public games in which physical strength and, still more, agility

were brought into play, delighted high and low. Among these were calcio
and maglio: the first of which was played on the large oblong square,
afterwards shut in by rows of houses which bears the name of Prato
d’Ognissanti; the latter in the vicinity of the Piazza San Marco, where the
Via del Maglio still reminds us of it. In the one game the feat consisted in
throwing a ball with the hand; in the other it was propelled by a wooden
hammer weighted with iron. We shall speak farther on of the tourneys,
exercises, and festivals of the high, and the merry popular gatherings of the
potenze. There was never a lack of music. The trumpeters and other
musicians of the Signoria were never absent from any procession, and
cheerful tunes accompanied every festival. Boccaccio’s tales and the
frescoes in the Camposanto of Pisa show how music formed an integral part
of social life. The most renowned instrumental performer who flourished in
the second half of the fourteenth century, Francesco Landino, enchanted all
by his delicate performances on the harpsichord, even in his old age and
blindness.
Such were life and manners in the times preceding the rise of the Medici
to power. The original simplicity no longer existed, and could no longer
exist; but, in the tone and conduct of public as well as private life, the good
old traditions still retained their influence. When the Romans and
Neapolitans mocked at the frugal habits of the Florentines, the Florentine,
seeing the anarchy and degeneracy of the former, and the effeminacy and
instability of the latter, could point to his beautiful city, and the order in his
private life, in which, though everything was conducted with the most
scrupulous economy, the necessaries of life, and, in many cases, its
luxuries, were always to be found. In Florence we find no Roman and no
Neapolitan in trade and industry; but in both Naples and Rome, the
principal business was in the hands of the Florentines, whose gains were
profitable to their native city. Among these, in the fourteenth century, none
was so conspicuous as Niccolò Acciaiuoli, who became a great and
influential man at the court of Anjou, and lord of extensive possessions in
Apulia and Greece, but whose heart belonged to his native city, in the
neighbourhood of which he prepared his family vault. The heroic times of
the Farinata, Cavalcanti, and Donati were past; but the Florentine of the
later times combined the citizen and the great lord, the merchant, statesman,
and patron of art, in a harmonious whole, to a degree never surpassed by the
denizen of any other country.

CHAPTER V.

THE ALBIZZI AND COSIMO DE’ MEDICI.

Cosimo de’ Medici was a man of mature age when his father died. Born on
September 27, 1389, the day of the saints Cosmo and Damian, he was
christened after the former; and a Florentine expression blended veneration
for the sacred martyrs with veneration for the ruling family, who had chosen
them as patrons: ‘Per San Cosmo e Damiano ogni male fia lontana.’ His
education was excellent; and, although he was intended for a mercantile
life, he studied the Latin language thoroughly, and under the guidance of
masters such as the grammarians Niccolò of Arezzo,[52] and Roberto de’
Rossi, acquired a taste for literature and science which remained with him,
and even increased, during the whole of his long life. He was, perhaps,
twenty-four years old when he married Contessina de’ Bardi. Her father,
Alessandro, Count of Vernio, belonged to a family which is of note among
the Florentines from the eleventh century; and from which the principal
street on the left bank of the Arno, between the old bridge and that of Sta.
Maria delle Grazie, derived its name. The Bardi were originally a plebeian
family, but were afterwards counted among the nobility. They, with other
nobles, had aided the people to break the tyranny of the Duke of Athens, but
were defeated a year later in valiant strife with the same people, who would
no longer suffer ‘the great’ to have any share in the government, and set on
fire the houses of those who had shortly before fought beside them. Piero
de’ Bardi, Contessina’s great-grandfather, then withdrew to his castle of
Vernio, situated in the Apennines to the north of Prato, which had been
purchased ten years before by his brother from the Alberti, and recognised
by the Emperor Charles IV. as a fief held under him. The enmity between
the castellans and the Florentine people grew so violent, that Sozzo, Piero’s

son, was condemned by the commune in contumaciam to death by fire,
under the seemingly false accusation of having coined false money in
Vernio.[53] Sozzo’s son was the father of Contessina, whose mother, Milla
Pannocchieschi, was descended from the ancient Sienese dynasty of the
Counts of Elci, which has lately become extinct. The name of Contessina
(Contessa, Tessa), which we so frequently meet with in earlier times in
Tuscany, calls to mind the great Countess Matilda, whose memory was
preserved by a grateful people. The enmity between the great and the
plebeians, though it still prevailed, and was used as a pretext when the
question of political rights arose, never at that time interfered with family
alliances.
We hear nothing of Cosimo till the time when Pope John XXIII., on his
eventful journey to the Council of Constance, halted in Florence. The
relations between the republic and the Pope were to be traced from the time
when the latter was all-powerful under his predecessor, Alexander V., as
Cardinal Baldassar Cossa. When John XXIII. called upon the Florentines to
send plenipotentiaries to Constance, and the counsellors were undecided,
Filippo Corsini observed that they must not say ‘No’ to the Pope. He it was
who had first originated the Council of Pisa, through which the way had
been paved to the new assembly, and without his active assistance Florence
would not have been able to resist King Ladislaus. The Pope had been
already in connection with the Medici when he was legate of Bologna, and
during his reign the money matters of the Curia were chiefly in the hands of
Giovanni di Bicci. After John XXIII., yielding to King Sigismund’s
urgency, had consented to the Council of Constance, in spite of his
disinclination to a council on German soil, he was for a time in Florence,
where he resided in the convent degli Angeli of the Camalduli. It was here
that the Medici, with many respected citizens, visited him, and entered into
negotiations with him. Here, too, he addressed to Bartolommeo Valori, in
whom he had great confidence, upon his warning of the danger of holding
this council in a foreign country, the remarkable words: ‘I own that this
council is not to my advantage; but what can I do if my fate compels me to
it?’[54] When the Pope set out for the Lake of Constance in the autumn of
1414, Cosimo de’ Medici was among his escort; not, as has been supposed,
overrating the position as an aid to him in his own affairs, but simply to
manage the money matters of the Holy See.

In these matters the Medici, who always remained true to John XXIII.,
were helpful to him even after his fall. On December 6, 1418, the deposed
and imprisoned Pope drew up a bond in the Castle of Heidelberg for 38,500
Rhenish florins, which Giovanni de’ Medici and Niccolò da Uzzano, with
the consent of Pope Martin V., paid by a bill on the Nuremberg house of
Romel, as ransom to Duke Louis of Bavaria. When, after many difficulties,
the liberated man had by means of his Florentine friends come to terms with
his persecutor and obtained a safe-conduct from him, the Medici received
him in Florence, where they undoubtedly aided in his reconciliation with
Pope Martin. When the afflicted man, who in his misfortunes assumed a far
more dignified attitude than formerly in the times of his greatness, made his
last will on December 22, 1419, he appointed Giovanni di Bicci and three
other distinguished Florentines as executors. That the first enriched himself
with the legacy was a calumny which has long been disproved, for
Baldassar Cossa left scarcely enough for his legatees to be paid.[55] The
beautiful monument which the Medici erected to the deceased stands in the
baptistery; the reclining figure was cast in bronze by Donatello, and in the
marble portions Michelozzo assisted. ‘Johannes quondam Papa XXIII.’ says
the significant inscription.[56]
Their friendship with the late Pope did not prevent the Medici from
coming to a good understanding with the new one. The mark of favour to
Giovanni di Bicci already mentioned tells of friendly relations even at a
time when Martin V. was not well disposed towards the city, on account of
disagreeable occurrences during his residence in Florence in 1420. We have
seen how Cosimo accompanied John XXIII. to Constance, where, in the
words of a contemporary, the whole world was assembled. On the flight of
his patron he left the town in disguise, and resided for some time in
Germany and France, till he returned home after about two years’ absence.
In 1426, having been entrusted with embassies in Milan, Lucca, and
Bologna, he stayed for some months in Rome, employed in State affairs at
the time that the tedious strife with Filippo Maria Visconti had, by the
conquest of Brescia, taken a favourable turn for the allied Florentines and
Venetians; and it was important to persuade the Pope to act as umpire, since
all parties, and especially the Florentines, longed for peace. This peace was
actually signed at Venice on December 30, the Bishop of Bologna, the
excellent Niccolò Albergati, representing Martin V.; and when the duke
broke the treaty, which had only just been concluded, new and heavy

misfortunes in arms forced him to appeal to the same mediation which he
had so lately scorned. But it was only in the spring of 1428 that terms were
agreed upon advantageous to Venice, which retained Brescia, but offered no
compensation to the Florentines for their enormous expenses, thus
justifying the prudence of old Giovanni di Bicci, who had counselled
against the war. In gratitude to the Pope for his support, the Florentines, in
1427, bestowed the freedom of their city on his relations, the Colonna
family.
At the death of his father, Cosimo was forty years old. In all business,
public as well as private, he had proved himself skilful, active, and prudent.
All who did not belong to the party which guided affairs since 1380
regarded him as their natural leader. The number of these opponents of the
ruling faction was great, not only among the people—in whom more or less
indistinct hereditary traditions were instinctively hostile to a government
which had now existed for fifty years, and which, though it originated with
the people, had from the first been tinctured with the character of an
oligarchy—but also among the higher classes, many of whom were
considerably oppressed by this faction. Giovanni di Bicci had always
avoided appearing as the actual head of a party, perhaps from prudence,
perhaps also for fear of exposing himself to the risk of catastrophes such as
he had experienced in his youth. It was to be proved whether his son shared
this feeling, and Cosimo’s behaviour hitherto implied that he did. It was a
question, however, whether the oligarchy would find it advisable to suffer a
man beside them whose reputation and wealth daily increased, and who,
even without wishing it, must be dangerous to them if misfortune or blunder
should arouse discontent. Since the death of Maso degli Albizzi, his son
Rinaldo, Niccolò da Uzzano, and Palla Strozzi stood at the head of the
party.
The Albizzi, who, as we have said, derived their origin from Arezzo,
were at first of the Ghibelline faction, and appeared in Florence about the
middle of the thirteenth century. They soon obtained repute among the
plebeian families. From 1282 ninety-eight of their family sat in the
magistracy of the priors, and fourteen attained to the office of Venner or
Gonfalonier. Piero son of Filippo, the first Gonfalonier, was he who in a
short time raised the authority of his family above that of all others. He led
an active life at a time when the republic claimed much of the time and
pecuniary means of the principal citizens, but in return afforded them

opportunities of satisfying their ambition, and attaining to a height of power
which might become dangerous to the commonwealth. He had repeatedly
been charged with embassies to princes and republics; had been present at
coronations; concluded treaties, among them those with the plundering
mercenary bands, and with Bernabò Visconti; had been sent with
congratulatory messages, as in 1367, when Pope Urban V., summoned by
all the Italian patriots, returned from Avignon to Rome, unfortunately only
for a time. Jealousy of his rising authority induced the heads of the Ricci, a
rival family to his own, and their friends, to propose the exclusion from
office of all such as were suspected of Guelphism. This measure was
directed principally against the Albizzi; but Piero, cleverer than his
opponents, helped to carry it through, while they had counted on his
opposition. He knew how to make use of them. In 1357, being chosen
president of the tribunal entrusted with this political inquisition of the Parte
Guelfa, it was he who, with his friends, began that proscription which
united all power in the city and government in his hands and those of his
adherents, but also created that unendurable condition of affairs against
which the rebellion of 1378 broke out. In the following year Piero, banished
at first from Florence, having returned to one of his estates, fell a victim to
the summary justice executed by the aristocratic leaders of the mob. A false
accusation brought him to the scaffold; at a time when no law was
respected, he paid the penalty of having himself made the laws subservient
to political ends.
The family retired into exile; their houses were plundered and burnt.
One of the branches, in a quarrel with relations, had discarded the name and
altered the coat of arms, and flourishes still under the name of the
Alessandri. The reaction of the year 1381 brought the exiles back, and they
were soon more powerful than ever. Maso (Tommaso), Piero’s nephew, had
been first banished to Barletta, on the Apulian coast, and then made a
‘Grande,’ i.e. disqualified for holding communal offices. He now attained
almost dictatorial power, and exercised it with political insight, and a
consistency which essentially aided in raising the republic to that height of
power and repute on which it remained thenceforward, and long after his
own faction was destroyed, till the revolution in Italian affairs at the end of
the fifteenth century. If he acted intolerantly in home affairs; if proscriptions
did not cease, and the prosecution of the Alberti, who were concerned in the
insurrection of 1378 and in the execution of Piero degli Albizzi, showed

cruelty in the enactment which commanded their houses to be razed to the
ground, their coats of arms to be destroyed, and their property confiscated;
a law that punished alliances by marriage and commercial transactions with
them, extended even to their posterity;[57] it is less the fault of the man than
of the spirit which had prevailed in the republics for centuries, and which
led even the most discerning to make the commonwealth ever subservient
to party policy, and to look upon their own faction as the State. Embassies
to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, to King Rupert of the Palatinate, Pope Gregory
XII., &c., alternated for Maso with a continuous series of the most
important offices. Even when he was out of office, nothing was done
without him. When the republic manfully resisted the progress of Gian
Galeazzo in Central Italy, enlarged and secured her own territory by the
conquest of Pisa, actively contributed to ecclesiastical union, and brought
the dangerous war with King Ladislaus to a successful end, it was all really
due to Albizzi. He was a rich man; the street outside the oldest district of
the town, still named after his family, was almost entirely occupied by their
houses and those of the Pazzi; and in our time, the palace belonging to his
descendants, as well as that of the Alessandri, the half-ruined tower, the
walled-up loggia, the passage to the market of San Piero, with the portico of
the demolished church built by a descendant of Maso, remind us of the
brilliant days of the family, whose coat of arms is still to be seen on the
buildings—two concentric golden circles on a black field, and above it on a
silver field the cross of the German order granted to Maso. In the lower
valley of the Arno, on the right bank of the river, where a low range of hills
stretches between the Lake of Bientina, reaching to the foot of the
mountains of Pisa, and the green level of the marshes of Fucecchio, lies the
large Villa Montefalcone, which came into the possession of the family in
the second half of the fourteenth century. It was formerly a castle (destroyed
by Castruccio) with a splendid view over the valley, strewn with villages
lying mostly on low hills, and the beautiful wooded heights of Monte
Albano, behind which the fertile Pistojan plain joined the Florentine valley
of the Arno, which, while more varied, rivalled it in fertility.
Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417, aged seventy-four. His eldest son,
Rinaldo, was the heir to his position in the Senate. He was a boy eight years
of age when his relations fell in the tumult of Ciompi, had grown up in the
traditions of his house, and from the year 1399 was active in affairs of State.
No citizen was employed so much as he in embassies and commissions of

all kinds. We meet with him in great and small matters; for the statesmen of
the free city as little thought of declining small matters, as the greatest
artists thought it beneath their dignity to paint shields and domestic
implements, or to carve coats of arms on door-posts and chimney-pieces.
Fifty different commissions were entrusted to Rinaldo, some in the vicinity,
and some to the Popes, King Sigismund, to Naples, Lombardy, Genoa,
Ferrara, Romagna, &c. The hard-working man left careful and detailed
notes of all, which, with the documents and letters relating thereto, he first
collected in 1423, and afterwards continued. They are models of a natural,
pure, perspicuous, and always appropriate diction, at a time when the
Tuscan dialect was threatened with an overgrowth of learned affectation and
distortion, and was losing its popular simplicity. These notes are a source of
the amplest knowledge of details for any one who earnestly studies the
history of this period, remarkable in so many ways.[58] While he was so
frequently employed in foreign service—for the year before his exile we
find him at Rome—his opponents laboured at home for his ruin. It is as if
Gino Capponi, Neri’s son, had thought of him when he wrote the advice
intended for his son: ‘He who wishes for a great position in his native city,
should not leave it too often, except in important cases.’ ‘Messer Rinaldo,’
says Giovanni Cavalcanti, a contemporary and adherent of the Medici,
‘knew not what fear is. He had clean hands, was well read in the sciences,
was full of perseverance and love of justice, so that the multitude accused
him of being hard and cruel. He lived only on simple fare, and hated
feastings, and was accustomed to say that he who wished to keep in health
must be no gormandizer; which his enemies interpreted as meanness. Would
to God that we could not have said of this man that he was proud! for else
he would have excelled many others in good qualities. But his pride
clouded his own virtues, and misjudged those of others.’[59]
Beside the two Albizzi, none exercised greater influence in the guidance
of affairs in the half-century of the oligarchy than Niccolò da Uzzano. The
name of the family, extinct in the second half of the seventeenth century,
was Miglioretti; but they were generally named after a little castle, now a
gentleman’s villa, lying south of Florence, in the Greve valley, the environs
of which are renowned for their excellent wine. The Da Uzzano appeared
first in Florence in the days of the Emperor Henry VII. Niccolò, the son of
Giovanni and Lena de’ Bardi, born about the middle of the fourteenth
century, represented the moderate principle in the ruling party, as Giovanni

di Bicci did among the opposition. He wished for an oligarchy, but did not
desire the supremacy of a single family. As long as he lived, a restraint was
laid upon the Albizzi; nay, he was even reported to have said, that, if he
must live to see one stand at the head of affairs, he would sooner endure
Cosimo than Rinaldo. For he feared the violent ambition of the latter more
than the crafty calculation of his rival, and said of Rinaldo, that he would
see no citizen by his side, but all beneath him, and did not think so much of
destroying the Medici as of acquiring unlimited authority over his own
party.[60] Niccolò did not, however, trust to its unity, and sought, therefore,
to hold and preserve matters equally balanced. His repute was so high, that
the faction was indeed named after him, and his beneficence equalled his
wealth. In the Via de’ Bardi we still see the great palace which he is said to
have had built by the painter Bicci di Lorenzo, and which, as he had no
sons, passed with his daughter Ginevra to a branch of the Capponi, which
still possesses it.[61] The severe unadorned façade of Opus rusticum still
represents the simplicity of the time, which was soon replaced by the
greater richness of form of the Medicean epoch; and his statue in marble,
said to be a work of Donatello’s, is still shown in the house; whereas
another likeness, painted by Masaccio, and once in one of the houses of the
Corsican,[62] is said to have disappeared.
But Niccolò wished to leave his native town a memorial of his affection,
and began building a lyceum for young men after a design by the same
Bicci. By his last will he left a considerable sum invested in the national
funds for completing the work and endowing lectureships; but the State
expended the money for other purposes, and in the present day only the
name of the broad Via della Sapienza, leading from the Piazza di San Marco
to the Annunziata, reminds us of Niccolò da Uzzano’s patriotic intention.
‘He who wishes to be of use to the world, and to found of himself an
honourable memory,’ remarks Giorgio Vasari, ‘must work himself as long
as he lives, and not trust to posterity and heirs.’
Palla Strozzi was not made for the strife of factions; his heart belonged
to study. ‘Messer Leonardo of Arezzo,’ remarks the Florentine bookseller
Vespasiano da Bisticci,[63] ‘who has left us a whole gallery of interesting
portraits of remarkable and meritorious men, used to say of him, that he was
the happiest man he had known; for he possessed all that is requisite for
human happiness, in intellectual as well as physical gifts. He was very

useful to his native city, and obtained all the honours in the home and
foreign administration which could be granted to a citizen. As ambassador
he received honourable commissions, and, at the same time, always
promoted the welfare of his country. With these gifts he united the strictest
sense of honour, and was personally the most cultivated and respected
burgher of the city. His modesty extended from his private life to his public
position. He sought to avoid envy as much as he could, well knowing what
harm is wrought by it to the commonwealth, and how it pursues deserving
men. He did not like to be seen in public; he never appeared on the square
of the Signoria, or the new market-place, except when he was summoned
thither. If he went to the Piazza, he took the way past Sta. Trinità, through
the Borgo Sant’Apostolo, stayed there only a short time, and then repaired
to the palace. He was sparing of time, never wandered about the streets and
squares, and scarcely had he arrived at home than he studied Greek and
Latin, and lost not an hour.’ He was a rich man. In the registers of 1427 he
opened the list of the tax-payers with a sum exceeding the valuation of
Giovanni di Bicci by more than a fifth. A great part of his income he
employed in the purchase of manuscripts and for scientific purposes. The
origin of his family is unknown: the name occurs towards the end of the
thirteenth century. That the Strozzi were Guelphs and plebeians is shown by
their whole position; that they were popular, we see from the circumstance
that the names of more than a hundred of their family occur among the
priors of the corporations, while not less than sixteen attained the office of
Venner. Their wealth increased rapidly, as did the branches into which they
were divided, and in the territory they possessed lands and castles. One of
them, Tommaso, was among those of higher rank who turned the popular
insurrection of 1378 to their own purposes, and had to esteem himself
fortunate in escaping the victorious reaction by a flight to Mantua, where he
founded a branch of his family, which is still flourishing. Onofrio (Noferi),
Palla’s father, who had died in 1417, seventy-two years old, was one of the
most respected men of the republic. He was twice elected Gonfaloniere,
and, beside other offices, he filled that of superintendent of the Mint; while
embassies led him to the Popes Gregory XII. and Alexander V., when
Florence tried her best to restore unity in the Church. It was he who
determined on building the beautiful chapel in Sta. Trinità which now
serves as sacristy, a building which was completed by his son, and the
exterior of which is adorned with the three crescents, the arms of the

Strozzi. The epoch of their greatest brilliancy had not yet begun, but they
were approaching it rapidly.
As long as the different elements which formed the political parties held
the balance of power, peace remained intact at home. The city had never
been so rich or so splendid, trade and industry never so flourishing as then;
the great burghers had never shown more lively common feeling, or created
more beautiful public works, or devoted more helpful interest to science. It
was felt that any inconsiderate step, from whatever side it might come,
would disturb this peace; but it was this very consciousness of
responsibility which enforced prudence. Niccolò da Uzzano used to say that
he who summoned a parliament—i.e. who would bring about any decided
change in the existing state of things—would dig his own grave.[64] Many
respected burghers shared his views. It was natural however that an event
should at last occur to cause open discontent in the city, and a more hostile
position of the parties. The conquest of Pisa had not satisfied Florentine
ambition; Lucca, with which Florence had so often quarrelled, remained a
thorn in her side. When, a hundred and twenty six years after the time of
which we are treating, Giorgio Vasari was employed in painting the great
hall in the former palace of the Signoria with representations from the
history of Florentine conquests, he was visited by the Lucchese ambassador
at his work, and on his question, what he intended to portray on the
remaining space, gave the bold answer, ‘The conquest of Lucca.’ This is
only an insolent expression of the popular wish. In the Milanese war, Lucca,
where, for nearly thirty years, a citizen, Paolo Guinigi, had ruled with
almost absolute power, had taken sides for the Visconti, and thereby
certainly placed Florence in some danger. Rinaldo degli Albizzi stood at the
head of those who demanded that their neighbours should be chastised. But
division arose in his own party; Niccolò da Uzzano, Palla Strozzi, Agnolo
Pandolfini, and others, opposed him. The attitude of Cosimo de’ Medici was
ambiguous. The reproach of having agreed to the plan of war in order to
ruin the hopes of his rival, cleaves to him in spite of its being contradicted.
[65]
The war party, supported by Neri Capponi, one of the most influential
burghers, and son of him who had taken Pisa, prevailed. In the Council the
opponents were scarcely allowed to speak; a pretext was easily found, and
the determination was taken at the end of 1429. Rinaldo degli Albizzi
undertook the guidance of affairs as Commissary of the Republic, with
extensive authority.

It was an undertaking as unsuccessful as it was unjust, notwithstanding
the guilt of the Lucchese. The Florentines accomplished nothing from a
military point of view; their great architect, Filippo Brunellesco, forfeited
his fame as an engineer; the land was as cruelly as uselessly desolated; and
the Duke of Milan was drawn into the war. Venice, Genoa, even Siena, took
sides for or against; and after the leadership of Guinigi, by no means to the
advantage of the Lucchese, had been lost by it, a peace was concluded in
April, 1433, which was to restore every one his own—in what condition no
one ventured to ask. The unsuccessful campaign had already caused much
disturbance in Florence from the beginning, and given abundant material
for evil speaking. Rinaldo degli Albizzi had returned from the camp without
leave of absence: he was accused of having acted as a trader, and employed
rations and booty for his villa of Montefalcone. His successor, Messer
Giovanni Guicciardini, did not fare much better; the least offence he was
accused of was, that he had sold the bread intended for the camp to the
Lucchese.[66] Every one was in an ill-humour and at enmity when the costly
and fruitless war was ended. Rinaldo could not conceal from himself the
fact that his authority had suffered a dangerous blow. He thought to re-
establish it more firmly by drawing the reins tighter. The one man of his
party who had always dissuaded him most decidedly from this was no
more: Niccolò da Uzzano had died during the war, in 1432. The void
created by his death was soon visible to all.
The bitter enmity between Cosimo and Rinaldo seems first to have
arisen at this time, for the two men do not appear to have been personal
opponents till then. In the autumn of 1430 Cosimo had repaired to Verona
on account of a sickness prevailing in Florence; at Ostiglia, on the Po, he
heard of the loss suffered before Lucca. Appointed with Francesco
Tornabuoni as ambassador at Venice, he had, on what grounds is unknown,
declined the commission, but had gone, in March 1432, with Palla Strozzi
to Ferrara, to make an agreement with Milan in the affair of Lucca, which,
however, as we have said, was not carried out till a year later.[67] What had
kindled such irreconcilable hatred between Rinaldo and Cosimo—who,
hitherto, whatever might be their private feelings, had frequently worked
together—is not known. The rival party reproached both Cosimo and his
brother Lorenzo, who had for some time resided at Milan as Florentine
ambassador, with having taken part in intrigues against the State, in order to
prolong the war. But accusations of this kind usually rest on one-sided

testimony, and it is much more likely that both the Medici quietly waited
for a change at home, which public discontent, and the loss of reputation to
the reigning party in consequence of the failure in war, seemed to announce.
Cosimo did not deceive himself respecting the prevailing opinion against
him. He kept himself aloof from the eminent men of the ruling faction, and
appeared seldom in the palace; but it availed him little, for it was said he
wished to lull the suspicions of the rulers, and his relations to the lower
orders, which he could not, and perhaps would not, conceal, were made out
a crime. The large loans which at different times he had been making to the
public finances, as well as those to private citizens for whom he procured
access to office by paying their arrears of taxes, had made him a popular
favourite, but at the same time had increased the number of his political
adversaries. It became more and more plain that things could not remain as
they were. Rinaldo had tried, through Niccolò Barbadore, to persuade
Niccolò da Uzzano to mediate shortly before his death, but had been
repulsed. He now determined to act. He could reckon all the more on
support because Cosimo, if he relied on popular favour, was suspected by
the decided Guelphs from his connections with the old nobility—being a
brother-in-law of the Bardi and Pannocchieschi, and through his brother
Lorenzo related to the Cavalcanti and Malaspina, families of the Lunigiana;
while he was united by friendship to the Buondelmonti and other nobles.
Rinaldo had attempted to secure the consent of many partisans to violent
measures against Cosimo and his adherents, when the election of a Signoria
decidedly favourable to his plans, which entered on office with the
gonfaloniere Bernardo Guadagni on September 1, 1433, seemed to offer the
favourable moment. Bernardo Guadagni belonged to a distinguished family,
the name of which occurs in various offices since the beginning of the
thirteenth century; he was opposed to the Albizzi in the political movements
of 1378, but afterwards became attached to them. Bernardo had not been
eligible because he owed taxes, but Rinaldo cancelled the debt, and made
him his tool.[68]
On September 7 Cosimo de’ Medici was summoned before the Signoria.
[69]
He had been at his villa in Mugello, from whence he was recalled to
town under the pretext that his counsel was desired, and he was in fact
appointed a member of a commission (pratica) for affairs of the
commonwealth. As he passed the Or San Michele, Alamanno Salviati
warned him that evil was intended, but he replied that he must obey the

Signoria. Arrived at the palace, he was confined as a prisoner in a chamber
of the upper storey called La Berberia. The principal accusation concerned
treasonable machinations in the Lucchese war. That his life was aimed at is
scarcely to be supposed, though certainly possible: that the prisoner feared
it, is certain. The waves of party feeling ran so high, tongues were so sharp,
and even the assemblies held in churches, ostensibly for purposes of Divine
worship, were so openly employed for political ends, and for manœuvring
against the Government, that it was not difficult by inquisitorial
proceedings to justify the severest measures. The city was in the power of
the opponents of the Medici; Lorenzo, his brother, who was in the country,
seems to have tried in vain to bring about a rising. Niccolò da Tolentino, the
general of the Republic, and a friend of Cosimo’s, rode with a squadron
from Pisa to the village of Lastra, on the Arno, seven miles from the city,
but hesitated to proceed farther, and declared that he appeared in support of
the public peace. It was an anxious time of suspense.
The Signoria summoned the people to a parliament on the Piazza,
surrounded by armed friends of the Albizzi. The result at first was
favourable; but when the newly-appointed Balia had to decide on Cosimo’s
fate, the differences of opinion showed themselves. The prisoner had found
means to employ his money, and had bribed the Gonfaloniere, among
others, with 1,000 gold florins. He has himself remarked that the people did
not understand their own advantages; if they had wished for 10,000 gold
florins, he would have paid the sum to save himself from the danger. There
was no lack of representations of many kinds, even from foreign countries.
The end was, that all the Medici, with the exception of Vieri’s descendants,
were excluded from office. Cosimo was banished on September 29 to Padua
for ten years, his brother for five years to Venice, and others of the family to
Naples, Rimini, Ancona, and other towns. On the evening of October 3, as
Ormanno degli Albizzi held the Piazza, guarded with his people, and an
attack upon Cosimo was feared if the latter left his prison in the palace, the
Gonfaloniere caused him, after the penalty had been announced to him, to
be brought into his own lodgings under a safe-guard. Here he partook of
some supper, left the city by the Porta San Gallo, and rode through Pistoja
to the village of Cutigliano, on the road leading over the Apennines to
Modena, where he arrived on October 4, the day of St. Francis d’Assisi.
‘On the 11th,’ so he relates, ‘I reached Venice, where many nobles with
Lorenzo came to meet me, and I was not received like an exile, but as an

ambassador. On the following day I visited the Signoria, to thank them for
their influential mediation in my favour. The Signoria received me with
kindness and honour, expressed regret at what had happened to me, offered
residence and money supplies to whatever extent I wished. Many nobles
came to visit me. On the 13th I repaired to Padua, as I had been enjoined,
accompanied by Messer Jacopo Donato, who placed his beautiful house,
provided with everything, at my disposal.’
While Cosimo de’ Medici thus resided, partly in Padua and partly in
Venice, where he was allowed to go, honoured and loved for his well-
calculated liberality, in personal connection with some of his friends and in
correspondence with others, affairs in Florence rapidly approached another
crisis. Other banishments had followed: that of the brothers Pucci, the eldest
of whom, Puccio, was one of the most eager adherents of Cosimo, and one
who had circulated the gold florins of his patron, when in prison, most
skilfully; and Agnolo Acciaiuoli, whose correspondence with the exiles had
been discovered. The fortune of war, already unfavourable to the Albizzi,
now entirely forsook them. When new quarrels broke out in the Romagna
between the Florentines and the Duke of Milan, the former were defeated.
The excitement in the city increased to an alarming degree. Rinaldo soon
perceived that he was no longer master of the situation. When, towards the
end of August 1434, came the election of the Signoria, who were to take
office on September 1, Rinaldo perceived that he must use force if he would
prevent his enemy’s return. When neither the attempt to force new elections
nor the endeavours to attract the old nobility succeeded, and the new
Signoria expressed itself without reserve in favour of the Medici, while
representations on the other side were useless, the Albizzi began to arm
their followers, and to draw a number of discharged warriors to their
service, in the hope of having the majority of the city with them, and
dictating the law to the highest magistrate. But they calculated wrongly;
even the heads of their own party, like Palla Strozzi and Giovanni
Guicciardini, did not all flock to them. The city remained divided.
At the news of the warlike preparations which threatened them, and
relying upon the support of the majority of the people, the Signoria
determined to be beforehand with their opponents. On September 26, they
caused the Piazza to be lined with armed men, and invited Rinaldo and
some of his most eminent friends to appear before them; when, however,
instead of obeying, the latter came to Sant’Apollinare, and advanced to the

Piazza, with more than 600 men, the gates of the palace were hastily closed.
Had the assailants proceeded vigorously, their cause would have prevailed
—at least for the moment; but instead of advancing, they condescended to
bargain, and then they were lost. While Ridolfo Peruzzi, one of the leaders
of the party, was parleying in the palace with the Signori, who did not spare
fair words, Rinaldo allowed himself to be persuaded to repair to the convent
Sta. Maria Novella, to Pope Eugene IV., who, having fled before the
insurrectionary Romanists, had reached Florence not long before, and now
wished to play the peace-maker. As the adherents and people of Albizzi in
vain awaited their leader, whom the Pope delayed with long speeches, the
crowd dispersed, some going here, some there. The Signori gathered
courage as they saw the crowd of opponents diminish, and ordered the
alarm to be rung. Armed burghers hastened from all sides, and country
people flocked into the city.[70] Messer Bartolommeo Orlandini caused the
entrances to the Piazza to be guarded: Papi di Medici came at the head of
the peasants. The Signori appeared on the balcony of the palace, and
summoned the people to a parley. About three hundred and fifty voices gave
the Signoria full power to appoint a Balia, after the usual manner, to
proceed to urgent measures. With the Pope it was easy to come to an
agreement by means of his confidant, Giovanni Vitelleschi, then Bishop of
Recanati, the same whom Rinaldo had withheld from advancing. The
revolution had succeeded without bloodshed. The speedily chosen
extraordinary commission, more numerous than any before, conjointly with
the colleges, recalled with one voice, Cosimo and his companions from
banishment, into which they sent Rinaldo degli Albizzi, and with him more
than seventy of his most distinguished partizans. ‘Oh, Pope Eugenius,’ said
the knight to him, who now sought to console him with words, as he had
before put him off with words, ‘I am not surprised at the destiny which
befalls me, but I blame myself for having trusted to the promises of one
who could not help himself; for he who is powerless in his own affairs
cannot help others.’ Rinaldo degli Albizzi never saw his home again.
Cosimo de’ Medici had set out from Venice, September 26,
accompanied by his brother, on the news of the first favourable events in
Florence. On October 1 they learned the victory of their party; on the 5th
they reached the territory of the Republic—on the same date, and at the
same spot in the Pistojan mountains, where they had quitted it. ‘I have
noted this,’ he observes in his ‘Ricordi’ above mentioned, ‘because at our

expulsion several good and devoted persons said not a year would pass
before we should again be in Florence. On the way several burghers met us,
and in Pistoja the whole population flocked out of the gates to see us so
armed. We did not enter the city. On the 6th we dined at our villa at
Careggi, where a number of people had assembled. The Signori informed us
that we should not enter Florence till they had sent us word. This happened
after sunset, and we set out with a numerous escort. As it was expected that
we would repair to our house, the whole street was filled with men and
women. Lorenzo and I, accompanied by a servant, rode, however, along the
wall, and so we passed the Santissima Annunziata and the back of the
cathedral, the palace of the Podestà and that of the executors, to the palace
of the Signoria, almost without being observed, for every one was in the Via
Larga and at our house. The Signori had arranged it so in order to avoid
excitement. They received us kindly, and I thanked them as was fitting, and
at their wish we remained with them. We heard that, before our arrival,
Messer Rinaldo and Ormanno his son, Ridolfo Peruzzi, and several other
citizens, had been banished. The city was quiet, but, nevertheless, for
security, the square and palace were guarded by a number of armed men.’
Florence had now a master. On January 1, 1435, Cosimo de’ Medici
entered upon office as Gonfaloniere.
In an early work, unfortunately incomplete, and unknown till a few
years ago, which relates the history of Florence from the return of Cosimo
de’ Medici to the League of Cambray, Francesco Guicciardini[71] thus
condenses his views on the government of the Albizzi: ‘After various
disorders, a firm order of government was at last introduced by Parliament
in 1393,[72] when Maso degli Albizzi held the office of Gonfaloniere. He, in
order to avenge his uncle Piero, expelled almost all the Alberti, and the
government remained in the hands of clever and sensible men, who
conducted it in great harmony and safety till towards the year 1420. One
cannot be astonished at this, for the people were so tired of the preceding
disturbances that, when an orderly state of things began, every one adapted
himself gladly to it. At this time it was plainly shown how great the power
of our city is when unity prevails in her. For twelve years she maintained
the war against Gian Galeazzo with infinite expense, and with Italian or
foreign armies, for they often summoned a duke of Bavaria, a count of
Armagnac, or a King Rupert over the Alps, to their aid. Scarcely was this

war at an end, and, as was thought, the city exhausted and without means
for some time, when she began the undertaking against Pisa which cost
heavy sums in buying as well as in the siege. Then followed the war with
King Ladislaus, in which she not only defended herself bravely, but also
gained Cortona, though certainly at a heavy price. In short, the city attained
such important success, preserved her freedom under the guidance of
capable and honest men, warded off powerful enemies and enlarged her
territory so considerably, that it was rightly said to be the wisest, most
glorious, and successful government which Florence had ever had. The
years from 1420 to 1434 were occupied with the war against Duke Filippo
Maria, and the division of the city into two parties. At the head of one stood
Niccolò da Uzzano, a man respected by all as wise and a lover of freedom;
at the head of the other, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, and then his son
Cosimo. Disunion and various excitements were introduced by the year
1433, after Niccolò had departed this life—first, Cosimo’s exile, then his
return and the fall of his opponents; and as both changes, that of 1433 as
well as of 1434, were brought about by the Signoria which entered on office
on September 1 (it was usually elected on the day of the decapitation of St.
John, August 29), it was decreed that the drawing of the lots should no
longer take place on this day, but on the preceding, as has happened since,
with the exception of a few years at the time of Fra Girolamo Savonarola.’
When the government of the Albizzi came to an end, the domain of the
Republic had, with the exception of some smaller territories and villages in
the mountainous regions of the Casentino and the valley of the Tiber,
attained pretty nearly the same extent which she preserved up to the union
of the Sienese State with that of Florence, and the consequent formation of
the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The enlargement of this territory had
proceeded of course gradually, but constantly. Dante Alighieri says once it
would have been far better for Florence had the inhabitants of Campi,
Figline, and Certaldo remained her neighbours, instead of becoming her
fellow-citizens, and corrupting the pure Latin blood of her old families.
Two centuries after the writer of the ‘Divina Commedia,’ the most famous
statesman of modern Italy expressed pretty nearly the same opinions.
‘Venice and Florence’—such are Niccolò Machiavelli’s words in his
reflections on the first ten books of Titus Livius—‘were far weaker when
the first had attained the supremacy over Lombardy the latter over Tuscany,
than when Venice was content with the sea and Florence with six miles of

territory.’ The increase of subjects by the absorption of other communities is
certainly of small advantage: when it once exceeds due measure it is
ruinous. While it cannot contribute to the strength of warlike States, it has a
most hurtful influence on unwarlike ones, of which the Italian republics
give evidence: an opinion which would sound paradoxical if we did not
consider that he who expressed it had before his eyes the spectacle of a
State, without unity in itself, consisting of the most different elements,
united only by an outward bond, whose laws, founded on systematic
oppression of the nobles, appeared to him as the reason of its evident
helplessness in the second half of the fourteenth century.
With the aid of many hundreds of documents in the Tuscan archives[73]
we can closely follow the history of the growth of the Florentine territory,
as it increased in all directions above the valley of the Arno, often with
difficulty and with the most violent struggles, beyond Prato, Pistoja, on the
shore of the Mediterranean towards Leghorn, through the Elsa and Chiana
valley, where the conflicts took place with Siena, beyond Arezzo; finally, by
way of Cortona, to the upper valley of the Tiber, and towards the Umbrian
frontier, as along the Apennines to that of Romagna, including, on the other
side, Volterra and the long-contested Pisa. The forms under which the
villages and territories were annexed were very various. First of these, was
the submission (submissio), a result generally of war, but which sometimes
was brought about by compacts with other commonwealths and rulers, and
at times occurred spontaneously. The submitting commune assembled in
such case a parliament to appoint a syndicus, who repaired to Florence to
settle affairs with the Signoria, after which the Chapter was consulted, and a
commissary of the Republic was sent to the place in question to receive
homage, and complete the so-called act of taking bodily possession. These
things were very simple in small communes. They expressed to the Signoria
by their syndics and procurators the hope that they might be well governed
by them, and live in peace; promised faith and obedience—appointing a
fine in case of a breach of this promise; received a podestà and judge from
Florence; retained free choice of their presidents from their own citizens;
stipulated conditions in respect to markets, customs, weights and measures,
etc., as well as observance of their own statutes, such as even the smallest
communes possessed. For if, with the decline of the imperial power towards
the time of the Swabian emperors, the legal power once pertaining to the
empire might be considered as having passed actually to princes and

commonwealths, the case now occurred that princes and larger towns
claimed the former rights of the empire over little towns, which defended
themselves as far as they could by reservations. In such cases the statute of
the chief town represented towards the subject communes the common law,
to which there was an appeal from the separate municipal statutes where
appeal to the Roman law was not stipulated. After the subjection of Pisa, the
Pisan statutes remained valid for all the dependencies of this town; but in
Florence such dependencies had always a hearing if they appealed to the
Florentine statute law. But where there was a special fortress in the
stipulating place (Rocca, Cassero), the garrisoning of it was decided by the
ruling commune.
The different conditions are as different as the nature of the community
was varied. Larger cities naturally made their importance felt. A whole
series of treaties were concluded with Pistoja, beginning with the peace
made after the death of Castruccio Castracane on May 11, 1329, at the time
of the confusion caused by Louis the Bavarian’s Roman expedition. In the
summer of 1331 the Florentine Signoria received full powers for a year for
‘the security of freedom’ and the government of city and territory. These
temporary powers were repeatedly prolonged: commissions of Florentine
citizens were appointed for the revision of statutes; the powers of the
sovereign Signoria, and those of the magistrates of the subject town, were
carefully limited in such a way that the actual decision in local government
remained to the latter, which limited the supreme government. Volterra,
which acknowledged the supremacy of the Duke of Athens, but had
asserted its own independence after his fall, preserved it nominally up to the
end of the fourteenth century; but the Republic of Florence had attained to
such extensive rights that scarcely more independence remained to the
commune than to subject States, especially after a rebellion excited by the
introduction of the Cadastre had ended to the disadvantage of the people of
Volterra. As can easily be understood, quite peculiar circumstances
followed, when places were obtained through agreement with foreign
powers. By the repeated interference of the Neapolitan Angevin princes in
Tuscan affairs, and the increasing military weakness of the communes, this
occurred only too frequently. Prato, in the midst of the wars of the
Ghibellines and Guelphs, in the times of the emperors of the houses of
Bavaria and Luxembourg, powerless to protect itself, had acknowledged
King Robert of Naples as its Signore in 1313, and remained under the rule

of Neapolitan viceroys till Robert’s granddaughter Johanna gave up the
town to the Republic of Florence, in the year 1350, for the sum of 13,500
gold florins, which a citizen of Florence, Francesco Rinuccini, advanced
without interest. Florence thus succeeded to the king’s rights, and appointed
the superior officers, while the town retained her own municipal
government. It had happened most strangely of all with Arezzo. Unable to
assert herself against the superior powers of the Guelphs, she had
acknowledged the supremacy of Florence in 1337, and while retaining her
own territories, statutes, and privileges, received only the higher
magistrates, Podestà and Capitano, from Florence, to whom she promised
fidelity and assistance in peace and war. The oppressions, and especially the
building of fortresses, by which the ruling community here, as elsewhere,
sought to secure itself, went so far, that when, after the fall of the Duke of
Athens, the majority of the larger towns revolted from Florence, Arezzo
also regained her independence, which she preserved till 1380, when she
fell into the power of Duke Charles of Durazzo, in his expedition against
Queen Johanna. Four years later the town was taken by the French army
under Duke Louis of Anjou, marching to the assistance of the queen; and
the commander, Enguerraud de Coney, sold it four years afterwards to the
Florentines for 50,000 gold florins.
But there were other political connections beside that of subjection. The
Accomandigia, or assumption of a protectorate, was an act, more or less
solemn, by which a possession, either of the Church or the commune, was
recommended to protection, that might extend to the person of the
possessor, who was then called Raccomandato. It was a very old
connection, which united Florence with other communes, as for instance
with Siena. As in the earliest times of the commonwealth, the distinguished
family of the Buondelmonti recommended their castle, Montebuoni, to the
Florentine bishop for protection, so did numerous and powerful lords of the
commune recommend themselves afterwards. A kind of homage was
always combined with the Accomandigia; it usually consisted of a pallium
or banner of brocade or gold and silver cloth, presented on St. John’s day.
Those recommended for protection promised to be friendly to the
commune, to assist it at its summons in its feuds, to share friendship and
enmity with it, to grant free passage through their territories, not to hinder
the transport of provisions and merchandise, and to grant refuge to none
who had been banished by the commune. The commune, on the other hand,

allowed the Raccomandati law of arms on their own territory, promised
defence or compensation for loss, and empowered the planting of the
Florentine banner on their castles. The second half of the fourteenth century
and the first of the following were exceedingly rich in such Accomandigie,
because the smaller landowners felt themselves more and more weakened
and threatened in their independence, in consequence of the great
diminution of the number of independent communes, and thereby the
accession of power to those still remaining, as Florence, Siena, and Lucca.
Florence had begun by drawing the nobles in the nearer vicinity of the Arno
valley into such a connection with herself, and also to absorb the smaller
communes. Then the Accomandigia expanded more and more, till all the
great noble families, so to say, for the most part originally free, imperial and
Ghibellines, had lost their independence in the higher sense of the word. At
last the turn came to others, even distant, where the relation of protection
was essentially altered, as with the Grimaldi of Monaco, the Genoese
Campofregoso, the Appiani of Piombino, the Marchese of Monte Sta.
Maria, the numerous Malaspine, who resided at their imperial fiefs in the
Lunigiana, but naturally looked more to Florence and Genoa, to the
Visconti and the Esti, than to the empire. Even Roman barons entered into
connections of this kind. In 1395 the Colonna of Palestrina placed
themselves, with all their castles, for five years under the protection of the
Republic, whose service they entered. The Orsini of Savona whose
relations, the Counts of Pitigliano, stood in the same relation to Siena, had
preceded them. More important for Florence was the protection of many
dynasties of Romagna and Umbria, of which we shall speak farther on.
With regard to the landowners settled in Tuscany, if we except a few
independent imperial vassals, who remained so up to the French time, the
Counts Bardi of Vernio and Barbolani of Montanto, as well as the Macchesi
of Monte Sta. Maria (Bourbon de Monte), whom we have just mentioned,
the Accomandigia led to their subjection. In the States of the Church the
Papal sovereignty prevailed, as might be expected.

CHAPTER VI.

SUPREMACY OF COSIMO DE’ MEDICI UP TO LUCA PITTI’S
REFORM OF THE ADMINISTRATION.

The time at which Cosimo de’ Medici attained to a position in his native
town, such as a citizen had never yet held, promised neither rest nor peace
to Italy.
We have already mentioned how, in the decisive crisis when Rinaldo
degli Albizzi sought to carry the citizens along with him, and to destroy the
Medicean party with one blow, Pope Eugenius IV. was a fugitive in the
same convent of Sta. Maria Novella which his predecessor had inhabited on
his way from Constance to Rome. Martin V. had died February 20, 1431, at
the moment when the war of the Florentines with the Duke of Milan had
brought the armies of the latter over the Apennines. His successor,
descended from a Venetian family, did not understand how to preserve the
quiet which Martin’s skill and policy had established. While he fell into
disputes with the relations of the latter, the Colonna—disputes which
threatened the city of Rome itself—the eventful complication began with
the council opened at Basle on July 23rd of the same year, which was to
complete the reform of the Church, which the Council of Constance had not
thoroughly effected. Eugenius had united with Florence and Venice in order
to overthrow the Colonna family, but had thereby embittered Filippo Maria
Visconti, who now, when the violent strife raged between Pope and
Council, ranged himself on the side of the latter, and in May, 1434, even
assisted to excite a revolt in Rome, which forced the Pope to fly. In the
autumn of the same year, although the Pope saw the city of Rome return to
its allegiance, he still lingered on in Florence, at strife with the Council,

which was pursuing the policy of striving to diminish the authority of the
head of the Church, while the surrounding country was desolated by the
Duke’s mercenaries, till the Pope at last succeeded in coming to terms with
his oppressor. Meanwhile, the intrigues began at Naples which for a century
were the curse of that country, and finally of all Italy. The last of the
Anjous, Ladislaus’ sister, Johanna II., died on February 2, 1435, and left to
the country, in consequence of her fickleness, a contest for the throne
between Renè, Count of Provence, and Alfonso of Aragon, King of Sicily,
whom she had successively adopted as sons, while the Pope showed an
inclination to claim Naples as a relapsed fief of the Church. Alfonso,
defeated and taken prisoner at the Ponza Islands by the Genoese, allied with
Renè, was restored to liberty by Filippo Maria Visconti, then ruler over the
Sigurian harbour, but this generosity was regarded as detrimental by the
victors, and excited an insurrection in Genoa against the supremacy of
Milan, which found support from the republic of Venice, the ancient enemy
of the Visconti. Hereupon the Duke, not to have to cope with too many
enemies at once, entered into the alliance with the Pope which has just been
mentioned. As far as the resistance to Filippo Maria was concerned, the
Venetians were hand-in-hand with the Florentines; as soon as Cosimo had
returned, the Senate congratulated the Signoria. But Florentine plans of
winning still independent parts of Tuscany, and the Venetian intentions on
Romagna, upon which, for the sake of the safety of their own frontiers, the
eyes of the Florentines were always directed, could not but endanger the
harmony of the two republics. The whole of the remaining lifetime of
Cosimo de’ Medici was occupied with the endeavour to support and secure
his position at home, and his connection with foreign countries, each
reciprocally aiding the other.
He found favourable soil in Florence. His partizans had prepared the
way for him. All the heads of the opposite faction were exiled, and most of
them ruined. Many were dead. It was easy for him to boast in his memoirs,
that during his administration not one individual was banished or injured in
any way. It was not lenity on his part, for he had no more horror of violence
or bloodshed than the majority of his contemporaries where political ends
were at stake, but it was prudent calculation. He knew that he could allow
others to give the laws an interpretation which secured him, without being
himself taxed with using hard measures. He did this by the execution of
penal laws, and by making changes in the constitution. He first put forward

Puccio Pucci, who showed such zeal, and attained such authority, that the
Hotspurs of the party were named after him Puccini. When it was an object
to further the aims of this party even by the most sanguinary measures, or to
raise money, Puccio, otherwise an able man, and proved to be such in office
and in embassies, knew no scruples. Cosimo employed the services of Luca
Pitti even more frequently than those of Pucci. The family came originally
from Semifonte, in the Elsa valley, a castle the conquest and destruction of
which, as has been mentioned, plays a part in the oldest annals of the
development of the commonwealth. Maffeo Pitti sat as early as 1283 in the
magistracy of the Priors. Buonaccorso was a man much employed about the
end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. His activity
partakes somewhat of the character of an adventurer, and he seems to have
been equally versed in political and mercantile affairs. No one was so
successful as he in obtaining foreign assistance against Gian Galeazzo
Visconti, and it was chiefly he who, on the part of Florence, persuaded
Rupert of the Palatinate to undertake the unsuccessful march into
Lombardy, particulars of which are given in his instructive memoirs.[74]
Buonaccorso’s son was the principal tool of Cosimo. ‘Luca Pitti,’ says
Francesco Guicciardini, ‘was not a man of remarkable capabilities, but
vivacious, liberal, courageous; one who ventured more for his friends than
any one in Florence; a man who might safely be allowed to carry out
everything, while he had not head enough to become formidable.’
Cosimo had friends of another kind than these two. At their head stood
Neri Capponi. His father Gino, descended from a family which appears in
the second half of the thirteenth century among the most distinguished, had
won a good name for himself by the capture of Pisa in 1406, and by the
judicious and reasonable administration of the severely tried city, while his
history of the popular rebellion of 1378 is one of the most important aids to
a right understanding of this important occurrence.[75] Neri belonged to
those who before 1433 formed a kind of moderate party, but after the death
of Niccolò da Uzzano he inclined more and more to Cosimo, and if unable
to prevent his exile, he aided essentially in his recall. He was for the
Medicean party what Niccolò had been for the Albizzi, the mediating
element, but he never attained to the position which the latter held, because
Cosimo was of a different nature from Maso, and still more unlike Rinaldo,
and because in many cases Neri rather complemented him than represented

a different principle. Neri Capponi certainly aided essentially in restraining
the Medicean party government within certain limits; yet the measures
which most confirmed their government were effected under his eyes.
Cosimo, who required him because he enjoyed general confidence, and was
skilled alike in peace and war, always found means to counteract his
influence when it was inconvenient to himself. ‘Neri,’ says Francesco
Guicciardini,[76] ‘well knew the means employed against him. As he saw,
however, that Cosimo’s position was impregnable, and that to break with
him would be to run his own head against the wall, he pretended, intelligent
as he was, not to observe anything that passed, and waited patiently for time
and opportunity.’ But it is evident that this waiting, which we cannot but
attribute to weakness of character or selfish indirect motives, established
Cosimo’s position more and more firmly; Neri’s influence did not, however,
increase, notwithstanding the great services accomplished by him, which
will be more fully dwelt upon as we proceed.
Agnolo Acciaiuoli held a position scarcely inferior to that of Neri
Capponi. In the preceding century, his family, which rose with the majority
of the plebeian races, attained to unusual splendour. When we descend the
high road, leading southward from Florence to Siena, we perceive, three
miles from the town, on an isolated height on the banks of the river Ema,
the Certosa of Montacuto, convent and fortress at the same time, with
towers and pinnacles, with grand colonnades and monuments of sculpture
and painting in the splendid church. If we wander farther, quitting the high
road to descend to the right into the valley of the Pesa, a tributary of the
Arno, we see before us, on a low hill rising from the midst of a green valley,
an imposing building, rather resembling a castle than a villa, the extensive
mass of building surmounted by a tower resembling the Florentine Palazzo
Vecchio—Monte Gufoni, once a splendid country seat, now, after the
extinction of the family of its possessors, deprived of its glory, and
inhabited by poor peasants. Niccolò Acciaiuoli built convent and villa in the
first half of the fourteenth century, when he wished to leave his native
country monuments of his affection and piety. Like so many of his fellow-
countrymen, having been originally attracted to the south by commercial
business, he had become, by talent and good fortune, all-powerful at the
court of the Neapolitan Anjous, who made him grand seneschal of the
kingdom, and afterwards a mighty ruler in Greece, where his relations
became dukes of Athens and Corinth. Agnolo’s grandfather Donato, in

former years governor in Corinth for his brother the seneschal, was one of
those who put an end to the ochlocracy of the Ciompi, but his attempts to
moderate the supremacy of the Albizzi resulted in the exile in which he
died. Agnolo had inherited his spirit. He wished, indeed, for the supremacy
of a party in Florence, since Florence could no longer exist without the
preponderance of one or the other, but he resisted the entire subjection to
one family or one man. This opinion, which was held by a number of
influential citizens, explains the frequent internal disturbances, the history
of which, and consequently that of the whole State, is but half understood,
if we do not take into consideration the great number of eminent men who
exercised a secondary but yet important influence on the conduct of affairs,
as was the case especially under Cosimo de’ Medici, not to speak of later
times, after the death of Lorenzo il Magnifico and during the last years of
the Republic. Agnolo Acciaiuoli had during Cosimo’s exile engaged in
transactions which would have cost him his head if his brother-in-law had
not, in the moment of danger, burned the incriminating correspondence,
which did actually bring him to the torture, and to banishment to
Cephalonia. That he, an active and capable man, afterwards attained to
influence and dignity is easily explained: embassies and honours were
heaped upon him, and he remained among the foremost of the Medicean
party, although there were not wanting misunderstandings between him and
Cosimo, which were revealed after the death of the latter.[77]
Together with Agnolo Acciaiuoli rose into eminence his cousin Donato,
whose great-uncle, the celebrated and active cardinal-vice-chancellor, also
bore the name of Agnolo, and was the first Duke of Athens. At Cosimo’s
return, Donato was only six years old, but under the guidance of a sensible
mother, Palla Strozzi’s daughter, he developed rapidly, and we shall meet
him repeatedly in later years engaged in important matters. Among those
who held to the Medici there was no one who enjoyed the general
confidence in a higher degree, while he, although State affairs claimed so
much of his time, took a lively interest in scientific pursuits.[78]
If Diotisalvi Neroni, who attained in Cosimo’s later years the reputation
of great acuteness and skill, was involved in the misunderstandings to
which we have alluded, other causes weighed in the opposite scale; for as
the father of this man essentially contributed in 1434 to the prevention of
Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s elevation to power, so did he, as long as Cosimo

lived, act as his clever and willing tool. To the most estimable partisans of
the Medici belonged Bernardo Giugni, who was constantly employed on
diplomatic embassies, and Agnolo Pandolfini, with his sons Carlo and
Giannozzo. Whoever enters the Church of the Benedictines (Badia), which
spite of repeated alterations even now recalls the old times of the Republic,
may see the beautiful monuments, which were erected to Giugni and
Giannozzo Pandolfini, whom the commonwealth honoured with a funeral at
the public expense. The Giugni belonged to the oldest Guelph plebeian
families, and took part in the administration at its beginning. The Pandolfini
stood with them in the ranks of the Guelphs on the bloody field of
Montaperti, and streets of the city are yet named after both families, which
still flourish; while a palace built long after the time of which we are now
treating, which, if not one of the largest, is one of the most beautiful in
Florence—a work of Raffael Sanzio’s—keeps alive the remembrance of the
Pandolfini even in the history of art. Alamanno Salviati would have been
recommended by the talents of his father Jacopo, one of the most eminent
citizens of the oligarchical time, even if he had not made himself
remarkable by his talents and activity. No one could anticipate in those days
that, a generation later, his relations would be involved in the most
sanguinary catastrophe of the Medicean history. The Guicciardini,[79] a
family from the Pesa valley, which had risen by trade, had stood on the side
of the Albizzi. Of Luigi’s two sons, who in 1378 filled the office of
Gonfalonier when the popular tumult broke out, in which he displayed no
great energy, only one, Giovanni, remained true to his colours, and though
he did not go into banishment at the return of his old enemy Cosimo, he
was still excluded with his descendants from all share in the administration.
The other son, Piero, went over to the Medicean party, was one of the most
active in bringing about Cosimo’s recall, and laid the foundation of the
subsequent high position of his family, among whom his great-grandson
gained immortal fame as statesman and historian, but as citizen of a free
city he has left a name not free from censure.
It is evident that Cosimo de’ Medici, powerful as he was, had no
freedom of action. He had to contend with different elements, fulfil many
obligations, and humour much sensitiveness. He understood it. Scarcely any
one has ever guided a great party as he did, and placed himself so little in
the foreground. His means were of different kinds. When he returned he
found the political power in the hands of a Balia appointed by the Signoria

of September, 1434, which had already freed the city from his most decided
or most powerful opponents. He only needed to let them continue their
work, and so their extraordinary power was prolonged from one period of
five years to another. The ballot-boxes were of course only filled with the
names of partisans or unsuspected persons, for all in any way disaffected to
the faction were excluded, or, according to the expression then in
vogue,’messi a sedere.’ But even this did not satisfy the party leaders, and
instead of allowing the magistrates to be drawn by lot, they caused them to
be appointed, at their own pleasure, by the Accoppiatori from among the
eligible. While all offices thus fell to his confidants, Cosimo meditated
another and most peculiar means of excluding those of whom he was not
perfectly certain from any share whatever in the administration. He
annulled the statutes which disqualified the old nobility and the so-called
‘grandi’ from holding office, and declared these families to have equal
rights with the citizens. It was regarded as an important concession, as
Cosimo was connected with many of them, but in practice the matter
proved otherwise. The names of the families in question were not found in
the ballot-box, and, besides, they lost the offices to which they had hitherto
been admissible, such as legations, ministries of war, &c. It was said that
the pride of the old families was a thorn in the eyes of the upstart, who had
never trusted them.
That Cosimo promoted a number of people of the lower order evinces
equally his intention of weakening the opposition, as the cynical answer
which he gave to those who remonstrated with him on the subject expresses
his unmitigated selfishness. For when it was observed to him that he did not
do well to ruin so many noble families, and that the town must suffer by the
loss of many of her most excellent citizens, he answered that a few ells of
fine scarlet cloth would fill Florence again with distinguished citizens. A
ruined city, he said, was better than a lost one, and one could not rule a state
with Paternosters. So he showed himself unmerciful to all who had once
opposed him, and while such as left the places of exile (confine) assigned to
them, were declared rebels and lost their property, those who observed the
decree of banishment had their exile prolonged when the time of penalty
had expired. Thus it was with Palla Strozzi. He had shown himself weak at
the decisive moment of 1434, instead of supporting Rinaldo degli Albizzi. It
did not save him; he was banished to Padua for ten years. When the ten
years were over, he, who had only lived for science, kept himself within the

prescribed limits, and never allowed any one to speak ill of Florence before
him, hoped to see home again, but Cosimo condemned him to ten more
years. It was very painful to him, for he was seventy-two years old, and
loved Florence. He lived eighteen years longer in banishment, and his
descendants never returned to his native city. His relations experienced the
like hard fate with him. His daughter-in-law, Alessandra de Bardi[80] was, as
a girl and young wife, a model of modesty and beauty: that did not save her.
She saw her own father as well as her father-in-law go into exile, and die in
exile. She saw her husband, Lorenzo, who could no longer bear the scorn,
ill-treatment, and oppression to which the families of the exiles were
exposed, and who went to Gubbio to earn his bread by teaching, die beneath
a murderer’s hand. She saw one portion of her property vanish after the
other, and her life pass away joylessly in constant change of residence, and
constant anxiety for her children. Numerous families, once affluent, were
reduced to misery; fathers and husbands wandered about in foreign lands,
and their property was confiscated. Noble ladies begged alms. The poverty
to which many were reduced by merciless party spirit, even more than by
losses in war and bad harvests, incited the saintly Archbishop Antoninus in
1441 to found the charitable institution which still exists under the name of
Buonuomini di San Martino, and which, managed by a society of
trustworthy citizens, has for its object to soften misery, especially when
undeserved and borne in silence.
The sad fate of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and his nearest relations is the
most striking example of the ruin impending over great families in those
days from party spirit. On October 2, 1434, the Balia appointed in the
Medicean interest gave orders to the Captain of the People, Messer Jacopo
de’ Lavagnoli of Verona, to proceed against the originators of the tumult
which had taken place near Sant’Apollinaris. The sentence passed against
Messer Rinaldo and his eldest son, Ormanno, was eight years of
banishment, during which the exiles should remain at least a hundred miles
distant from the Florentine frontiers, and present themselves every three
days to the magistrates of their chosen place of residence, which must be
certified by a notary’s act. The bail for Rinaldo amounted to 4,000, and for
Ormanno to 2,000 gold florins; but all their moveable and immoveable
property, including that of the sons and wives, was made security for their
proceedings. Of course the exiles were made incapable of all offices. Father
and son presented themselves, according to order, in the towns of the

district of Ancona, whither they first repaired, Matelica, Montalboddo, Yesi.
On November 3, Naples was assigned to the former as his place of exile,
Gaeta to the latter, and the banishment prolonged by ten years. Before
Rinaldo could reach Naples his destination was changed to Frani, on the
Apulian coast, with the command to repair thither in the space of a month.
Thus the homeless ones were hunted like wild animals. They of course
understood that even the most conscientious observation of the commands
given them would never re-open the gates of Florence to them. That they
then, driven by rage and despair, disregarded these commands, left the
places indicated (it was called ‘rompere il confine’), and sought to return by
force of arms, is to be explained, if not to be justified. In the law that had
fallen on them they recognised only violence, which they on their side
determined to oppose by violence. When Filippo Maria Visconti undertook
his last campaign against Florence, the Albizzi and several of their fellow-
sufferers were in the Milanese army. The day of Anghiari destroyed their
hopes. Eight days after the battle, on July 6, 1440, the penalty was
pronounced against the rebels, for that they were now. Rinaldo and
Ormanno degli Albizzi, Messer Niccolò and Baldassarre Gianfigliazzi,
Ludovico de’ Rossi, Lamberto de’ Lamberteschi, Bernardo Barbadori, and
Stefano Peruzzi, all men of distinguished families, were declared to have
forfeited their honour, and their portraits were painted on the wall of the
Palazzo del Podestà, with insulting verses beneath, according to custom.
Andrea del Castagno, an artist of reputation, painted the pictures, as
Stefano, named Giottino, did before, and Andrea del Sarto after him. The
official poet and jester of the Signoria (the Araldo or herald), Antonio di
Meglio, to whose office it belonged to recite something to the Signori
during their meals, and to compose eulogies or satires on public occasions,
wrote the doggerel verses which indicated the character and crime of each.
The painter obtained from his pictures the name of Andrea degli Impiccati.
[81]

Rinaldo degli Albizzi resigned himself to his fate. Francesco Filelfo, the
humanist, whom hatred against Cosimo de’ Medici united to him, informed
him from Milan that nothing was to be hoped for from thence. It was
probably shortly after the lost battle that he made a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land, in fulfilment of an old vow. Returned from thence, he stayed at
Ancona, where he died, an aged man, on February 2, 1442, on the marriage-
day of a daughter.[82] Seven years later, Ormanno, then more than fifty

years old, turned to Cosimo’s younger son, Giovanni, to beg him to obtain a
favour in family affairs.[83] The letters from Mantua, where the Albizzi
resided with the Margrave Ludovico Gonzaga, have the tone of old friendly
connections; but how painfully clear is the fallen condition of the once rich
and powerful family! How terrible it was we perceive from the narrative of
a simple and trustworthy man, a friend and client of the Medici.[84] Messer
Rinaldo’s younger son Maso, married to a Gianfigliazzi, saw himself
involved with his family in his father’s misfortunes. He had a son, also
called Rinaldo, who, in order to earn a livelihood, entered the service of
Antonio Cicinello, the influential councillor of King Alfonso of Aragon,
and attained his confidence and affection in a high degree. When Rinaldo
was going to Ancona one day to visit his mother, who lived there, he was
plundered on the way, and appeared in the doublet of a wretch whom he had
seen hanging by the wayside on a tree. The young man died not long after,
and Cicinello sent the unhappy woman, who had lost her husband also, and
lived in extreme want at Ancona, a sum which he had been able to obtain
from the property of the deceased, and which was part of what he had
helped her son to gain. When the widow returned to Florence some time
afterwards, Cicinello repaired thither on affairs of state, and took with him
the remainder of the money. We will let our authority speak for himself:
‘One morning Messer Antonio repaired to Sta. Trinità, and sent to the
widow of Maso degli Albizzi (whose parental house joined the church) with
the request to come to him, as he wished to speak with her. But the poor
woman lay ill in bed, so that Messer Antonio sent her the thirty ducats
which he had by him, with the words, he had once procured this money for
her son, and now wished that it should be of use to her. When the poor
woman received the money, and remembered the kindness which the sender
of this money had shown her son, she said, weeping, ‘It is now nearly
thirty-five years since my husband was banished from Florence. I have
wandered miserably about many parts of Italy, and during my husband’s
lifetime, as afterwards when I lost him, no one regarded me or helped me in
my distress, but I have been forsaken by all. Messer Antonio has shown
greater sympathy with me and my son than has been evinced all this time
by the whole world, in the midst of all the strokes of fate.’
Cosimo de’ Medici did not content himself with rendering his old
opponents harmless; he took care also that none of his adherents should
become too powerful and dangerous to him. Therefore, remarks Francesco

Guicciardini, he retained the Signoria, as well as the taxes, in his hand, in
order to be able to promote or oppress individuals at will. In other things the
citizens enjoyed greater freedom and acted more according to their own
pleasure than later, in the days of his grandson, for he let the reins hang
loose if he was only sure of his own position. It was just in this that his
great art lay, to guide things according to his will, and yet to make his
partisans believe that he shared his authority with them. It was necessary,
however, that there should be one against the others, as was the case with
Neri Capponi. To weaken the respect in which the latter was held when his
name was in all mouths after the great victory over the Duke of Milan in
1440, Cosimo is said to have commanded the murder of the captain,
Baldaccio da Anghiari, who remained in the service of the Republic, and
was an intimate friend of Neri. The sanguinary deed was executed in the
palace, whither the unsuspecting man had been summoned by command of
the Gonfaloniere Bartolommeo Orlandini. Thus the share of Cosimo and his
motives are veiled in obscurity, but the suspicion has never been removed
from him.[85] The name of the Casa Annalena still recalls Baldaccio’s
widow, of the family of the Malateste of Rimini, who founded here a
convent for destitute women and girls, the extensive buildings and gardens
of which were employed for other purposes at the dissolution of the
monastic orders in 1808.
When Neri Capponi, who still acted as a counterbalance, though a very
weak one, to the Medicean authority, died, November 22, 1457, at the age
of sixty-nine, the prevailing party had already begun to divide. The old
opponents were entirely annihilated, most of their chiefs dead and their
families impoverished; the anxieties in which the long wars, first with the
Visconti, then with Venice, had kept the government and the people, had
been ended by the peace of 1454, which we shall mention later. Those who
had held together in the face of danger, relaxed after safety had been gained.
Cosimo’s supremacy was burdensome to the aristocratic partizans of the
Medici. They demanded that the extraordinary powers with which he had
governed since 1434 should be terminated. Cosimo consented. The Balia,
renewed only two years ago, was declared extinct in the summer of 1455,
and the members of the Signoria were again drawn by lot like other
magistrates. Giovanni Rucellai, a deserving man, was the first who thus
received the office of Gonfaloniere. The people, who hated every
appearance of arbitrary power, desired a return to the old forms as much as

those who had caused the changes, but the latter soon perceived that the
greater freedom was more apparent than real; for when the ballot-boxes
were filled with the names of such as held to Cosimo, the latter attained his
ends without appearing on the stage. The revision of the registers revealed
this. Then, according to the decree laid down when these were instituted, a
revision ought to have been held every three years, but this had only
happened in 1433. One of the restrictions put upon the extraordinary
commission (Balia) of that year had been that it neither had power to
change the ballot-boxes nor to abolish the registers, but at Cosimo’s return
no such limits were put to the authority of his partisans, and they returned
indeed to the ancient arbitrary system which the law of 1427 had been
meant to do away with. Instead of a firm base of taxation, party spirit and
party manœuvres prevailed. The measures resorted to had the double aim of
ruining antagonists, or such as were suspected, and of gaining the lower
classes. The most offensive of these measures, one which had been in
contemplation during the mob-government of 1378, was the adoption of a
progressive scale, which, by dividing the citizens into fourteen classes,
ascended from a trifling imposition to fifty per cent of the supposed income,
which was fixed by arbitration. Moreover, taxation was not limited as to
time, but depended entirely on the want of means alleged by Government.
The continuous wars which led the enemy at times into the interior of the
country, caused a constant drain upon the revenue. One war-tax after
another was proclaimed, and the results by no means corresponded always
with the demand. In the summer of 1442 no less than 180,000 gold florins
were paid as a reward to Francesco Sforza for his support of René of
Aragon against Alfonso of Aragon—a vain expenditure, since Alfonso took
besieged Naples, and established himself so firmly that all the enterprises of
Anjou against him, and his son and successor Ferrante, were frustrated. The
distribution of the taxes was a perpetual means for the faction to oppress
those whom they disliked. Many people were entirely ruined. A number of
considerable citizens had left the city and retired to villas, to escape the
immoderate exactions, as the country had less to pay than Florence, but it
availed them little. It was said of Cosimo de’ Medici, that instead of the
dagger, the usual weapon, he employed the taxes to rid himself of his
enemies. He retained the instrument, or, as Francesco Guicciardini says, the
dishonesty of the taxes, in his own hands, in order to ruin those in whom he
saw declared opponents, to bring down to poverty others whom he

mistrusted or who were inconvenient to him, and to favour partisans. The
members of the commission entrusted with laying on the taxes were either
his creatures or dependent on him. Lightening the burdens of the lower
classes was only the pretext, and the humiliation of the independent
burghers the real aim. This aim was attained by Cosimo, his son, and his
grandson. ‘It is well known,’ remarks the statesman and historian just
mentioned, in his reflections on the Florentine administration, ‘how much
nobility and wealth were destroyed by Cosimo and his descendants by
taxation. The Medici never allowed a fixed method and legal distribution,
but always reserved to themselves the power of bearing heavily upon
individuals according to their pleasure. Had they only employed this
weapon to protect themselves against enemies and suspicious persons, they
would have been to a certain extent excusable; but as they did not succeed
by other means, or by appealing to their ambition and vanity, in attaching to
themselves peaceful citizens more intent on their own business than on
affairs of State, they made use of the taxes to win them over, and to set
themselves up as lords of all, while they forced the people to seek to divine
their will even in trifles.’ The most striking example of the abuse of the
power of taxation is the history of Giannozzo Manetti. After a life spent in
the service of the State and of science, the veneration shown him both at
home and abroad, as well as his inclination for Venice, brought on him the
disfavour of Cosimo and his adherents, and he saw himself reduced to
beggary by taxes which reached the incredible height of 135,000 gold
florins. Abandoning house, property, and State-papers he went into
voluntary exile, to drag out the few days still remaining to him, by means of
first a Papal, and later a Neapolitan pension.
The shameless enrichment of many of Cosimo’s personal adherents, and
the discontent evinced in the city, made it at last appear advisable to many
of the ruling party to make an end of the system which had lasted since
1434. It was asserted of Puccio Pucci that he had acquired 50,000 gold
florins of the public moneys by usury and dishonest administration. It was
calculated that a certain Giovanni Corsini, who began with scarcely the
necessary means of life, had cheated Government of 20,000 florins.
Florence was rife with evil tales of dishonest upstarts, of theft at the public
cost, of dirty actions and extortion.[86] With Cosimo’s silent consent
(without this nothing could have been done), the Signoria at last
commanded, on January 11, 1458, a revision of the registers, indicating, as

far as it seemed advisable to them, the prevailing evils.[87] Scarcely was the
measure decreed than many of Cosimo’s party, and precisely those who had
sought to fetter him by withdrawing the former extraordinary powers, were
seized with a violent terror. For they saw themselves not merely obliged to
declare the increase on moveable and immoveable property, which in a
quarter of a century was immense with many of them, but the progressive
scale employed in the new declaration threatened them with a double
weight. Only from Cosimo could they expect assistance. The same people
who had attempted to weaken his authority three years before, now
entreated him to resume it, and proceed to action—that is, summon a
parliament, and cause extraordinary powers to be granted by it. They had
already formed the plan of doing away with the ballot-boxes, in order to
effect new elections more favourable to them, but Cosimo declined to do
their will. It suited him that those for whom his power was too great should
perceive that they not only gained nothing by the independence more
apparent than real of the Government, but sacrificed their authority while
his own remained undiminished. He had ready the convenient explanation
that extraordinary measures were only permissible in the case of highest
need and danger, that now the heavy debts contracted in the long wars
would be paid, the numerous changes in property taken into account, the
irregularities in the valuation of movable property done away with, and the
regular payment of the interest of the national debt be re-established. As
long as Alfonso of Aragon lived, who never lost sight of Tuscany, it did not
seem advisable to undertake alterations which might arouse displeasure
among the people. For Cosimo was never certain of this people, and in
times of dearth, bad harvests, storms, contagious disease, which repeatedly
occurred, or under oppressive war-taxes, the easily moved crowd was not to
be trusted. It was by no means always on Cosimo’s side. His measureless
riches aroused much envy and evil-speaking. If he built much, and
expended large sums in particular on churches and convents, it was said,
We pay for his hypocrisy, which is, moreover, full of spiritual pride, by
emptying our own purses. Even the secret cells of the brethren in the
cloister he fills with the balls of his coat-of-arms! His palace might bear a
comparison with the Colosseum. Who would not build splendidly could he
but employ other people’s money for it? It was said that the money-boxes at
the city gates were emptied in the house of the Medici. When Cosimo, says
a contemporary, advanced to the commune far greater sums than he took,

nothing was remarked upon it. He did this certainly, but he kept an exact
account of it, and it could hardly be said that the partnership between the
State and the Medici was solely to the advantage of the former. One
morning the doors of Cosimo’s palace were found stained with blood.[88]
Such things occurred long before the time we are now considering.
Cosimo had meanwhile no wish to remain passive after his haughty
partisans had received a wholesome lesson. The license to which the lower
classes inclined more and more, might have risen to such a point that his
own authority would be endangered. He himself did not appear, but the tool
was readily found. On July 1, 1458, Luca Pitti undertook the office of
Gonfalonier. Three days before, King Alfonso had died; from his son—
Ferrante—who had a difficult position in Naples on account of his
illegitimate birth, and who did not, like his father, command the powers of
Sicily and Aragon—there was for the time nothing to fear. Neither reform
of registers nor drawing the magistrates by lot were to the taste of the new
Gonfalonier; and urged by his friends, but with consideration for Cosimo,
who wished to avoid open violence, he sought to induce priors and colleges
to proceed to new elections, and choose new magistrates. When he met with
opposition in this, he determined to employ the usual violent means. On
August 9 he caused the palace and square to be surrounded by mercenaries,
had the neighbouring streets secured, and summoned the people by ringing
the great bell. That the Gonfalonier could do this in opposition to the priors,
or at least to the majority of them, is an evident sign how weak the laws
were. The Parliament, however it might be composed, granted to the
Senate, and 250 of the burghers proposed by the party, the extraordinary
powers demanded. These now proceeded to the new elections, and
appointed a commission of eight citizens to preside at all elections for the
future. It is easily understood that all actual authority was now more than
ever in the hands of the heads of the faction, who filled the offices at their
pleasure, and when the priors of the guild were after this called priors of
freedom, it was in bitter irony. All opponents of the measures, several of
whom endured torture, and a number of people who were either not trusted,
or of whom one or other of the new wielders of power had to complain,
were banished. In the months next following, exile and exclusion from
office were but too common, and if in this way justice was sometimes done,
as on the dishonest tax officials in Florence, Pisa, Arezzo, yet this made but
a poor show in the presence of so many deeds of violence. According to the

reform of taxation, the mercantile order was to be obliged to show their
account books; an agreement was then made with them, agreeably to which
a fixed sum of movable capital was declared, which was not the means to
find out the real amount, or to ensure the just distribution of the burdens.
Luca Pitti became a great man. The Signoria granted him the dignity of
knighthood, and Cosimo made him rich presents, in which others imitated
him. His momentary splendour eclipsed that of Medici; not he, but Luca
seemed to stand at the head of the State, and if his nature inclined generally
to pomp and power, he now allowed it free scope. His arbitrary and unjust
administration was to find its punishment years after.
In the last years of his life, Cosimo had no longer the guidance of his
party in his hands, as formerly. What he had always feared and long
managed to prevent, now happened: his most distinguished adherents grew
too strong for him. He had always feared to place himself in a clear light;
what would once have aided him, when it was a question of arousing no
envy, now injured him, as others employed it to outshine him. His continual
illness combined to render his share in affairs more difficult. He allowed
much to pass that he could not hinder, but, crafty and accustomed to rule as
he was, he would not confess that he could not hinder it. Thus, as people
like Luca Pitti and his companions stood far below him, and knew nothing
of that kind of prudent and calculated moderation which lay in his character,
a grasping and unconscientious party-government was formed, such as
Florence, with the exception of transient periods of disturbances and
passion, had never known.
It is easy to conceive that, with such a government, and with men at its
head ever ready to infringe or to corrupt the laws and constitution, the
magistrates of the Republic enjoyed but a small measure of authority, which
was allowed to them by the chiefs on whom they depended. The machinery
of government remained the same as it had been in former days, but real
power rested elsewhere. The oligarchy, which obtained a firm footing in
Cosimo’s last years, which tried to overthrow his son, and yielded to his
grandson’s consummate skill, kept in its hands the reins even when its own
independence was most doubtful. The thirst for public offices continued
immoderate. These offices preserved ostensibly their dignity, and secured
advantages of various kinds; but they no longer, as such, had any influence
upon politics. The majority of them had been established between the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; some had been added during the

fifteenth. The upper magistracy, generally called the Signory, was the
College of Priors of the Guilds, or of Freedom, as they were called after
1458. It had been established in 1282, and though afterwards transformed,
was originally composed of eight members chosen every two months, with
the Gonfalonier (vexillifer justitiæ) at their head.
In him was vested the highest power, which he, apart from the
executive, shared with the colleges, with the Buonuomini appointed in
1312, with the assessors of the priors, and with the sixteen bannerets of the
militia companies, at whose head was the Capitano del Popolo.
There has been a question raised as to the original military character of
this institution. The projects of law agreed to by the Signory and the
colleges were carried to three councils; first to the council of the people,
which consisted of a hundred members, chosen originally only from the
higher class of citizens, the popolo grasso. Then they went to the council of
the ‘Credenza,’ which was formed of the same number of members, and in
which sat all the consuls and other officials of the guilds; lastly, to the
Podestà’s council, composed of the judges and legal functionaries, nobles
and citizens, ninety in number. When a bill had passed through these three
courts, it was brought before a General Assembly of them all, and not until
then became law.
Forms, indeed, were duly observed, but these forms did not prevent the
adoption of laws which fatally attacked the constitution from within. For
the consideration of bills relating to foreign affairs, to peace and war, two
other consultative bodies were established after 1411, when greater care
seemed to be necessary, on account of the heavy burdens caused by the
dissensions of the great Schism. The one was the Council of Two Hundred,
to which only those could be elected who had occupied the highest offices
of State, and to which legislative proposals were sent before they came to
the Council of a Hundred and Thirty-one—in which sat the members of the
Signory and of the colleges, the ‘Capitani di parte Guelfa’, the ‘War Ten,’
the six councils of the craftsmen, the consuls of the guilds, and forty-eight
other citizens. The bills had to be accepted in these two assemblies before
they reached the first-mentioned councils. From such a mass of incongruous
materials was the machine of State compiled.
The chief judicial functionary, and until Luca Pitti’s reform the first
dignitary, was the Podestà, assisted as he was by the Capitano del Popolo—

whose rights and privileges were often changed—and by the executor of
legal ordinances. All three were strangers: the first two noble personages
learned in the law, the third a man of the people, of Guelfish family, holding
office for one year. The Podestà’s court included several adjuncts who took
turn with the chief. The armed guard of the latter were under the chief
bailiff or Bargello. Attached to these were the Magistracy of Eight (Otto di
Guardia), who were nominated by the Signory, and installed in office for
four months. They had to try criminal and police cases, and were
conservators of the law—a sort of appeal court for the revision of the
decisions of the Podestà’s court. Much of their time, however, was spent in
detecting the artifices and evasions of the tax-payers. The uncertain line of
demarcation between the jurisdiction of the several co-existing law courts
has always been one of the most serious evils of the constitution of
Florence. For the separate branches of the constitution different
functionaries were appointed. Foreign affairs and war were in the hands of
the ‘Peace and War Ten,’ who were appointed in 1423 during the campaign
against Milan. There had indeed been, half a century earlier, a similar
magistracy, nicknamed by popular wit, the ‘Eight Saints,’ because they
conducted warlike operations against Pope Gregory XI. It was as secretary
of the ten that Niccolò Machiavelli manifested that activity which, together
with the literary talents which he afterwards developed, made the
‘Segretario fiorentino’ so celebrated. The influence exercised by this
committee upon military operations was often most unfortunate, and in the
peaceful times of 1480, we see it replaced by the ‘Otto di Pratica.’
The office of Capitani di parte Guelfa, to whom was entrusted, by the
statutes of 1267, the control of the property of the rebels—an office open
also to the nobility—had long lost the political importance it acquired in the
second half of the fourteenth century. To the magistracy of custom-dues,
established in 1352, and in which always sat one of the nobility, was given
the control of the indirect taxation; to the Uffiziali del Monte, the direction
of the state debt; to the consuls, appointed after the acquisition of Leghorn,
the management of navigation and of commerce beyond the seas. The
assessment of loans was managed by special commissions. The tribunal of
commerce (Mercanzia) was composed of six members of the large
corporations and six foreigners learned in the law. The chief of the affairs of
the guilds, the proconsul, who ranked immediately after the Signory and
colleges, belonged to the first guild, that of the lawyers. In a town and

commonwealth where a strong principle of beneficence prevailed, all
charities had to be well arranged. The officials of the widow and orphan
fund, whose premises are now occupied by the Society of Brethren of
Mercy, on the Cathedral square; the Capitani di Sta. Maria, who were
originally appointed to oppose the Patarian heresy, but subsequently
devoted themselves to the care of orphans, and survive in the Uffizio del
Bigallo opposite the Baptistery; the Buonuomini di San Martino, founded
by St. Antoninus with their domicile in the dwellings of the Alighieri—all
these belong properly to the municipality. All the courts and committees
had their chancellors or secretaries, whose importance depended on
circumstances, but was enhanced by the fact that they were permanent
officials, while the members were constantly changing. The Signory and
other assemblies had many subordinate officers besides. The salaries were
insignificant, and the only persons who received them were the foreign
judges, chancellors, secretaries, subordinate officers, and servants; as also
the officers in the towns of the district, the commissaries of the troops, and
the ambassadors abroad, while the acting magistrates at home were unpaid.
This form of government and councils continued, with slight
modifications, until the month of December 1494, when the overthrow of
the Medici was the signal of events which materially altered the constitution
of the Republic.

CHAPTER VII.

FOREIGN RELATIONS. WAR AND PEACE. COUNCIL OF
UNION.

While these things were going on at home, the exigencies of war for many
years made serious demands on the State and its resources, and more than
once the contest was carried into the territory of the Republic. To the
dangers which arose from the fact that two ambitious and warlike princes
governed the north and south of Italy, was added the unfavourable
circumstance, that a Pope sat in St. Peter’s chair who was constantly drawn
into the din of war, less, perhaps, from his own restlessness, than from the
hopeless confusion in the States of the Church. The principal scene of the
war was Romagna, a country which, by its distracted condition, by the
number of its petty lords, and the violent character of its inhabitants—still
more by its geographical position and the vicinity of powerful States—
seemed destined to be the general battle-field.
The hereditary enmity of Filippo Maria Visconti was aggravated by the
hatred of the Florentine exiles, who, despairing of a return to their country
on peaceful terms, stirred up the Duke of Milan to strife with her, under the
usual pretext that it was not a war against their country, but against a
faction. The want of success which attended the troops of Visconti in the
territory of Lucca, under Niccolò Piccinino, was an enticement for Cosimo
de’ Medici to strive to obtain possession of this town, as he did six years
later, but with no greater success than before. The war, begun in the
Lucchese territory, was continued in the Romagna, where Florence and
Venice, with the aid of Pope Eugenius IV., resisted Visconti. The Milanese
army did indeed once again cross the Apennines, but only to suffer a

decisive defeat, on June 29, 1440, at Anghiari, between Arezzo and the
valley of the Tiber. This defeat led to peace in the following year, and
enlarged the Florentine territory by the mountain region of the Casentino,
where the supremacy of the counts Guidi, allied with Milan, who, since the
days of imperial power in Italy, had had dominion here, came to an end.
Scarcely was the Milanese war at an end than Florence, like Venice, was
drawn into the contest with Naples which Renè of Anjou was carrying on
against King Alfonso of Aragon; both representatives of the dualism which
the fall of the Hohenstaufen had bequeathed to South Italy. The Sienese
country, the territory of Volterra and the Pisan Maremma, were the scenes
of a struggle which might have been dangerous to the Republic, if the king
had not been detained by besieging smaller places—though he was not
unskilled in war; he suffered moreover from the malaria of the plains, and
wasting the years 1447 and 1448 in inglorious and fruitless undertakings,
was obliged for a while to lay down his arms without concluding peace,
with the intention of taking them up again under more favourable
circumstances. The opportunity was not long delayed.
In the midst of the feud between Florence and the Aragonese, Filippo
Maria Visconti died, the last of a race which, more than any other, had
represented the arbitrariness and cruelty of mediæval tyranny. He had
appointed Alfonso of Aragon his heir, with a view perhaps that the weapons
which he had wielded all his life long without stirring from the walls of his
castle, might not rest even after his death. But the dukedom of Milan was in
danger of dissolution. The capital, with Como, Novara, and Alessandria,
cried out for a republic; Lodi and Piacenza threw themselves into the arms
of Venice, which, engaged in ceaseless strife with Visconti, was just now
pressing him hard. Duke Charles of Orleans, Filippo Maria’s nephew,
prepared to support the rights of inheritance by force of arms; while the
Duke of Savoy turned his eyes towards the rich Lombardy which his
successors never again lost sight of. But there was another competitor—not
a prince, but more able and skilled in arms than all the princes of the time:
Francesco Sforza, the son of a valiant and successful condottiere, who had
risen from the ranks of the peasantry. He had been at the age of twenty-
three leader of the victorious mercenary troops of his father, who gave his
name to a famous school of warriors. He had served Florence and Venice in
war against the Visconti and Alfonso of Aragon; striven for and against
Pope Eugenius IV. in Romagna and the frontiers; and in the midst of rapid

changes of fortune and party, preserved relations with Florence which
proved more lasting than those of the condottieri generally were. Now
attracted by Filippo Maria, again repelled by suspicion even after the latter
had bestowed on him the hand of his natural daughter, Bianca Maria, he
was about to come to his assistance, when the victorious Venetians had
already crossed the Adda. The duke died, and the new republic, threatened
by so many foes, chose him to be their general. Three years later he became
Duke of Milan. Francesco Sforza possessed himself of the supreme power
by treachery and force of arms, but he saved for half a century the
independence of a State which, after 170 years of tyranny, was no longer
capable of life as a commonwealth, and furthered its prosperity, while he
powerfully contributed to the formation of a political system which,
however great its weakness, was the most reasonable under existing
circumstances.
Without the aid of Florence and Cosimo de’ Medici, he would not have
attained his ends. Cosimo had recognised his ability in the war with
Visconti, and made a close alliance with him. In order to retain him in his
service, when Filippo Maria offered him as a bait the hand of his daughter,
Cosimo had gone in 1438 to Venice, in order to obtain more favourable
conditions for him from the Republic, friendly to himself, in which,
however, he failed. During the distress of Sforza on the frontiers, he had
supported him as much as he could. His son Piero was present at Sforza’s
marriage. Now it was necessary to choose between Sforza and Venice, for
there was only one alternative; either the condottiere would make himself
Duke of Milan, or the Republic of San Marco would extend its rule over all
Lombardy. In Florence several voices declared in favour of the old ally on
the Adriatic, who, however she might seek her own advantage with
unscrupulous zeal, had yet ever been faithful at critical moments. Cosimo
de’ Medici gave the casting-vote in Sforza’s favour. Perhaps it was hard to
think of his old personal connections and obligations, but political
expediency gained the day. Without Florentine money, Sforza would never
have been able to maintain the double contest—on the one side against
Milan, which he blockaded and starved out; and on the other against the
Venetians, who sought to relieve it, and whom he repulsed. And when, on
March 25, 1450, he made his entry into the city which proclaimed him
ruler, he was obliged to maintain himself with Florentine money till he had
established his position and re-organised the State. A Florentine embassy

went to congratulate him—Piero de’ Medici, Neri Capponi, Luca Pitti,
Diotisalvi Neroni. The Venetians were exceedingly irritated, as was natural.
They judged rightly that the Sforza owed his success essentially to the
favour of their former friends. Their indignation became fiercer when
Florence entered into negociations (June 29) with King Alfonso, with whom
they were still at war. Common animosity to Florence and Sforza drew
Venice and the king nearer to one another, and at the end of 1451 an
alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded against them, which Siena,
Savoy, and Montferrat joined. It was at first directed against the Duke of
Milan; the Florentines had the choice of joining it, for form’s sake. But
when they replied that, as peace prevailed in Italy, new alliances were not
necessary, the Venetians banished all the Florentine merchants from their
territories, refused a hearing to Otto Niccolini, who was entrusted with an
embassy, and persuaded the king to adopt like measures. On May 16, 1452,
the Republic and, four weeks later, King Alfonso declared war, which the
Emperor Frederick III., then in Italy, and Pope Nicholas V., successor to
Eugenius IV. since 1447, in vain endeavoured to prevent.
The Venetians began the war in Lombardy, the Neapolitans in the valley
of the Chiana. Ferrante, Duke of Calabria, the king’s son, commanded the
latter; Sigismundo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Florentines, who sent only
foreign mercenaries to the field this time. The persistency with which the
democracy had borne down the ancient nobility, who were trained to bear
arms, had, in conjunction with the preponderance of the industrial and
mercantile interests, completely annihilated the former warlike skill of the
people, and though the Republic, in reliance on her pecuniary power, tried
to hold her ground by means of mercenaries, she was far from being able to
compete with States like Venice, Naples, and Milan, who, partly in
consequence of their political form, attained greater unity in the conduct of
war, and also had more men at their command, from their greater territorial
power. The Florentines achieved some brilliant successes, but most of their
campaigns were unfortunate, and the ability of individual citizens employed
as military commissaries could not outweigh the disadvantages which
sprung from general strategic incapacity and the want of unity in the
commanders. The tactics of the condottieri were on the decline throughout
Italy, while the art of fortification and besieging was still in its infancy. The
fertile though unhealthy plain which stretches on both sides of the sluggish
Chiana, between Arezzo, Cortona, and Montepulciano, was desolated by the

enemy, who, however, lay for thirty-six days before the little castle of
Fojano, which was only defended by 200 people. They had to retire from
Castellina, another weakly-fortified place between Siena and Florence,
without having effected anything, and only owed to the cowardice of the
commander of Bada, in the Maremma, the capture of this unimportant
fortress, before which a fleet of twenty galleys and other vessels cruised. So
low had Italian strategy fallen, that they were only able to reduce even
slightly defended places by hunger, while even the more practised generals
feared to venture a battle, and the principal method of war was unsparing
devastation of the land. The Florentines, destitute of good soldiers, sought
to give another turn to affairs by inviting once more into Italy Alfonso’s old
rival, René, and then his son, John of Anjou, who also bore the title of Duke
of Calabria, as his father retained that of King of Naples. They thus sought
to relieve the Duke of Milan, and free themselves from the incursions of the
Neapolitans, who once advanced to within six miles of the town, and did
great damage. In the summer of 1453 their enemies were driven back upon
the Sienese territory. But a foreign event contributed more than all to
terminate this miserable war, and put an end to the petty squabbling of the
Italian powers.
On May 29, 1453, Mohammed II. stormed Constantinople. The West
was threatened, more especially Venice, which had such great and wealthy
possessions in the Levant, and Naples. This time the excellent Pope
Nicholas V. did not exert himself in vain. On April 9, 1454, Venice
concluded a tolerably favourable peace with Francesco Sforza at Lodi, in
which King Alfonso, Florence, Savoy, Montferrat, Mantua, and Siena, were
to be included. The king, who had made considerable preparations for war,
did not ratify the compact till January 26 of the following year. The States
of Northern and Central Italy then joined in an alliance, and a succession of
peaceful years followed, which were only momentarily interrupted in the
case of Florence by the freebooting expedition of Jacopo Piccinino, a son of
the Niccolò who was conquered at Anghiari. Dismissed from the Venetian
service, he attacked the Sienese territory in 1455, on his own account, but
was defeated and compelled to set sail for Naples from Orbetello. In the
confusion which broke out in Naples after king Alfonso’s death neither
Florence nor Venice was involved. The ancient Florentine friendship with
the house of Anjou had to yield to other influences. At the same time, when
the Turks conquered the Morea, and thus approached nearer and nearer to

the coasts of Italy, the Angevin party in the kingdom attempted a new rising
against Ferrante of Aragon, who in 1460 suffered a defeat from Duke John,
which would have driven him from the throne had his opponents been more
united and more powerful. Assistance from Milan and from Rome, where
Pius II. now occupied the Holy See, after the short reign (not quite three
years) of Calixtus III., combined with his own energy and skill, facilitated
the King’s restoration to power; and not long after, he saw the Anjou
expelled from the kingdom by the decisive victory at Troia, and the
insurrectionary barons, among whom were several of his near relations,
given into his power. Thus Florence, like Venice, which had then little time
to think of anything except danger from the Turks, was appealed to for
assistance by Ferrante on the ground of the alliance concluded in
consequence of the peace of Lodi; but Florence refused, from a
consideration of the late King’s double dealing in the affair of Piccinino.
In the midst of the civil disputes and confusion above described, of
repeated foreign troubles, and an immense exertion of material power to
secure her political position, Florence in the times of Cosimo de’ Medici
was still the harbour of refuge for all Italy, and, in consequence of an event
important in the history of the world, the haven of Christendom. The ever-
memorable movement in the intellectual world will be mentioned later; the
occurrence which forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history must
be considered here.
Pope Eugenius IV. had, as we have seen, to battle at once with a double
opposition, which, different in origin as in significance, united for a time,
and clouded a considerable part of his reign of sixteen years. The attempt to
restrain within reasonable limits the Colonna, the relations of his
predecessors, who had been immoderately favoured and had grown
insolent, excited agitation in Rome, and kindled a strife which extended
through the greater part of the States of the Church. The course pursued by
the council at Basle, opened not much more than four months after the
elevation of Eugenius, necessarily led to irreconcilable dissension with the
pontificate, because the new assembly, instead of considering the altered
position of affairs since the termination of the great schism, and confining
itself firmly and with wise moderation to what was truly edifying and
necessary (as exemplified, for instance, in the new Frankish-Germanic
countries), raised its pretensions so high, that if they had prevailed, the
Papacy would have become a cipher. The simultaneous occurrence of the

ecclesiastical contest at Basle with the ambitious plans of Filippo Maria
Visconti, had filled Romagna and the frontiers, the patrimony—nay, even
the Campagna—with the din of war; and on June 4, 1434, the Pope was
obliged to take flight from Rome. As early as the end of January affairs had
assumed such an aspect in the States of the Church, especially in Bologna,
that Florence deemed it necessary to arm, foreseeing that the Pope would be
forced to leave Rome, and Rinaldo degli Albizzi had then expressed his
opinion that it would be advantageous and honourable for the State if
Eugenius IV. should choose Florence as his residence.[89] Received
honourably in the city, where he had already found support in his feud with
the Colonna, and residing in the convent of Sta. Maria Novella, he was
witness of the revolution which brought Cosimo de’ Medici to the helm of
affairs, and he remained at Florence till April 1436, when he repaired to
Bologna. As the controversy with the fathers assembled at Basle became
hotter every year, and he himself was cited before their tribunal, he
transferred the council to Ferrara on October 1, in the following year.
While, early in 1438, the fathers at Basle were pronouncing the
suspension of the Pope, the latter opened, in the capital of the house of Este,
a council, at which appeared shortly afterwards the Greek Emperor, John
Palæologus, in whom the distress of his crumbling empire had aroused the
hope of securing the assistance of the West by a union with the Church. A
pestilence which broke out in Ferrara caused the removal of the synod to
Florence, where in January 1439 it began its sittings, and on July 6
proclaimed the reunion of the two churches,[90] six weeks after the
deposition of Eugenius IV. had been decreed by the council at Basle, which
had degenerated into a conciliabulum, and which a few months later elected
Duke Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, a powerless anti-Pope, under the name of
Felix V. The bronze doors of the church of St. Peter’s in the Vatican, the
work of two Florentine artists, though not the best specimen of the
Florentine sculpture of that age, commemorate these events in the reliefs.
The reconciliation between East and West could not be of long duration; the
schism, a double one, as it was a question of doctrine as well as supremacy,
and was deeply rooted in the feelings of the people, broke out again
immediately afterwards. But for Florence, where also a reconciliation of the
Armenians with the Church of Rome took place, the council formed an
epoch in the world’s history.

Eugenius IV. resided for four years in the city, while powerful regents,
entrusted with full power, governed Rome. First, the cardinal-patriarch
Giovanni Vitelleschi, for a time Archbishop of Florence, and involved in the
catastrophe of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, as Luca Pitti was, six years later, in
that which ended in his violent death; then Cardinal Ludovico Scarampi,
likewise Archbishop of Florence at a time when this see needed a more
worthy pastor than these prelates, wearing coat-of-mail and sword. It was
precisely during these years that the Pope was more involved than suited his
pastoral dignity in that endless confusion in the Romagna and the frontiers
which occupied the last years of Filippo Maria Visconti, nor did his
Holiness hold himself quite aloof from a share in Florentine party divisions.
It would have been better for him if he had appeared there less as a
temporal prince than as Pope. On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation,
with which the year began, according to Florentine custom, he consecrated
Sta. Maria del Fiore, where the solemn proclamation of union in the Church
followed: two occurrences recorded on the large marble tablets which are to
be seen on each side of the entrance to the new sacristy. After the
consecration, the Gonfaloniere, Giuliano Davanzati, received the honour of
knighthood. The church of Sta. Croce was consecrated in 1442, in the
presence of the Pope, by Cardinal Bessarion, Archbishop of Nicæa, one of
the few Greeks who remained in communion with the Latin church.
Another memorial of this Pope is the Collegium Eugenianum, founded in
the year 1435, an institution for young priests, which now occupies the
former locality of the Florentine university in the street named after it, Via
dello Studio, where the antique modest building speaks of former days.
The contest for the Neapolitan throne almost produced a serious rupture
between Eugenius IV. and Florence. The Pope had once recognised the
claims of René of Anjou, and granted him the investiture which Cosimo de’
Medici received February 23, 1435.[91] He afterwards inclined to the side of
his opponent, who, after the conquest of the capital, forced René to
evacuate the kingdom. In the summer of 1442 the latter had come to
Florence, with the hope of regaining the Pope’s favour, and also of inducing
the Republic to give active support to Francesco Sforza, who, as we have
seen, had fought on his side, but was now hard pressed in Romagna and on
the frontiers. The King, without a kingdom, was honourably received by the
Gonfaloniere, Giovanni Falconi; one of the houses of the Bardi was
assigned to him as residence, and twenty-five gold florins a day granted him

for his maintenance. But Eugenius IV. was not to be won over, and the
Florentines seem also to have despaired of any favourable result, after
Sforza’s contest had cost, and continued to cost, them such heavy sums.
When René saw that he was wasting his time, he embarked at Leghorn in a
Genoese ship, which brought him back to Provence.
At last, March 7, 1443, the Pope quitted Florence. The mistrust felt
towards him on account of his supposed understanding with the exiles, had
declared itself so openly, that advice was sent from Venice rather to hinder
his departure than to let him go with anger and evil intentions in his heart.
Leonardo Aretino, the chancellor, and other judicious citizens spoke against
it. Venice herself, he said, would take care not to act so in a similar case. He
was right, for the Pope was a power not to be despised. Vespasiano da
Bisticci describes the impression which he made on the people.[92] When
Eugenius, surrounded by the cardinals, stood on the scaffolding erected at
the entrance to the cloisters of Sta. Maria Novella, to dispense his blessing,
not a sound was to be heard in the Piazza, which with the adjoining streets
was filled with people, and as he pronounced the ‘Adjutorium nostrum in
nomine Domini,’ sobs and cries of ‘Misericordia’ were heard on every side.
At such moments he really appeared to be the Deity, whose vicegerent he
was. The way in which Eugenius IV. departed from the city which had
afforded him hospitality so many years, is a strange picture of the confused
state of things. ‘During the whole night before the day on which the Pope
took his departure,’ relates Vespasian again,[93] ‘there had been a contention
as to whether he should be allowed to go or not. After all the influential
citizens had come to an agreement, they commissioned Messer Agnolo
(Acciaiuoli) to go to the Pope early in the morning, and to inform him he
could go whither he pleased. The Pope and his suite waited for this
announcement. When Messer Agnolo entered Sta. Maria Novella, Messer
Francesco of Padua (Cardinal Condulmer, nephew of Eugenius) came to
meet him outside the Pope’s chamber, and asked if they were prisoners.
Messer Agnolo answered that, had they been prisoners, he would not have
been charged with the commission, but another citizen who had voted in
that sense. When the Pope heard it, he thanked him and the Signoria many
times, instantly mounted and rode with his suite to Siena.’
In the Augustinian convent of Lecceto, before the Fontebrand, a gate of
this city, where Eugenius IV. resided several months before returning to

Rome, which had become more and more anarchical during his nine years’
absence, he granted the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily to Alfonso, on
July 15,[94] and thus began the uninterrupted though often threatened reign
of the Aragonese line, which lasted till the oft-revived question of the
succession ended in the violent overthrow of the whole political system for
which the Medici had laboured in a different way and in another sense.
Sixteen years after the departure of Eugenius, another Pope came to
Florence—another man, with other plans and thoughts. On April 25, 1459,
Pius II. came hither from Siena on his way to the conference of princes
assembled at Mantua to organise a crusade against the Turks. Florence was
by no means well inclined towards her Sienese neighbours, and the last
Neapolitan war, favoured by Siena, had not exactly improved the feeling.
The Sienese priest, raised to the highest dignity of Christendom, and
desirous of setting a limit to the threatening progress of Islam, was,
however, most honourably received. Several princes and lords had repaired
to the city before the Pope, to welcome him. Galeazzo Maria Visconti, son
of the Duke of Milan, sixteen years old, appeared with a troop of 350 horse
and Cosimo de’ Medici, although ill, could not be induced to neglect the
duty of hospitality towards the son of his ally and friend; Sigismondo
Malatesta, an Ordelaffi of Forli, a Pio of Carpi, one of the Feltrieri of
Urbino, and others rode out with the young Sforza to San Casciano, where,
eight miles from the city, the road descends into the valley of the Arno, and
where the solemn reception took place. The Gonfaloniere, Agnolo Vettori,
led Pius II. to Sta. Maria Novella, the usual residence of the Pope. The lover
of learning and art delighted in the many beautiful things which the city,
then exceedingly rich, offered to him; business, with the exception of a new
election of bishops, does not seem to have been attended to. Cosimo de’
Medici was hindered from being present by indisposition which could not
have been feigned.
During the ten days’ visit of the Pope there died on May 2, Archbishop
Antoninus, who was already called a saint, before Pope Adrian VI.
canonised him. Sound common sense, great goodness of heart, piety, and
well-directed benevolence, which founded several institutions still standing,
reformatory zeal and firmness in defending the rights of the Church, had
made him, who was also learned in science, appear the model of an
excellent pastor to the people during the fourteen years which he dedicated
to the office of archbishop, in a time full of suffering and sudden

revolutions of fortune. Such a model he has remained to the present day,
when his writings have been collected, and a beautiful marble statue has
been erected to his memory among those of distinguished Florentines. The
pageantry of the days immediately preceding and following his decease
suited but ill with the loss of a man so honourable and excellent, which was
heavily felt by all the people. Splendid games and festivals were arranged
for the princes of Milan and the other lords. To a tourney succeeded a
festival on the New Market Place, where the most beautiful women were
assembled; then a hunting-party on the Piazza before Sta. Croce, where,
besides the usual forest animals, a lion and a giraffe were exhibited. A
triumphal procession took place in the evening. A silver table-service,
weighing 125 pounds, was presented to the youthful Sforza. It was a custom
to entertain princely personages at the cost of the Commune.
On November 10, 1461, Charlotte of Lusignan, consort of Prince Louis
of Savoy, arrived at Florence[95] on her way to Rome, whither she was
going to entreat the aid of Pius II. against her illegitimate step-brother
Jacob. The latter had possessed himself of the supremacy over Cyprus,
belonging to her of right, and held her husband besieged in Nicosia. The
Signoria, with the Gonfaloniere, Alessandro Machiavelli, at their head, went
to meet her, and conducted her under a canopy to the house of Cambiozzo
de’ Medici, in the Borgo San Lorenzo, which was prepared for her
reception. During her seven days’ visit she went up to the basilica of San
Miniato, which towers above the city, to visit the grave of the cardinal of
Portugal, brother of Juan of Coimbra, her first husband, who had died here
in 1459, on an embassy from Pius II. Pope Pius has described in his
memoirs the last of the Lusignans, who in the summer of 1487, after more
than a quarter of a century spent in exile, found in St. Peter’s church in the
Vatican that rest which had been denied to her in this life.

CHAPTER VIII.

COSIMO DE’ MEDICI’S LAST DAYS.

As the year 1464 approached, Cosimo de’ Medici’s life drew to a close. He
had long suffered from gout, which now became more violent, and attacked
more sensitive parts. Often he could not quit the house for months together.
He had experienced the fulness of joy and of sorrow, especially in his own
family. His brother Lorenzo, his junior by six years, had always been of one
mind with him, had eagerly furthered his interests and those of his sons in
the critical moments of 1433, and had drawn upon himself the enmity of
those in power. He had afterwards been an active and vigilant administrator
of money matters for the Papal curia, and had rivalled his elder brother in
collecting literary treasures. He was only forty-five years old when he died
in the autumn of 1440, at his villa at Careggi, leaving a son, Piero
Francesco, who at first had a share in the mercantile business of his uncle,
then parted from him, and lived aloof from all political matters in his native
city, superintending the management of his large property. This Lorenzo
was the founder of two lines which both fell into enmity with the elder
branch. One of them ended with the murder of the first duke, the last
illegitimate descendant of Cosimo’s line, while the other gave to Tuscany
one of her most valiant warriors and seven rulers. Cosimo had two sons by
Contessina de’ Bardi, Piero and Giovanni. The former was born in 1416,
and carefully educated. At first there was an intention of giving him the
daughter of the Count of Poppi, Francesco de Guidi, in marriage. But his
father seems to have been fearful of allying himself with this old noble
family, which would have brought him into connection with the lords of
Romagna and Umbria, as well as with the house of the Roman prefects;
connections which might have injured his position in a democratical

community, not to mention the alliance of the Count of Poppi with the
Visconti and Albizzi, which led to his ruin in 1440.
Piero de’ Medici married Lucrezia, daughter of Francesco Tornabuoni,
of a distinguished Florentine family, a woman of extraordinary
endowments, who will be often mentioned in the course of this history. As
Cosimo’s elder son, who was sickly from his earliest youth, seemed to be
incapable of taking his eminent and arduous position in city and state, the
father built all his hopes on the younger son. He lost him, however, at the
age of twenty-two, in the beginning of November 1463, not a year after he
had buried his little son Cosimo, whom Maria Ginevra degli Alessandri had
borne to him, and the loss of whom is said to have broken his father’s heart.
The old man wandered inconsolable through the rooms: ‘This is a large
house,’ he lamented, ‘for so small a family.’ Among those who addressed
expressions of sympathy to him was Pope Pius II. ‘Not the departed one is
the loser,’ replied Cosimo; ‘for what we call life is death, and that beyond is
the true life; but who needed him are the losers.’[96] Thus there only
remained to him the family of Piero, who, besides his two sons, had two
daughters, Bianca and Nannina, who, the eldest in her grandfather’s
lifetime, married into two Florentine families, the Pazzi and Rucellai.
Besides his legitimate children, Cosimo had a natural son, Carlo, probably
by Maddalena, a Circassian whom Giovanni Portinari had bought at Venice
in the summer of 1427.[97]
He maintained great reserve in his whole manner of life. For a quarter
of a century he was the almost absolute director of the State, but he never
assumed the show of his dignity. Many works of art and virtù were to be
seen in his house; but in style of living, retinue and horses, he was modest.
The ruler of the Florentine State remained citizen, agriculturist, and
merchant. In his appearance and bearing there was nothing which
distinguished him from others; he was simple, moderate, accessible,
friendly and familiar with the common people. ‘He understood agriculture
thoroughly,’ remarked Vespasiano da Bisticci, ‘and talked about it as if he
had never occupied himself with other matters. He laid out the garden of the
brethren of San Marco, which had been waste land, and created something
really beautiful. Thus it was with his own possessions; he everywhere
superintended the planting, grafted and pruned with his own hand. When
residing at Careggi, on account of a pestilence, he dedicated the hours of the

morning to two worthy employments. Hardly was he up than he went into
the vineyard, where he worked for two hours, just as Pope Boniface IX. did
in the Vigne at the palace of the Vatican. When he returned home he read
the moral writings of Gregory the Great. In the midst of all his
employments he remembered every single plantation on his estates, and
when his peasants came to him he conversed with them about them.’
He was a grave man, temperate in all enjoyments. Players, rioters, and
jugglers found as little favour with him as those who displayed a luxury
unsuited to their position. This, however, did not prevent him from granting
free course at the banquets of the learned men who were about him,
members of the Platonic Academy and others, to the hilarity and wit which
the Florentines of that period were apt to flavour with licence as well as
with Attic salt.
Of games he indulged in chess only, and this rarely, and not till after
dinner. In his latter years he was very silent, and remained several hours
without speaking. When his wife asked him the reason one day, he
replied,’When you remove to your villa, you consider for a fortnight what
you have to see about. Do you think I have not much to think of when about
to exchange this life for another?’ In his speech he was witty, but cautious,
and it was said of him that he liked to give ambiguous answers. He shrank
from boasting, and said that there was a weed called envy, which must not
be watered, but left to wither. But when he chose he could give sharp
answers. When Rinaldo degli Albizzi, at the time of Visconti’s warlike
preparations, on which the exile fixed his hopes, said to him that the hen
was brooding, he answered, ‘It is difficult to brood outside the nest.’ And on
the warning of other exiles, that he ought to take care, for they were awake,
he replied that he believed it, for he must have banished sleep from them.
His remarks were always to the purpose. When Pius II. was arming for the
crusade, he said the Pope was an old man, and was attempting a youthful
feat. He reproved many without using a hard expression. His counsels in
political and personal affairs were always moderate and prudent. When one
of his partisans, a man of small capabilities, was going to a foreign town as
Podestà, and asked him for advice, he only answered: ‘Dress according to
your position, and speak little.’ In this way he maintained his position and
that of the State for so many years in the midst of difficult circumstances.
As has been already said, there was something cynical in him. Nothing
characterises him so much as the words which he once addressed to an

influential man, who, differing in opinion, quarrelled with him, and
complained of Cosimo’s being in his way. ‘You,’ he said, ‘pursue the
infinite; I the finite. You plant your ladder in the air; I on the ground, in
order not to fall instead of flying. If I am anxious for the honour and
advantage of my house, if I wish that it may retain pre-eminence over
yours, there is nothing in that which is not honourable and just, and no one
will blame me because I prefer my interests to yours. You and I are like two
great dogs, who spring upon one another, but then pause and sniff. As they
both have teeth, each goes his own way. I advise you to look after your
business; I will attend to mine.’
He did not deceive himself as to the difficulties which surrounded him,
or as to the still greater hindrances with which his descendants would have
to contend. The example of the heads of parties who had preceded him was
not lost upon him. He knew, says Vespasian, that he owed his recall from
exile to powerful friends, who did not intend to give up their position, and
that it was not easy to keep on good terms with them except by temporising
and making them believe that they were as powerful as he. Here he proved
his great art. In all that he wished to carry out he managed to make it appear
that it proceeded from others, not from him. He said that the greatest fault
which he had been guilty of was not having begun to expend money ten
years earlier; for now that he knew the character of his fellow-citizens, he
foresaw that nothing would remain of his family and his house after fifty
years except, the little that he had built; for after his death his descendants
would find themselves in the midst of greater troubles than any that he had
seen. He never spoke ill of others, and was very impatient when any one did
so in his presence. His promises could be relied on, for he did more than he
promised. His immense wealth enabled him to oblige many. His position
was such a one that it was a proverbial expression to boasters, ‘So you think
you are Cosimo de’ Medici?’ From his father he had inherited a fine
property, which he considerably increased by industry, acuteness, and good
fortune. He ruled the money market, not only in Italy, but throughout
Europe. He had banks in all the western countries, and his experience and
the excellent memory which never failed him, with his strong love of order,
enabled him to guide everything from Florence, which he never quitted
after 1438 except to go to the country. While he watched over his own
advancement, all who were in business connection with him and conducted
his banks abroad, enriched themselves also. Thus it was with the

Tornabuoni in Rome, with the Portinari in Bruges, with the Benci, Sassetti,
Spini, &c. Besides this, numerous citizens had money from him in their
possession, as was revealed after his death. How much he was capable of in
financial affairs was seen when Venice and King Alfonso united against
Florence. By withdrawing credit from them, he forced them to peace,
notwithstanding their superior power. Pope Eugenius IV. mortgaged the
castle of Assisi to him for the considerable sums advanced to him. The
mutual relations into which he brought the finances of the State with those
of his house by advances and repayments, laid the foundation, it is true, of
those evils which assumed the most serious form under his grandson, when
Cosimo’s mercantile insight and success were wanting.
His conscience was not at peace. ‘In the arrangement and administration
of affairs of the city,’ says the honest Vespasiano, with the straightforward
naïveté and conscientiousness which he never lays aside, even when
speaking of a man for whom he has great respect and admiration, ‘it could
not fail that his conscience was loaded with many things, as is usually the
case with those who govern states and rule others. He perceived that if he
wished to preserve himself in his position and obtain the mercy of God,
works of piety were necessary. As it now appeared to him that a part of his
possessions, I know not how, had been obtained in a doubtful manner, he
wished to roll off this burden from his shoulders, and poured out his heart to
Pope Eugenius IV., who was then in Florence, begging him to tell him how
he could lighten his conscience.’
The building of churches and convents was a principal means of paying
this debt, according to the ideas of the time; Duke Gian Galeazzo, not to
mention a thousand others, built the cathedral of Milan and the Certosa of
Pavia, and the citizen of Florence, whatever his sins may have been, was
certainly no Visconti. But he built, in spite of dukes and kings, in Florence
and out of it. It was his special passion, and he understood this art. He had
always architects around him; Michelozzi accompanied him into his exile,
and Brunellesco was among his intimate friends. He executed great works
in the city, not to mention his magnificent house, which must have been
completed in 1440. We have already spoken of many of these works, and
they will be treated of more in detail subsequently; here they may be
enumerated in succession. San Lorenzo and San Marco are for the greater
part due to him. The Vallombrosan cloister of Sta. Verdiana, founded at the
end of the fourteenth century by Ser Niccolò di Buonagiunta, was restored

by him. In the cloister of Sta. Croce, he built the novitiate, with the
adjoining chapel and choir. He enriched with altars and adornments many
churches. The Canonica of San Lorenzo is said to have cost him 40,000
gold florins, that of San Marco 70,000, and the palace 60,000. At the foot of
the hill of Fiesole he built a church and abbey for the canons of the
Augustinians, whom Pope Eugenius IV. transplanted thither in 1439; and
higher up, not far from the little town, the church of San Girolamo, on the
site where the congregation of the Jeromites was founded, about the end of
the last century, by Carlo, of the family of the Counts Guidi, where the villa
Ricasoli is now to be seen. The villa at Careggi, in the most beautiful
situation, scarcely two miles from the city, and the favourite residence of
himself and his sons, received its present form from him, as well as the villa
now named after the Mozzi, on the Fiesolan hill, and that of Cafaggiuolo, in
the thickly-wooded country on the slope of the Apennines, on the road
leading to Bologna. He built a Franciscan convent in the midst of the woods
in the neighbourhood of the latter. Nor far from thence he enlarged the villa
of Trebbio, the castellated building of which reminds us of Cosimo, the first
Grand Duke, who resided there in his youth. In Assisi he enlarged the
cloister of St. Francis, and had the road paved which leads up to the town
from the church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, lying at the foot of the hill. This
church, the large marble fountain of which he caused to be built by
Michelozzo for the benefit of the pilgrims, still bears his name and arms.
The palace in Milan, presented to him by Francesco Sforza, he caused to be
rebuilt by Michelozzo, and painted by Vicenzo Zoppa and others. He
restored the collegium built by a Florentine cardinal for his countrymen in
Paris. In Jerusalem he erected a pilgrims’ house for the Florentines on the
spot where, according to tradition, the Holy Ghost descended on the
Apostles, and where a building stood, which he restored by appointing
regular payments for its maintenance. He used to say that whatever he had
given to God, he in his balance of accounts had never found Him to be his
debtor. His connection with artists and scholars will be mentioned when we
come to the description of his extraordinary services to art and his active
interest in learning.
Such was Cosimo de’ Medici—certainly, with all his faults, a
remarkable man, who more than anyone contributed to keep alive not only
the forms, but much of the spirit of civil equality and dignity, after it had
become impossible to avoid a party government, leading sooner or later to

the preponderance of one family. A spirit, which lay at all events in the
character of the people, but also in the character of a race which had sprung
from the people, which at last attained to power, and even in arbitrary times,
preserved something of that which distinguishes it from other princely
families. The people, those who disliked Cosimo not excepted, observed
with anxiety his increasing ill-health. They said to each other that his
influential adherents were infinitely inferior to him in goodness,
consideration, and prudence, and feared that his son would not be able to
restrain them. In the spring of 1464 he caused himself to be brought, with
much suffering, to Careggi, where his wife and son were with him. When
Francesco Sforza heard of his condition, he sent him a skilful physician,
who, however, could effect as little as the others. On July 26, Piero de’
Medici addressed the following letter to his two sons, who were residing at
Cafaggiuolo:[98] ‘The day before yesterday I gave you news of Cosimo’s
increasing illness, which, as it seems to me, is exhausting his strength. He
himself feels it, so that on Tuesday evening he would have no one but
Monna Contessina and myself in his room. He began to speak of his own
life, then passed to the government of the city, family, his trade connections,
and the state of his property. At last he came to speak of you, and
encouraged me, as you have good intellectual endowments, to give you a
careful education, that you might make many things easier for me in life.
He said two things grieved him—first, that he had not done so much as he
wished to do and might have done, and that he left me in bad health in the
midst of many difficulties. He had not wished to make a last will even in
Giovanni’s lifetime, as he had always seen us united and affectionate. When
God should take him to Himself, he wished for no pomp at the funeral; he
then reminded me of what he had already said concerning his interment in
San Lorenzo. He said all this so calmly and sensibly that it seemed
wonderful to me, adding that he had lived long, and was content to leave
the world at God’s pleasure. Yesterday morning he rose and had himself
fully dressed, in presence of the priors of San Lorenzo, San Marco, and the
monastery. He confessed to the former, and then had mass said, repeating
the responses with a strong voice. He afterwards pronounced the Creed,
said the Confiteor, and devoutly received the sacrament after entreating the
forgiveness of all. All this strengthened my hope and confidence in God,
and although, according to human feelings, I am not free from sorrow, I am
yet contented, having seen his strength of soul and pious frame of mind, to

see him attain that end to which we must all come. He felt well yesterday,
and also to-day, but at his advanced age no recovery is to be hoped for. Let
the brethren in the forest (the Franciscans at Cafaggiuolo) pray for him, and
distribute alms at your good pleasure. Pray yourselves to God that He may
leave him to us for a little time, if it be for his good. And take your example
by him; accept your share of toil as God wills while still young, and become
men, for circumstances demand it. But above all, consider that which may
bring you honour and advantage, for the time is at hand when you must be
tried. Live in the fear of God, and hope. I will let you know how Cosimo is.
We expect hourly a doctor from Milan, but I trust more to God than to
men.’
In his memorandum-book Piero de’ Medici wrote a few days later as
follows:[99] ‘On August 1, 1464, about half-past the twenty-second hour,
Cosimo, son of Giovanni, the son of Averardo de’ Medici, departed this life,
after he had been long tortured with pains in the limbs, although otherwise
in health, with the exception of the last month of his life, when a complaint
of the bladder, with some fever, reduced his strength much. He was 77 (75)
years old, a tall and handsome man, and, excepting the complaints
mentioned, of an excellent constitution. A man of great ability and yet
greater kindness, the most respected and influential citizen, who had long
ruled the city, possessed more confidence than all others, and was beloved
by the whole people. No one can be remembered who stood in greater
favour or better repute, or whose death awakened more general sympathy.
This was deservedly the case, inasmuch as no one had to complain of him,
while he promoted and assisted many; for his great pleasure consisted in
well-doing, not only where relations and friends were concerned, but also in
the case of strangers and even opponents, difficult of belief as this may
appear and hard to carry out. In this way the number of those who wished
him well was always increasing. He was liberal, benevolent, merciful; his
alms were numerous, in behalf of churches and convents, not merely in
town and country, but even in distant lands. On account of his wisdom he
enjoyed the respect and confidence of all the lords and powers of Italy, and
of foreign countries. All honourable offices in the city were bestowed on
him; he would undertake none abroad. The most honourable embassies fell
to him. He enriched many citizens by his mercantile connections, not to
mention the great fortune which he left, for he was a merchant as skilful as
he was successful. He died at our house in Careggi, after having received all

the sacraments of the holy Church with piety and reverence. He would not
make a will, but left everything at my free disposal. On the following day
he was interred in the church of San Lorenzo, in the vault previously chosen
by him, without pomp of burial, in the presence of the canons and priests of
the aforesaid church, and the regular canons of Fiesole, with neither more
nor fewer tapers than are used at ordinary obsequies, as he had commanded
with his last words, saying, one should give alms during life, then they were
of more use than after death. I did what was my duty, and gave the orders
for alms-giving and Divine worship, as my books will show.’[100]
Marsilio Ficino, the confidant of the family for four generations, and
witness of Cosimo’s last days, wrote the following to the grandson of the
latter, and his own pupil, Lorenzo, then sixteen years of age:[101] ‘A man
intelligent above all others, pious before God, just and high-minded towards
his fellow-men, moderate in everything that concerned himself, active in his
private affairs, but still more careful and prudent in public ones. He did not
live for himself alone, but for the service of God and his country. None
surpassed him in humility or magnanimity. More than twelve years I had
philosophic conversations with him, and he was as acute in disputation as
he was wise and strong in action. I owe Plato much, to Cosimo I owe no
less. He showed me in practice those virtues which Plato presented to my
mind. He was as covetous of time as Midas of gold; he measured days and
hours, and complained even of the loss of minutes. After he had occupied
himself with philosophy all his life, and in the midst of the gravest matters,
he devoted himself, after Solon’s example, more than ever to it in the days
when he was passing from darkness to light. For as you know, who were
present shortly before his departure, he still read with me Plato’s book “On
the One Reason of Things and Highest Good,” as though he would in reality
now go to enjoy the good which he had tasted in conversation.’
The Signoria ordered a commission of ten citizens, Luca Pitti at their
head, to make a proposal as to the manner in which the State could honour
the memory of Cosimo de’ Medici, and express its gratitude. Donato
Acciaiuoli made a speech, in which the determination to grant him the title
of father of his country was announced.[102] In San Lorenzo, before the high
altar, above the place in the crypt where stands the tomb inscribed with his
name, the words may be read on the marble pavement:

COSMUS MEDICES
HIC SITUS EST
DECRETO PUBLICO
PATER PATRIÆ.
VIXIT ANNOS LXXV. MENSES III.
DIES XX.

SECOND BOOK.

PIERO DE’ MEDICI.
FIRST YEARS OF LORENZO THE
MAGNIFICENT.

CHAPTER I.

PIERO DE’ MEDICI, HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

At the death of Cosimo de’ Medici, his descendants, besides his natural son
Carlo, who once more entered the ecclesiastical order, consisted of Piero,
surnamed the Gouty (il Gottoso), and his four children. Piero was born in
1416, and was now forty-eight years old. He was a youth when the swift
change of fortune in his father’s life took place, which, at first threatening
his house with ruin, had suddenly raised it to supreme power, and his
manhood passed during the envied but not seriously disputed exercise of
that power. His health was feeble, yet this did not hinder him from
undertaking various civil offices, and may, perhaps, have been of service to
him by covering his mediocre character and intellect, and enabling him to
preserve that middle course which is so difficult for the head of a party
filled with great and ambitious men. He was a sensible, quiet man,
experienced in business, with a sound judgment and far more kindliness of
heart and sincerity than his father, but without his political acuteness,
knowledge of men, and talent for steering safely among the numerous rocks
that beset his position.
A clever wife stood beside him. At a time when Florence had no lack of
distinguished women, Lucrezia, the daughter of Francesco Tornabuoni,
surpassed most in intellectual gifts and domestic virtues. Her family was a
branch of an ancient and noble Florentine race, which, since the democratic
reforms of 1293, had been excluded from holding civic offices, yet without
losing importance. Like many others, Simon Tornaquinci, a hundred years
later, had altered his coat-of-arms, enrolled himself among the plebeian
families under the name of Tornabuoni, and attached himself to the
Medicean party, in which his son Francesco took a not unimportant

position. Tornaquinci and Tornabuoni possessed considerable landed
property in the western part of Florence. A gate of the second wall, since
called San Pancrazio, was once named after the former, and a street still
bears the name of the latter.[103] Lucrezia de’ Medici never experienced the
anguish of exile; neither, separated from an exiled husband, had she to
remain at the head of a ruined household, like so many noble ladies in those
days of magnificence so often changing into misery. She beheld three
generations in the possession of power, with its charge of care and sorrow.
While conducting her household, which never lost its simple character, she
paid homage to the muse in lyric poems and translations of Biblical
histories. We shall speak later of her intercourse with Luigi Pulci (whom
she encouraged to complete his poem on the legends of Charlemagne), with
Politian and others. Lucrezia possessed great influence over her eldest son,
whose youth she guided, and she lived to enjoy the period of his highest
greatness.
Lucrezia gave birth to seven children, four of whom, two sons and two
daughters, survived. Lorenzo was born January 1, 1449.[104] Nature had
given him strength, but not beauty. To judge from his exterior, one might
have prophesied him a long life, but not a brilliant one. He was above the
middle height, broad-chested, powerfully built, and agile of limb. His
features were, however, unpleasing; the sight weak, the nose flattened, the
chin sharp, with a pale complexion. He was entirely destitute of the sense of
smell, and his voice was harsh.[105] These natural defects he conquered with
equal skill and perseverance, but the advantages of his bodily health and
strength did not last long. His early education was confided to Gentile de’
Becchi of Urbino, afterwards canon at Florence and Pisa, and finally Bishop
of Arezzo, a man of great ability and deeply attached to the family, an
attachment which, at an important epoch in the life of his pupil and in
Florentine history, led him to exaggerations which did not suit the
ecclesiastical dignity.
Cosimo had attracted Gentile[106] and entrusted him with the education
of his grandson. This learned man, who was connected with the most
famous scholars of his time, such as Francesco Filelfo, Marsilio Ficino,
Cardinal Ammanati, Giovan. Antonio Campano, Politian, and others,
certainly spared no pains in the education of the richly-gifted boy. Under his
guidance and that of Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, and John Argyropulos, one

of the Greek fugitives received by Cosimo, the youth amassed an amount of
knowledge not often possessed even at that time, when learned culture was
so general among the rich. He developed his excellent talents in many
directions. A letter addressed by his tutor to Piero de’ Medici, June 3, 1454,
[107]
with its assertion that the boy of sixteen excited the admiration of the
whole city, is a pattern of that courtly style which began to be practised by
the dependants of powerful families. It is worth mentioning here, because it
speaks of a visit the boy paid to the Duke John of Anjou, who was then
staying in Florence. ‘On the day before your departure, Lorenzo assumed
the French costume, which suited him so well that we had scarcely set out
when we were surrounded by a crowd of children and adults, who followed
us on the way to King René’s son, whom we intended to visit. The Duke
received him with great pleasure, as if he had been a little Frenchman fresh
from his native country, and kept him the whole day in his presence. But
not many were deceived by him, for his gravity, so little suited to the
French character, betrayed his individuality.’
His education was serious according to the custom of the time. Several
hours were devoted to religious exercises, especially in the evening, when a
fraternity of St. Paul was visited. His mother was especially particular in
this respect, as she was also in inculcating on the youth habits of
benevolence, by appointing dowries for poor girls, supporting poor
convents, giving abundant alms to the needy, and pursuing every noble
stratagem that would lead to popular favour. In bodily exercises Lorenzo
soon surpassed most of his companions, and he early displayed that love for
beautiful horses which he preserved all his life; he was also an
accomplished rider. He was highly delighted when, just out of his boyhood,
a valuable horse was sent him from Sicily. He made a rich present in return,
and upon its being suggested to him that it would be better under such
circumstances to buy the horse than receive it as a gift, he replied, ‘Do you
not know that it is a royal gift, and does it not seem royal not to be
conquered in liberality?’[108]
Piero’s younger son, Giuliano, was born in 1453. He was not permitted
to arrive at maturity. Compared with his brother, he was rather in the shade,
yet he promised to rival him in many things, as he certainly did in knightly
exercises. He was tall, handsome, and strong, according to Angelo
Politian’s description,[109] who was intimately associated with him; had

lively dark eyes, dark complexion, black hair falling on his shoulders,
excelled in all bodily exercises, and was an eager huntsman. His expression
and bearing were commanding. He was fond of poetry, and took a lively
interest in the fine arts. Giuliano did not, however, equal his brother in
versatile talents; his character rather resembled his father’s than his
grandfather’s.
The elder of the two daughters, Bianca, was married in Cosimo’s
lifetime to Guglielmo de’ Pazzi. The great influence which the Pazzi family
had on the fortunes of the Medici and of the State makes it necessary to
dwell awhile upon their history.[110] Their origin is veiled in obscurity.
Some have considered them as identical with the lordly family of the same
name in the Arno valley, which was connected with the Donati, frequently
mentioned in the heroic days of Florence, and related to Dante Alighieri.
Others have traced them from Fiesole, whence the old family arms are said
to be derived—six moons, alternately blue and red, in a silver field, a
device which they exchanged in 1388 for that granted by the dukes of Bar,
two golden barbs in a blue field, and at present changed into dolphins with
four small double crosses. According to unauthenticated tradition, Pazzo de’
Pazzi went to Jerusalem in Godfrey de Bouillon’s army, and the people of
Florence preserved a fragment of stone which he is said to have brought
home from the Saviour’s tomb. At one time placed in Sta. Maria del Fiore,
and then in Sant’Apostolo, this stone was used to strike the sparks from
which the tapers were lighted, and in Sta. Maria del Fiore, during the mass,
it set alight the Columbina, a squib in the shape of a dove, which ignited a
cart full of rockets and other fireworks exploded between the church and
baptistery. This cart, called the Carro de’ Pazzi, drives round a part of the
inner town, and stops at the entrance of the Borgo degli Albizzi, named
after the family, where one of their palaces forms the corner. About the
middle of the twelfth century we meet with the name of the Pazzi in
documents; towards the close they became divided into three principal
branches. In the bloody battle of Montaperti, Jacopo de’ Pazzi bore the
banner of Florence, which, when the traitor Bocca degli Abati hewed his
hands off, he pressed to his breast with the stumps till he sank down dead.
His son Pazzino stood at the head of the Black party in the desolating party
strife which preceded the Roman expedition of the Emperor Henry of
Luxemburg. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the still flourishing
line was strictly aristocratic, and only passed over to the plebeian families

in 1434. This change arose out of the circumstance that so many of the
families hitherto admitted to hold office were proscribed by being ranked
among ‘the great,’ so that Cosimo feared to increase their numbers and
consequently their power. He therefore caused the old noble families, if
they did not exactly oppose him and his family, to be ranked among the
plebeians. Thus it happened with Andrea de’ Pazzi, who was born in 1372,
and with whom the importance of the family in civic affairs commences. He
was already experienced in embassies, and had treated with Pope John
XXIII. When, as has been already related, King René resided in Florence in
1442, Andrea de’ Pazzi was assigned to him as escort, and obtained the
favour of that prince, who, though neither skilful nor successful in things
political or military, had talents and was amiable. He made Andrea a knight,
and stood godfather to one of his children, who was called Renato after the
King. He erected the beautiful chapel of Sta. Croce and the palace at the
Canto de’ Pazzi, which, rebuilt by his son Jacopo, is still a monument of a
style uniting severity with elegance, and is, moreover, the witness of an
occurrence which has made the name of the family historical.
Andrea de’ Pazzi left several sons by his wife Caterina Salviati, two of
whom, Piero and Jacopo, played an important part. Piero was one of the
most brilliant and cultivated persons of his time. Niccolò Niccoli, to whom
so many of his countrymen were indebted for mental culture, roused in him
an interest in scholarship. ‘Piero de’ Pazzi,’ relates Vespasiano da Bisticci,
[111]
‘was a most beautiful youth, and pursued his pleasures without
thinking of graver employments, while his father, a wealthy merchant, who
cared little for literature, which he did not understand, thought to dedicate
him to his own pursuits. As he one day passed the Palazzo del Podestà,
Niccolò Niccoli, another Socrates, saw him. Impressed by his exterior, he
called him to him, and asked whose son he was and what he was doing. The
youth, not unaware of the respect paid to the excellent man, replied that he
was the son of Messer Andrea de’ Pazzi, and passed his time as he best
might. Niccolò continued, “As you are the son of such a highly placed
citizen, and yourself of such favourable appearance, it is a shame that you
do not study Latin literature, which would be a great accomplishment for
you. If you do not learn it, you will reap no honour, and remain without
inward resources when the bloom of youth has vanished.” Piero was struck,
and answered that he would willingly follow the good advice if Niccolò
would procure him a suitable teacher.’ Thus he began his studies under the

guidance of Pontano, and soon made so much progress that he was a pattern
for all the youths in the city. When he went with the Archbishop of Pisa,
Filippo de’ Medici and Buonaccorso Pitti, in October 1461, to France, to
congratulate King Louis XI. on his accession,[112] he displayed
extraordinary pomp and princely liberality, as well as skill and political
address, and he was knighted by the King. When he returned he met with a
brilliant reception. ‘At his entry,[113] the whole city seemed to rejoice, for he
was beloved by all on account of his kindness and liberality. All the streets
and windows were filled with people who awaited him. He came with a
suite in attire completely new, with costly pearls on their hats and sleeves.
In the memory of man no knight had entered Florence as he did, which was
a great honour for his family. He rode to the palace of the Signory,
dismounted at the great door, and went in to fetch the banner, like those
who returned home as knights. He then mounted again and rode to the
palace of the principal men of the Guelph party, to receive the party badge.
Here Messer Piero Acciaiuoli welcomed him in the presence of many, with
a well-composed speech in the vulgar tongue. Upon this he received the
badge, took the banner in his hand, and rode with a great suite home again,
where for some days open house was kept. If a reproach could be cast upon
him, it was that of excessive liberality. Only the man who asked for nothing
received nothing from him. At the death of his father it was found that he
had spent 12,000 gold florins, of which there was no account. To be sure, he
had spent all, or nearly all, on things which, according to worldly ideas,
sufficed for his honour and distinction.’
We know that Andrea de’ Pazzi formed a friendship with King René.
Piero attached himself to that king’s son when he came to Florence in 1454.
The connection served Duke John when he made war against the
Aragonese, and the money of Florence and of Florentine citizens, especially
of the Medici and Pazzi, was of great assistance. Had the Angevin been
fortunate, Piero would undoubtedly have become a great lord like Nicola
Acciaiuoli in older times. His friendly connections with Piero de’ Medici
led to the marriage of Medici’s daughter Bianca with Guglielmo de’ Pazzi,
Piero’s nephew. Piero attained to the office of Gonfaloniere in 1462, and
died not long afterwards, a little over forty-six years old. ‘Had he,’ remarks
Vespasiano da Bisticci, ‘who surpassed all his family in good sense, lived
longer, they would not have fallen into the disorders which brought ruin to
them and to the city.’ His brother Jacopo, who was involved in these

troubles, was nevertheless a clever man, and seemed to stand as high in the
popular favour as Piero. After he had administered the office of
Gonfaloniere in the beginning of 1469, the dignity of knighthood was
accorded to him by a public vote, and bestowed on him by Messer
Tommaso Soderini. He went twice as ambassador to the Emperor Frederick
III. After his tragical end, his widow, Maddalena Serristori, retired into the
cloister of the Franciscan nuns of Monticelli, before the Porta Romana.
Here also the veil was taken by Jacopo’s natural daughter Caterina, whose
tutor had been a man who played a sad part in the tragedy of 1478.
Caterina, after her death in 1490, was venerated as a saint. Of Antonio, a
third son of Andrea, who died in 1459, there is not much to say; the three
sons whom Cosa degli Alessandri bore him, Guglielmo, who married
Bianca de’ Medici, Giovanni, whose wife was Beatrice Borromeo, and
Francesco, will often be mentioned again.
In the year 1466, Bianca’s younger sister, Nannina, married Bernardo
Rucellai. His family,[114] which has been supposed to come from Germany,
was called Alamanno. They are first met with in the second half of the
thirteenth century as members of the woollen guild, having risen to their
position by industrial activity, as the name itself intimates; for Rucellai is
nothing but a corruption of Oricellari, and at the present day one of the
streets of a new part of Florence is called from the Latin name of the
turnsole Oricella, or Roccella Tinctoria. The Florentine tradesman
discovered in the East that the dye of this plant, treated with acids, gives a
beautiful violet. The dyeing-works of Alamanno brought him and his
descendants rich gain. His well-earned wealth was speedily followed by
civic honours, and after 1302 a share in the highest offices of state. The
fourteenth century witnessed the rise and fall of several of the Rucellai, till
they attained the highest respect and great wealth at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. Giovanni Rucellai, the grandson of a man who had played
some part in the times of the Duke of Athens, was born in 1403. His mother,
Caterina Pandolfini, a widow after three years of wedlock, brought the boy
to Palla Strozzi, who assigned him a post in his bank, and grew so fond of
him that he gave him his daughter Jacopa in marriage when he had attained
the age of twenty-four. The events which expelled Palla and his sons did not
leave his son-in-law unmolested. Though Giovanni Rucellai was not
banished, he was excluded from all offices, and remained out of the
administration up to the last days of Cosimo, when the latter deemed it

advisable to procure adherents in the family he had until then oppressed.
This did not, however, prevent him from increasing his wealth and making
use of it for the general good, in which he was aided by the genius of Leon
Battista Alberti. He completed the marble façade of Sta. Maria Novella, on
which his name may still be read. He erected a chapel near the church of
San Pancrazio, with an exact imitation in marble of the Saviour’s tomb, as
measured and copied by his orders in Jerusalem. This is still to be seen,
though the church has long been disused for Divine worship. His family
palace, already mentioned, in the Via della Vigna Nuova, with the Loggia
opposite, now unfortunately walled up, is the most graceful example of the
transition style from the ancient severity of the immense freestone façade to
the antiquated ornaments of the Renaissance. He and his son will be
mentioned later. The latter was born in 1448, a few months before Lorenzo
de’ Medici, whose grandfather, by becoming his sponsor, gave public
expression to the reconciliation of the two families. Near relationship,
however, could not make him feel attached to the family whose blood
flowed in the veins of his children.
Thus was Piero de’ Medici’s family composed. Other connections of
equal importance belonged to them. Foremost of all were the two Soderini,
Niccolò and Tommaso.[115] Their ancestors are said to have been Counts of
Gangalandi, and heads of the Ghibelline party, but they are found as a
Florentine plebeian family in the second half of the twelfth century. They
attained importance only 200 years later. Tommaso Soderini, like so many
of his countrymen, spent a great part of his life in business matters at Papal
Avignon, and returned in 1370 to his home, where, as a member of the
magistracy of the Guelph party, he took so violent a part in the
proscriptions, that in the insurrection of 1378 he was one of the first to have
his house plundered and burnt. He went into exile to Tarascon, on the
Rhône, but returning home after the victory of the oligarchy, he again
attained to office and influence. In 1395, seven years before his death, he
was Gonfaloniere. His two sons, Francesco and Lorenzo, went separate
ways. Francesco, the son of Elisabetta Altoviti whom Tommaso had married
after his return to Avignon, passed through the usual career of distinguished
Florentines who attained to civic offices and embassies as soon as they
reached the legal age. One of his missions took him to Mantua to celebrate
the marriage of Ludovico Gonzaga with Barbara of Hohenzollern, the
granddaughter of Frederick I., elector of Brandenburg. Like his father, he

belonged to the party of the Albizzi, and had one of the daughters of Palla
Strozzi as his wife. When Cosimo de’ Medici went into exile he was one of
the magistracy of eight that escorted him to the frontiers. He was not
expelled when the Medici gained the victory, but his influence was at an
end, and he only became Podestà in towns of Umbria and Romagna, and for
a time he lay in prison on suspicion of having shared in the movements of
his partisans. Niccolò da Uzzano destined him to be the rector of his
university, and Donatello has given us his portrait in one of the statues
which are to be seen on the front of the bell-tower of Sta. Maria.[116] It is
the figure standing next to the church called that of St. John the Baptist, and
in its natural free bearing reminds one of the famous St. George of Or San
Michele.
Lorenzo, Tommaso’s other son, passed through a stormy career. Born at
Avignon, of a woman of Auvergne, he endeavoured to cover his want of
legitimacy by the diplomas of a Count Palatine and of Gian Galeazzo
Visconti. After having been enrolled by King Charles V. of France in an
order of knighthood, and married in Florence to Ghilla Cambi, he conceived
the unfortunate idea, after his father’s death, of proving the legality of his
birth and his right to more wealth by means of forged documents. The
severity, of the laws sentenced him to death, which he suffered in 1405. His
two sons, Niccolò and Tommaso, born, the former in 1401, the latter in
1403, became eager partisans of Cosimo de’ Medici on the sole ground of
hatred of their uncle, to whom they attributed a participation in the tragical
end of their father, and who took the other side. Niccolò received the
dignity of Gonfaloniere in 1451, Tommaso in 1449 and 1454. The latter, by
far the most distinguished, filled various offices in the provincial towns at
an early age; when thirty-five he sat in the magistracy of the Priori. By his
marriage with Dianora Tornabuoni, Lucrezia’s sister, he was riveted to the
Medicean interests, which no one supported with greater zeal and success,
or with more statesmanlike ability. To no one did Piero or Lorenzo owe so
much as to this man. We have already mentioned other families with whom
the Medici were connected. Further mention will be made of them in the
course of this history.

CHAPTER II.

LORENZO’S YOUTH. CONSPIRACY OF DIOTISALVI
NERONI AND HIS COMPANIONS.

Lorenzo de’ Medici grew up. He was seventeen years old when his father
sent him to Pisa to welcome Don Federigo of Aragon, King Ferrante’s
younger son, who set out from Naples, March 18, 1465, and having
received the golden rose at Rome, was on his way to Milan with the most
brilliant suite, no less than six hundred horse, to escort to Naples Francesco
Sforza’s intellectual and beautiful daughter Ippolita Maria, the bride of his
elder brother, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria.[117] On April 17, Don Federigo
entered Florence, accompanied by the Prince of Salerno, the Duke of
Amalfi, the Bishop of Gaeta, and many other lords, and was received by the
Signoria on the Ringhiera of the palace, after which he rode to Sta. Maria
Novella, where the Papal lodgings were prepared for him, and where,
entertained at the public cost, he stayed five days amid mutual expressions
of politeness. The Prince, then only thirteen years old, wore mourning, with
all his suite, in consequence of the death of the Queen his mother, which
had happened shortly before.[118]
Florence had had much cause to complain of the Aragonese, even in
later years, and had long remained true to her sympathies with Anjou; but
Cosimo de’ Medici was too diplomatic not to see that the house of Spain
had gained a firmer footing than that of France in southern Italy, and that
peace was better secured by an alliance with the former, if the interests of
the State made it possible. Cosimo always held fast to Francesco Sforza,
even when he believed that he had cause of complaint against him; for
Sforza, who had once encouraged his Florentine friend in the belief that

after he was Duke of Milan he would aid him with his power in the
subjection of Lucca, let the matter entirely drop when he had attained his
end. Cosimo had more than anyone the conquest of Lucca at heart, for,
unlike the Albizzi, who had enlarged the territory of the Republic by Pisa,
he had nothing to show but trifling annexations by purchase, such as the
Borgo San Sepolcro, in the valley of the Tiber, and he complained of the
ingratitude of a man to whose grandeur he had so much contributed, though
he still kept up a close connection with him.
The meeting with Federigo d’Aragona was afterwards of great use to
Lorenzo; he met him again when he undertook a journey which led him to
Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, and Milan. A letter addressed to him during this
excursion is a proof of the interest which the gifted youth had long excited,
even if we take into account the dependent position in which the writer
stood towards the family. This was Luigi Pulci. The name of the author of
the most celebrated heroic poem of the fifteenth century, which will be
mentioned in the consideration of the literary movement, is inseparable
from that of his constant patron and friend. Luigi Pulci belonged to a family
of Provençal origin, which was ranked among the oldest in Florence, but
did not rise, because when the popular element prevailed it was
characterised as noble, and excluded from all share in public offices. A
street was once named after the residence of the Pulci, which was pulled
down in the sixteenth century when the Uffizi was built. Jacopo Pulci had
by Brigida de’ Bardi three sons, of whom Luigi was the second: all three
were poets, and had better success in poetry than in pecuniary affairs. Luigi
was born on August 15, 1432, in Florence. He was still unmarried at the
time now under consideration, and one of the confidants of the Medici, who
employed him in various commissions. Piero’s wife was especially well-
disposed towards him, and we shall find him later as her escort on a
journey. ‘You have left us,’ he writes to Lorenzo, April 27, 1465, ‘so
disconsolate at your departure that I do not know how to hold the pen to
write this letter to you. Through Braccio, I am informed of your journey,
and assume that you are now in Venice; and in order to begin my
correspondence well, I inform you that I am lonely, forsaken, and sad
without you. On the other hand, I rejoice in your journey, which seems to
me a piece of good fortune for many reasons. You will see many remarkable
things, which will delight your mind, superior, I consider, to all, with one

only exception. What promotes your interests can only be a pleasure to
me.’[119]
Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo de’ Pazzi, was his companion on
this journey, which was connected with the marriage of Francesco Sforza’s
daughter, who soon afterwards came through Tuscany on her wedding tour.
Piero de’ Medici wrote repeatedly to his son during this journey,[120]
showing the utmost solicitude for his welfare, as well as that he should
make a good figure among these princes and noble ladies. He sent him plate
for festivals which the young man might be called upon to give. ‘Do not
care for expense,’ he says; ‘think only of doing honour to your family.
Think of making yourself alive, and of showing that you are a man and not
a boy, and that henceforward you are capable of managing greater things.
This journey is to you the touchstone of your future career.’ More than once
Piero expressed a wish that Lorenzo and his companion should return
before the arrival of the Milanese princes. ‘It seems necessary to me that
you should leave Milan before the bridal train; for the Princess is to inhabit
our house, and if you and Guglielmo were absent, I should be like a man
without hands.’ On the afternoon of June 22, Donna Ippolita entered
Florence, and was lodged in the Medicean house. Beside Don Federigo, she
was accompanied by her two brothers, Filippo and Sforza Maria; suite and
escort numbered 1000 horses; and all were maintained at the public cost
during the passage through Florentine territory, while the Duchess herself
enjoyed the princely hospitality of the most distinguished family in the city.
[121]

At the beginning of March of the following year, Lorenzo went to
Rome. Pope Pius II., in the midst of his preparations for the crusade, and in
sight of the sea which was to bear his fleet and his allies to the Eastern
coasts, had died at Ancona in the middle of August, 1464, a fortnight after
Cosimo, and had been succeeded by the Venetian Pietro Barbo, under the
name of Paul II. Pius’s death had put an end for the time to the crusade
which he had been about to undertake with insufficient power. But the
thought of it was kept alive, particularly in the Pontificate; and the progress
of the Turks, who in Paul’s reign wrested the fortress of Negroponte from
the Venetians, was so alarming that the preservation of peace in Italy, by
which alone means of resistance could be hoped for, was most important for
the Popes as well as the other rulers. In this respect Paul II. laboured in the

most praiseworthy manner, at least during the first years of his reign, after
he had disposed of the restless little dynasties in the neighbourhood of
Rome.
Lorenzo was sent, ostensibly on business connected with some alum-
works and the bank, directed by his maternal uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni,
to Rome, where he was honourably received by the Pope, the court, and
numerous friends of the family. But Piero had doubtless the intention of
making him personally acquainted with the customs and life of a city which
was of the utmost importance for Florence and the Medicean family, and
where Cosimo had always striven to preserve an influence. He had scarcely
arrived there when an event happened which attracted the attention of all
Italy, and the Medici in particular. On March 8, 1466, Francesco Sforza
died, after a long illness, at the age of sixty-six. He had attained by craft and
violence the throne which he maintained bravely, and developed capacities
of government hitherto unknown at Milan.
The last and most successful of the great condottieri of Italy, he laid
down arms in order to exercise the arts of peace for the last twelve years of
his life. In later times Machiavelli, who witnessed the swift and sad change
in Lombardy under one of the sons and the grandsons of the first Sforza,
said, in his reflections on Titus Livius, that nothing, however great and
important it might be, could give Milan or Naples their freedom, because all
their limbs were decayed; the reproach of having made them so belongs far
less to Francesco than to the Visconti, for his government healed many
wounds, opened many resources, and restored peace to the land, to which it
had long been unknown. As at the Duke’s death his eldest son, Galeazzo
Maria, was absent in France, where he had been sent with a body of troops
to assist King Louis XI. in the civil war which had broken out soon after his
accession to the throne, the widowed Duchess Bianca Maria seized the reins
of government with a firm hand, assured herself of the consent of the most
eminent men of the State, and prepared a festal reception and peaceful
accession to power for her son, who entered Milan on the 20th of the same
month.
It was necessary to induce the Italian princes to recognise Sforza, in
opposition to certain other claims, especially those of the house of Savoy,
and Piero de’ Medici was very active in this matter. On March 15 he wrote
to Lorenzo[122] in Rome, who was soon able to give reassuring news with

regard to the Pope’s inclinations. He had himself applied to the latter
immediately after receiving the news. Venice, however little affection she
might feel for Sforza, was too much threatened in the Levant not to wish for
peace in Italy; King Ferrante was related to the Milanese house. Thus it was
not difficult to obtain the recognition of Galeazzo Maria everywhere, and
although the Emperor Frederick III., who came again to Italy two years
later, ignored the new duke, as well as his father, this was of small
importance, from the political weakness of the temporal head of
Christendom. That the French King, to whom the Republic wrote on April 3
to express sorrow at the loss of Francesco Sforza, ‘so great a prince and
friend, so rare a master of peace and war, so high an honour to the Italian
name,’ would share the same opinion, was to be foreseen, although his
cousin, Duke Charles of Orleans, never resigned the hereditary claims of his
mother, Valentina Visconti, on Milan. In fact, Louis answered on the 18th of
the same month from Orleans, promising to interfere himself if it should be
necessary.[123] Piero’s letters to his son, eighteen years old, showed
sufficiently how he trusted to his insight and wisdom. Soon events were to
happen at home which would test these qualities of the youth severely.
The last years of Cosimo’s life had shown how hard it was for him to
maintain the supremacy over his party in Florence. The people had grown
too rich and powerful. Cosimo had himself much contributed to it by his
fear of putting himself forward; his prudent reserve had gone too far. He
had long foreseen that his son would not be in a position to master and
guide the contending elements, but precisely the measures he took to meet
the danger brought it nearer. Those in whom he trusted, from the conviction
that as they had grown rich with him, and mostly through him, they would
hold to his family, did not respond to this confidence. However different
their motives might be, in a city where so many special interests prevailed
beside the political party currents, and where men were so little accustomed
to subordination, they yet united against him, whose inherited position was
burdensome and hateful to them, and whom more than one looked down
upon. The causes of the movement which broke out in 1466, and which
threatened the authority of the Medici, were apparent soon after Cosimo’s
death. The great liberality of the rich merchant, by no means always
dictated by pure motives, but for the sake of preserving his authority, had
brought much idle capital into strangers’ hands. The evil necessarily
became clear when the accounts were revised. It was Diotisalvi Neroni, the

man on whose acuteness and attachment Cosimo relied the most, who owed
him much, and whom he had recommended to his son as the most
trustworthy friend, who advised the former to call in the outstanding sums.
The evil effect of following this advice—namely, the sudden
embarrassment in which numerous citizens who were under obligations to
the Medici found themselves, and the discontent and estrangement which
followed—caused Diotisalvi to be suspected of bad intentions, a belief
which was strengthened by his behaviour afterwards. Thus the historians of
the time immediately succeeding him, as well as almost all later ones,
express themselves in this sense.[124] But the motives must ever be veiled in
obscurity. Diotisalvi was wealthy and respected, his brother Giovanni was
Archbishop of Florence after 1462. Still it is difficult to believe that he
aimed at becoming the head of the State. The motives of the distinguished
citizens who allied themselves to this man, in order first to undermine the
position of the Medici, and then to overthrow them by violence, were,
however, so different that we cannot be surprised at the failure of the
undertaking.
Diotisalvi seems to have had an understanding with Niccolò Soderini.
We have seen how Niccolò, then more than sixty years old, had been from
his youth upward one of the zealous adherents of the Medici. But he
belonged also to the number, always very great in Florence, of those who
wished for a supreme authority, but not the government of one family;
equality of all rights for citizens qualified for the guidance of the State, and
the freest possible form of government. There were scarcely any citizens
more esteemed than he and his brother Tommaso. But it was otherwise with
Luca Pitti. He was of a despotic nature, and had already shown that violent
proceedings cost him nothing. Willingly or not, Cosimo had allowed him so
much liberty that he already considered himself the head of the State while
Cosimo was still alive. It was very unlikely, therefore, that he would be
subordinate to the weaker son. Diotisalvi is said to have encouraged him in
the hope of taking his place, thinking it easy to put aside the incapable man.
The fourth in the association was Agnolo Acciaiuoli, lately returned from
Milan, where he was highly esteemed by Francesco Sforza, and had much
contributed to maintain the harmony so desirable for the Republic between
the Duke and the King of Naples, when this seemed endangered by a
tragical event, the murder of Jacopo Piccinino, a son of the famous
condottiere, at the King’s instigation.[125] Even though it may have been

represented to Agnolo that the majority of the city wished for a change, still
the motives which estranged him from the Medici seem to have been purely
selfish; whether it was that he was incensed at a legal decision in a matter of
property unfavourable to his eldest son, or on account of the archbishopric
of Pisa not having been granted to another son, or, finally, on account of the
preference which Piero gave to the Rucellai family, when it was proposed to
marry his youngest daughter, whose hand the Acciaiuoli wished to obtain.
Agnolo attached himself to the others later, and they do not seem to have
entirely let him into the secret of their intentions.[126]
The movement began in 1465. Diotisalvi Neroni had returned from
Milan, whither he had gone as ambassador on the occasion of the marriage
of Ippolita Maria, with the dignity of knighthood, which gave him still
greater consideration. It was determined to proceed slowly against the
Medici; abolition of the discretionary power of the Balia and the choice of
magistrates by lot were first demanded. Piero and his friends knew too well
how much attached the people were to this method of choice, which had
often proved to be a mere sham, not to give way at once. On November 1,
Niccolò Soderini undertook the office of Gonfaloniere, and now they
thought the time had come for striking the first blow. The expectations
cherished by the new Gonfaloniere recalled the time, eighty-seven years
before, when Salvestro de’ Medici entered office; only now his relations
took the place of their former opponents. The people were in the greatest
excitement. Niccolò proceeded to the palace, crowned with olive branches.
Again, however, was seen the deceitfulness of such hopes when formed by
parties composed of different elements. The old adherent of the Medici was
driven hither and thither by contrary inclinations. On the one side were his
new companions; on the other his brother. He twice summoned numerous
assemblies of eminent citizens to his palace, to consult on the means of
removing existing evils, and both times the result was mere words. He
wished to effect the dissolution of the Council of a Hundred, and could not
carry it. He proposed to demand an account of the administration of the last
years, and failed through the opposition of Luca Pitti, who dreaded such an
inquisition. Altogether his adherents rendered the measures contemplated
by Soderini impossible, because they feared they would not enable them to
carry out their private ends; and his period of office expired without
decisive action. In the meanwhile, as has been said, Francesco Sforza died,
and his successor sent messengers to Florence to renew the alliance with the

Republic, and at the same time to request a loan to suffice for pressing
necessities. Piero contrived that 40,000 gold florins should be granted; but
Diotisalvi Neroni, Luca Pitti, and Agnolo Acciaiuoli made such violent
opposition, under the pretext that the State was in quite another position
towards the inexperienced young Duke than it was formerly towards his
father, that the payment was never made. The intention of the opposition
was merely to bring Piero and his adherents into discredit, and loosen their
connections with foreign lands. Another manœuvre was to serve the same
purpose. In March 1465, Cardinal Lodovico Scarampi, the former
Archbishop of Florence, had died, leaving a colossal fortune which was
partly invested in Florentine banks. Pope Paul II. claimed this property as
belonging to the Church; but Luca Pitti, whose brother Luigi was related to
the Scarampi by marriage, prevented the delivery of the sums deposited in
Florence, which by no means increased the goodwill of the Pope towards
the State.
In the spring of 1466 it became evident that a party strife was
impending. In the beginning of May, after the occasion of the Milanese
grant of money had revealed the deep-lying discord, the Signoria
endeavoured to bring about a compromise. On the proposal of a
commission appointed for the purpose of consultation, all the citizens
eligible for the offices of State, from the age of twenty-four years upwards,
were summoned to the palace, where the assembly took place in a hall
adjoining the chapel. Here resolutions were passed that no meetings should
be held, political consultations, public or private, that were not summoned
by the government; that everyone should solemnly promise to act in his
office only according to right and law, and to let all party quarrels rest; that
finally all existing political societies should be dissolved, and the ties which
bound them become null and void.[127] The stipulations show plainly
enough how things stood with the city. Those present took the oath to these
obligations, which, being the mere outgrowth of discontent, no one,
however, seriously thought of fulfilling. Everyone had a pretext in his
neighbour’s behaviour. Things took their natural course; Piero de’ Medici
knew nothing of the violent intentions of his opponents, but the factions
already stood opposed to one another, although the strife was maintained on
the grounds of the constitution. These factions were called those of the
Mountain and the Plain (del Poggio—del Piano), because Luca Pitti’s house
stood on the slope of the hill of San Giorgio, that of the Medici on a level

part of the city. When the heads of the Mountain party saw that the others
were not to be reached by the usual seemingly legal means, they set on foot
a formal conspiracy. The story of this conspiracy affords a remarkable
example of the insecure foundation of public affairs in such states, as well
as the want of all real determination when it was necessary to act. With
Bartolommeo Colleone of Bergamo, the celebrated condottiere,
negotiations were opened which subsequently bore fruit. At all events, the
opponents of the Medici appear to have been the first who had no dread of
employing foreign military power. Ercole of Este, brother of the Marquis
Borso of Ferrara, was to march into the territory and upon the capital itself,
while they were to attempt to take the life of Piero, whom Diotisalvi Neroni
was to endeavour to lull into a false security. The circumstance that Piero
mostly resided in his villa at Careggi, from whence he, ill as he was, used to
have himself carried in a litter to the city, seemed to favour the plans of the
conspirators. The Signoria, which had entered upon office on July 1, with
the Gonfaloniere Bernardo Lotti, were mostly favourable to them: they
determined to make use of this opportunity, but, nevertheless, allowed many
weeks to pass before proceeding to action.
Piero had meanwhile received warnings from two directions. Giovanni
Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna, had informed him of the intrigues of Este.
Niccolò Fedini, a notary whom the conspirators employed, revealed their
intentions. Piero did not shut his eyes to the danger when he measured the
number and importance of his opponents. He knew the fickleness of the
city. He held it good to send his son, on whose skill he could rely in spite of
his youth, to Naples. Lorenzo managed to strengthen King Ferrante in his
inclination towards the Medici, while the King (as Jacopo Acciaiuoli, then
in the above-mentioned town, wrote to his father),[128] believed that he
could better make use of the Republic for his own purposes under the
guidance of the Medici than under any other circumstances. The favourable
impression which the youth made upon Ferrante is evident. Meanwhile the
means of defence were deliberated upon in meetings with the most faithful
and influential of his party. Both sides were arming; it is clear that the
enemies of the Medici knew of their preparations, but they did not yet get to
work, either because they were not ready, or because the characteristic
dread which the Florentines had of beginning a revolution in the State with
arms, restrained them. Piero had time to inform the Duke of Milan, through
his ambassador, Nicodemo Tanchedini.

The villa of Careggi, the favourite residence of the elder line of the
Medici, lies a little more than two miles to the north-west of Florence, on
the last southern spur of the Uccellatojo, of which the ‘Divina Commedia’
says that it surpasses the view of Rome from Monte Mario.[129] The name,
once Campus Regis, is in harmony with the fertility and beauty of the
neighbourhood; for here the spectator, overlooking the whole valley of the
Arno from the gently sinking slope, sees villa join villa, and splendid
gardens in a thousand flowery colours stretch before him, besides vineyards
and olive-tree plantations. The Medicean villa, private property for more
than a century, preserves, like the Salviati villa, lying in the neighbourhood
of the Fiesolan abbey, the form given to it in the first half of the fifteenth
century—an immense cube, which more resembles a fortress than a country
house, with jutting battlements and a quadrangular inner court. In the
present day an intelligent owner, no Tuscan, but full of warm love for his
second home,[130] has called up afresh the remembrances of ancient days,
and again summoned hither the arts once native here. We can easily
transport ourselves to the times of Cosimo and Lorenzo, so rich in
intellectual creations, and feel inspired by the breath of Platonic symposia,
and the statesmanlike consultations which guided the fortunes of Italy at a
memorable epoch. The nearest way from Careggi to the city led to the
Faenza gate, which was destroyed when the Medicean city was built, partly
upon the pleasant hill of Montughi, already covered with villas, amongst
which was that of Sant’Antonio, belonging to the archiepiscopal see.
On the morning of August 23, Piero de’ Medici was about to have
himself carried in his litter to Florence, when a messenger sent by his son
hastened up to him. Lorenzo, who, after his return from Naples, was staying
at the villa, had ridden out earlier, met suspicious-looking people, and heard
them inquire after his father. Already warned, he suspected the danger.
Saying that Piero was following him, he commanded one of his men to
return to Careggi in order to inform his father of the suspicious
circumstance, and advise him to take another way, probably that leading to
Porta al Prato. Perhaps Piero de’ Medici owed his life to Lorenzo’s
prudence, for the villa of the archbishop was filled with armed men lying in
wait for him.
Scarcely had he arrived in town when he summoned his chief partisans
to him, and it was determined to be beforehand with the opponents. The

decisive moment was come. The troops of Este stood already at Fiumalbo
near the frontiers. A body of Milanese mercenaries were coming from Imola
to Firenzuola to aid Piero. All the adherents of the Medici were in motion;
Antonio Serristori collected together the same morning a number of country
people in the neighbourhood. Lorenzo, supported by Antonio Pucci, was
active with the young people. The Medicean party stood ready in arms
before the others had come to an agreement with their four leaders, equal in
power but different in disposition. When Piero sent to the Signoria, laid the
letter of Bentivoglio before them, and pointed to the danger threatening the
peace of the city, in order to excuse the speedy arming of his friends, the
Signoria could not avoid taking measures. They sent Bernardo Corbinelli as
commissary, to hinder if possible the passage of the Este troops over the
frontier, and sought to oblige the parties to lay down their weapons. This
was, however, in vain; the whole city was in such a state of excitement that
the Signoria had the palace closed in their anxiety, and the guards
strengthened. And the fear was not groundless. Niccolò Soderini had
brought together and armed nearly two hundred in that part of his district on
the left bank of the river inhabited by the poorer classes, and called the
Camaldoli of San Frediano,[131] and in the evening had marched with them
to the neighbouring house of Luca Pitti. Here the chief adherents were
assembled, but even now they could not agree. Some, Soderini at their
head, advised them to seize the palace and summon a parliament, since the
majority was favourable to them; others proposed to set the houses of the
leaders of the opposition on fire, in order to strike terror into the crowd. But
nothing was accomplished; the chiefs were irresolute. Diotisalvi, whose
house lay near the Medici palace, was afraid lest, in case of an attack, the
mob might get the better of the contending parties, and renew the scenes of
1378. Luca, usually impetuous, was undecided. Soderini said to him,
bitterly, that they would both be ruined; he, because he had relied too much
on Luca, Luca because he had heeded his advice too little. Neither did
things proceed smoothly with the Medici. An attack was feared; in order to
meet it, many wished to cross the river and give battle. On the other side it
was confessed that an attack from the Medicean party this night would have
given the victory into their hands. Piero and the more cautious were for
waiting, as they were for the present stronger than the enemy, and would
hardly lose by the delay. Within a few days a new Signoria must enter upon
office; and as the district of Sta. Croce had to appoint the Gonfaloniere, and

here the adherents of the Medici preponderated, the circumstances could not
but be more favourable.
They had not calculated wrongly. Already, on the following day, that of
St. Bartholomew, negotiations between the two parties began. Luca Pitti is
said to have been won by a prospect of the marriage of his daughter with
Lorenzo de’ Medici before a Signoria favourable to that family could be
chosen on the 28th. Piero’s opponents had spread the report that he had
secretly managed to remove all the names of those of whom he was not sure
from the ballot-boxes, but no proof of this accusation exists.[132] The city
was meantime filled more and more with armed men; from Volterra alone,
where the Medici had strong adherents, 400 foot, well armed and provided
with money, were obtained.[133] The retiring Signori wished to combine
with the new to attempt a mediation, and summoned the heads of both
parties to the palace. Luca Pitti appeared with many of his adherents; Piero
de’ Medici, who was ill in bed, sent his two sons with the most important of
his party. A mutual understanding followed; they embraced, and promised
to lay down arms. On the following day all the leaders of the Mountain
party, Niccolò Soderini among them, repaired to the Medici palace. Piero
received them in his bedroom; his speech was not without reproaches for
those who, having become great through his father, had turned against him
and filled the city with suspicion and dangers of war, which they now
sought to lay to his charge. Luca Pitti threw the blame on
misunderstandings and false representations, and expressed a hope that
harmony would remain undisturbed for the future. He is reported to have
been wavering again when Soderini reproached him with treason to his
party, but to have finally yielded to Lorenzo’s representations. It would
indeed have been madness to resort to arms.
On September 1, the new Signoria, with Roberto Leoni, the new
Gonfaloniere, at their head, entered upon office. From the moment when the
Medicean partisans were sure of the victory, the idea awoke within them to
render their most distinguished opponents harmless for ever. Piero would
not consent to violent measures, but he would have been no Medici if he
had despised so-called legal means. Already, on the day after undertaking
the office, the Signoria summoned a parliament, at which Luca Pitti and
Diotisalvi Neroni appeared. On September 6, they announced their
determination by the Balia elected by them: the Signoria should for ten

years be appointed not by casting lots, but by nomination, and the heads of
the Mountain, with the exception of Luca Pitti, were to go into exile.
Niccolò Soderini, it is said, by the advice of Piero, who wished to protect an
old adherent and the brother of his best friend from violence, had already
retired to his villa, and from thence to Venice; there he was met by the
decree which banished him and his son Geri for twenty years to Provence,
where his father was born. Agnolo Acciaiuoli had quitted his house, and
betaken himself to the Milanese ambassador, with whom he was very
intimate, and who offered to intercede with Piero de’ Medici for him. Had
he waited for the result, says Vespasiano da Bisticci, referring to Piero’s
own words, no harm would have happened to him, for the latter did not bear
resentment against him as against the others. But, full of anxiety, he
hastened in the night to Certosa, the castle of his ancestors, from whence he
went to Barletta, which was assigned him as his place of banishment. The
real originator of the plot, Diotisalvi Neroni, was condemned to exile, with
all his family; and the Neroni never again attained to power in Florence.
The Archbishop left the city voluntarily, and went to Rome. The exiles were
to bring their country into further grave troubles before they were forgotten
by most, if not by the Medici, in the rapid change of circumstances. Luca
Pitti met with a punishment of another kind. He remained in Florence, but
seldom has the ostracism of public opinion been more harshly exercised
towards a criminal. All turned their backs upon him; if he let himself be
seen, he was received with insults and accusations of violence and
covetousness. The workmen who were devoted to him in the days of his
power, deserted him; his immense buildings, the palace as well as the villa,
stood for generations unfinished, till they fell into other hands—the palace
to the grand-ducal line of the Medici, the villa to the Usimbardi family, and
then to the dukes of Urbino. Presents were demanded back again, as though
they had been loans. He died a despised man—when is not known.[134]

CHAPTER III.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. FRANCE, VENICE, ROMAGNA. WAR
AGAINST COLLEONE.

Like every unsuccessful conspiracy, this also contributed to strengthen the
power of those whom it was intended to ruin. In the proclamations of the
Republic to foreign powers it was particularly emphasised, as we can well
understand, that the freedom of state and city had been saved from great
danger, and the rescue was of course acknowledged with praise and
thanksgiving. ‘Already,’ wrote King Ferrante, on September 28, to Lorenzo
de’ Medici,[135] ‘we loved you on account of your excellent qualities and
the services done by your grandfather and father. But as we have lately
heard with what prudence and manly courage you behaved in the late
revolutions, and how courageously you placed yourself in the foremost
ranks, our affection to you has grown remarkably. We wish, then, the
illustrious Piero all happiness with so worthy a son, and congratulate the
Florentine people on so eminent a protector of their freedom, and ourselves
on a friend whose excellent gifts increase visibly every day. Perhaps it
would be our wish to incite you to praiseworthy actions, but your noble and
active nature does not need encouragement, not to mention that you have
the example of your grandfather and your father constantly before your
eyes.’ The Republic had informed the French king of these events on
September 28; the answer came from Bourges only on January 14 in the
following year, but it expressed Louis XI.’s friendly feelings.[136] It was
very important to him to remain in good understanding with Florence. He
was long in friendly relations with the house of Medici, and during his
residence at Mont Luçon in May 1465 granted to Piero and his legitimate

heirs the privilege of bearing the lilies in their coat of arms.[137] The
blameless and well-deserved reputation, says the King, which the deceased
Cosimo de’ Medici had gained during his life by his actions and in all his
transactions, which were conducted with prudence and virtue, gives his
children and relations a claim to honourable consideration.
The influence exercised by Louis XI. on the development of the Italian
affairs of his time makes it necessary to give a retrospect of the policy and
situation of this monarch, under whom the French kingdom began to
assume that form which was completed by Richelieu. Louis XI. had in
1461, on the death of his father, whom he succeeded at the age of thirty-
eight, found the country freed indeed from foreign foes, after a hundred
years’ struggle, but loosely held together. For half the provinces of his
kingdom recognised the King indeed as their supreme lord, but were
independent of him with regard to their administration. They pursued a
policy of their own, concluded alliances of peace and war, while, as in the
case of the most powerful of these great feudatories, Charles Duke of
Burgundy, the union of French districts with foreign territories belonging
nominally to the German empire, constituted a power which, if they won
over their neighbours to their interests, might enter the lists with royal
France. Louis, as Dauphin, long at variance with his father and the
government, had relied upon Duke Philip the Good. Under him the
dukedom, comprising the greater part of Belgium of the present day, the
Netherlands, with Burgundy, Artois, Picardy, and Franche Comté, rose to
the height of its prosperity and power. Scarcely had Louis ascended the
throne, however, than he took measures against the great feudatories which
kindled the war known under the name of the War of the Public Good
(Guerre du bien public), in which Burgundy was also involved. This war
was indeed terminated in 1465 by the treaties of Conflans and St. Maur, but
only to break out afresh in another shape two years later, when Charles the
Bold had succeeded his father on the ducal throne. Thus fully occupied at
home and threatened in his own capital, Louis had closely connected his
foreign affairs with his internal policy. At the commencement of his reign
he had declared the pragmatic sanction of his father, which placed limits on
the authority of the Holy See in his country, to be abrogated; nevertheless,
when Pius II. refused to comply with his wishes in political matters, he
permitted a contradiction on the part of his parliament which practically
destroyed that authority. In 1462 he had allowed John of Anjou to be

defeated in the war against King Ferrante, and thus made enemies of this
family, to whom Provence belonged, while he likewise estranged Duke
Charles of Orleans by allying himself closely with Francesco Sforza, whose
states, as we have seen, were claimed by the former on the ground of his
mother’s hereditary rights. The Duke of Milan had at least shown himself
grateful by sending him, during his war with the allied princes, the auxiliary
troop which Galeazzo Maria was commanding when his father’s death
summoned him home.
The year 1467 did not begin peacefully. It was very well known in
Florence that the exiles, untaught by the failure of those who had made a
similar attempt under far more favourable circumstances, after the fall of
the Albizzi, had, for the greater part, quitted the places of exile assigned
them, and retired to the Venetian territory. Here they tried every means of
returning home with foreign assistance. Some applied even to the Venetian
Signoria, and others to the General-in-Chief, Bartolommeo Colleone.
Venice had no honourable excuse for breaking with the Florentines.
Outwardly the two states were in harmony. In the beginning of January
1467, both had joined the defensive alliance concluded at Rome under the
protection of Pope Paul II. which was to secure peace in Italy. Florence had
accepted the conditions, stipulating that ‘the French King, whose authority
essentially aided the preservation of peace and the safety of the different
states, should be permitted to join the alliance at his pleasure, with authority
next to that of the Pope.’[138] This stipulation, however, did not appear to
satisfy the Republic when, before long, the political sky was clouded, so
that in the following March, Francesco Nori, a confidant of the Medici, was
sent to Louis XI. to propose an offensive and defensive alliance,
irrespective of their engagements with the other Italian powers.[139] The
hostile disposition of Venice was unmistakable, although an open breach of
the peace was avoided. The old grudge on account of the views on Milan,
frustrated by the Medici, came again into the foreground. It was proposed to
employ the hatred of the exiles in order to obtain in Florence a government
with obligations towards Venice, and therefore dependent on her, and to
overturn the power in Milan already shaken by Francesco Sforza’s death.
Bartolommeo Colleone was to be the instrument.
Whoever stands on the Piazza near the church of St. Giovanni e Paolo
in Venice will be reminded of long-vanished times by an equestrian statue

in bronze, almost more than by the surrounding buildings. A slight, graceful
pedestal supports a war-horse in a quiet but powerful attitude, whose strong
limbs do not prevent a mannerised treatment of the neck and head. Upon
this, on a high saddle, and holding the richly-adorned bridle, sits the
somewhat thick-set figure of a knight, clothed in mail from head to foot,
and showing beneath the helmet a bold, marked countenance, which,
slightly turned to the right, seems to challenge an enemy. Thus has a
Florentine artist, Andrea del Verrocchio, depicted Bartolommeo Colleone,
whose magnificence and wealth may be admired in his chapel built in the
cathedral of Bergamo, which contains his tomb and that of his daughter
Medea. Born within the territory of this city, and acquainted early in his
paternal home with the miseries of war, Bartolommeo had earned his spurs
in the Neapolitan wars, had fought under the unhappy Carmagnola for
Venice, against Sforza for the Milanese republic, then in Venetian service
against the same enemy, and after the peace of Lodi retired to his castle of
Malpaga, in the valley of the Serio, enriched by his campaigns, a strong
man, but resenting his fate, because, although the republic of St. Mark had
chosen him as their captain-general amid great honours, and had paid him a
considerable sum, there was no prospect before him of fresh laurels to be
gained. The exiled Florentines now came to him, having already had
connections with him, and excited his ambition. Diotisalvi Neroni was at
Malpaga in October 1466, from whence he wrote to a confidant that great
events were approaching; if he could be with him for two hours, he would
tell him things to astonish him.[140] It seems that a prospect was held out to
the condottiere of a dominion in the many-lorded and fickle Romagna—
nay, of even gaining Milan itself. His old connections in various quarters, as
well as the disturbances always prevailing under the minor dynasties, which
gravitated now in one and now in another direction, would enable him to
bring a considerable number of troops together.
In the Romagna—a name which is here employed in its widest
signification for all the country from the Lombard frontiers to those of the
march of Ancona, but which in a restricted sense comprises Ferrara,
Bologna, the exarchate of Ravenna and Romandiola—the abnormal state of
things still prevailed to which Dante alluded when he answered the question
of Guido of Montefeltro, in the lower world by saying, that in the hearts of
his oppressors the land was never free from war, even if peace prevailed
there for the moment.[141] On February 14, 1279, Rudolph of Hapsburg

relinquished this province, which had been till then regarded and governed
as a part of the empire, in favour of the Church, which put forward old
claims to a part, and the inhabitants had promised to be true to the Roman
Church as heretofore to the Roman Empire; they wished their allegiance to
be measured by their former obedience to the empire, of which the Church
was the rightful successor. But the Popes had from the beginning shared
their authority with the great and small lords who ruled in the various cities,
the propinquity of which only made the feuds of the Signori and citizens
more frequent and bitter. When the poet mentions the Polentani of Ravenna
and Cervia, the Ordelaffi of Forli, the Malatesta of Rimini, Mainardo of
Susinana, in Faenza and Imola, these are only a few out of the great number
of those who allowed only a general superintendence to the representatives
of the Popes, the Counts of Romagna and the legates sent from Rome or
Avignon, while they governed almost unrestrictedly in their cities and the
counties appertaining to them. When Pope Clement VI. sent the Cardinal
D’Albornoz as legate to this state, about the middle of 1353, Romagna was
lost to the Papacy. Albornoz regained, partially reconquered it; but he left
the domination of the different families mostly as he found it, taking into
account the inclinations and traditions of the cities themselves, and
contenting himself in most cases with restoring the Papal authority as the
supreme presiding power. In this way the municipalities retained their
statutory rights and financial administration, were exempted from taxes and
levies on payment of a very moderate feudal contribution, and chose their
officers themselves, or, as happened with regard to the office of Podestà,
presented the candidates to the Pope or to his legate. The position of the
Papal plenipotentiaries was, however, all the more difficult when they took
up their residence in great cities, where factions always prevailed; and the
tedious insurrection which, actively participated in by Florence, spread
itself over Romagna at the time of the last Pope in Avignon, Gregory XI.,
beginning at the Patrimony and Umbria, showed on what a weak footing the
Papal power stood in the trans-Apennine provinces not long after the death
of Albornoz.
In the time of which we are treating circumstances were very different
in different parts of Romagna, not only from internal and local causes, but
also in consequence of the interference of neigbouring powers. For as
already, in the middle of the preceding century, Giovanni Visconti,
Archbishop and Lord of Milan, had seized upon Bologna, so did Gian

Galeazzo fifty years later. Central Italy was probably preserved only by the
death of the most powerful of the Visconti from subjection to their
supremacy; and subsequently the last of that ambitious house did actually
get the great city, though only for a time, into his power. Venice had already
begun to fix her gaze on Romagna, and had taken a firm footing in Ravenna
in 1440, having declared Ostasio da Polenta, her former protégé, to whom
Filippo Maria Visconti had also attached himself, to have forfeited the
ancient inheritance of his house, and sent him and his sons prisoners to
Candia, whence none of them returned. While the republic of St. Mark thus
began to gain territory on the seaside, and pursued a policy which some
sixty years later brought about a most dangerous conflict with the Papacy,
Florence made an attempt on the side of the Apennines, just as if the land
was without a master. In various ways, by purchase and mortgage, by the
subjection of petty lords such as the wide-spread Guidi, and the voluntary
resignation by the communes of their independence (which happened with
Modigliana in 1445), the Republic had extended its dominions more and
more over the ridge of the mountain range, and created the territory,
reaching far towards Faenza and Forli, which down to our day has borne the
name of Grand-ducal Romagna. This was, however, not enough. The
Accomandigia which has been spoken of in connection with the Tuscan
lords and territories extended likewise to many in Romagna, and formed a
political connection which would have been in direct opposition to the
Papal sovereignty had this sovereignty not been so loose in its form. The
Malatesta of Giaggiuolo, the Manfredi of Faenza and Imola, the Alidosi of
Imola and Castel del Rio, the Ordelaffi of Forli, the counts of Montefeltro
and Urbino, were all Florentine Raccomandati, as was the case with many
families of Umbria, bordering upon Romagna and partly dependent upon
her—the Accoromboni, Brancaleoni, Gabrielli of Gubbio, the Vitelli of
Città di Castello, the Fortebracci of Montone, and the Trinci of Fuligno. The
duration of the Accomandigia was very various; it was concluded for a
certain number of years, just like a condotta or mercenary contract, or for
life. The renewal followed then generally after a fixed interval, or from the
successors of the stipulating parties in the former manner. The lords in the
States of the Church made the reservation not to be obliged to fight against
the Pope or his vicars, the legates or governors; some of them even refused
to fight against the Angevin kings of Naples or the Roman people. What
difficulties and perplexities must therefore arise from the frequent contests

between the Popes and their feudatories, or between the former and their
neighbours, out of such associations, is evident.
The state in this province actually most independent of Rome was
Ferrara.[142] In the beginning of the thirteenth century the Ferrarese had
elected Azzo VI. of Este their hereditary ruler, and the investiture granted
him by Pope Innocent III. of considerable possessions in Romagna, as well
as in the province of Ancona, had given the house much distinction. A
century later, in consequence of a family quarrel, Venice attempted to put
forth her claims to Ferrara, and Pope Clement V. was obliged to give way.
The attempt of the latter to hold the town in the immediate control of the
Church, at first successful, soon failed, and the citizens in 1317 recalled the
family of Este, who were eleven years later invested with town and territory
by Pope John XXII. The imperial fiefs acquired by the lords of Ravenna,
from which they received in 1452 the ducal title from the Emperor
Frederick III., nineteen years before Pope Paul II. granted it to Borso d’Este
for Ferrara, made their position more independent than that of the other
Papal feudatories; but certain rights relating to the republic of Venice, as
well as the not always friendly neighbourhood on the lower Po, gave rise to
complications which might easily become dangerous. Far less great in
territory and power were the counts, afterwards dukes, of Urbino;[143] they,
with their little land, were in the same political circumstances between
Tuscany and Umbria, Romagna and Ancona. Their family was invested by
Frederick Barbarossa with the hilly region of Montefeltro, which afterwards
formed the north-western part of their state. In the first decade of the
thirteenth century they established themselves in Urbino, which was subject
to the Papacy, and gradually extended their possessions on both sides of the
mountains—to the south by the acquisition of Gubbio and Cagli, to the
north at a much later time as far as the Adriatic sea. They were a warlike
race which had once given to the contest of Guelphs and Ghibellines a
courageous general in Guido of Montefeltro, and had now one of the best
and most highly-prized condottiere in Federigo, who assumed the
government in 1444, and for whom Pope Sixtus IV. afterwards renewed the
ducal title which his brother and predecessor had borne.
The Malatesta, Ordelaffi, Manfredi, and Alidosi were legally dependent
only on the Popes. But they were just the families who caused perpetual
strife. The Malatesta had established themselves in Rimini in the latter part

of the thirteenth century, and in the following century enlarged their
possessions by talent and skilful use of circumstances, but had again
weakened their power by dividing into several lines. The three sons of
Galeotto Malatesta, of whom the history of the wars of Visconti and
Albornoz has much to relate, formed the lines of Rimini, Cesena, and Fano,
the second of which expired in 1465 with Malatesta Novello; while
Sigismondo, the legitimised son of the lord of Fano, had after the death
without children of his uncle Carlo lord of Rimini, become his successor,
and Rimini remained the centre of the dominions of this family. Sigismondo
is a prototype of the city tyrants of the fifteenth century—talented, active,
enterprising, a good warrior, the patron of intellectual effort, but passionate
and untrustworthy, and stained with faithlessness and cruelty in a measure
unusual even in those wild times. In 1447 and again in 1451 he fought in
the pay of Florence against the Neapolitan Aragonese, then shared in
Anjou’s enterprise against Naples, and was so pressed by Federigo of
Montefeltro that only the republic of Venice, which he had served in the
Morea, saved for him the remnant of his possessions. Pope Pius II.
prevented Rimini from falling into the hands of the Venetians by investing
Sigismondo with the sovereignty of the town and a little territory, reserving
its lapse to the Holy See in case of his decease without rightful heirs, as had
happened at Cesena in 1464. In 1466 Pope Paul II. endeavoured to persuade
Sigismondo, on his return from the Morea, to relinquish Rimini, offering
him the government of Spoleto and Fuligno—certainly a rich
compensation, had not the intention too evidently been to weaken the
Malatesta by detaching them completely from their native country and from
the sea. His son Roberto, born like himself out of wedlock, but legitimised
by Pope Nicholas V., had taken possession of Cesena in 1464, but was
unable to retain it against the Papal strength, as the inhabitants, tired of the
endless oppressions of the violent dynasties, rather surrendered themselves
to the direct rule of the Church, which allowed them greater freedom in
their movements and did not annoy them with taxes.
Confusion enough prevailed in the house of the Ordelaffi, who had
taken a firm footing in Forli in the last decades of the thirteenth century, and
at times ruled over Cesena. Albornoz had no worse opponent than Cecco
(Francesco) Ordelaffi, whom only Venetian protection saved from complete
ruin. His son Sinibaldo had returned by means of Florentine support in 1375
to Forli, where he fell, ten years later, a victim to a conspiracy of his two

nephews. Antonio, the son of one of the latter, had joined the Florentines
during the wars of the last Visconti in Romagna, and in 1441 they received
him into their Accomandigia, and obtained for him the investiture of Forli
from Pope Nicholas V. His two sons Cecco and Pino ruled at first together,
but the latter in 1466 rid himself by violence of the former, who had been as
bitter an enemy of Florence as Cecco was an ardent friend of the Republic.
With the Manfredi too, who ruled in Faenza from 1314, there was nothing
but quarrels and repeated changes of party. The towns of Faenza and Imola
belonged in common to the different members of the family, and in such a
manner that the eldest always conducted the government. But at the death
of Guido Antonio, Taddeo Manfredi took possession of Imola in 1448, to
the prejudice of his uncle Astorre, to whom the administration should have
passed, and a contest arose which Pope Pius II., Francesco Sforza, and
Florence tried to appease, without however procuring a real peace. Taddeo
passed from one side to another, fought first in Florentine, then in
Aragonese, and then again in Florentine pay. His uncle was not more
constant. He had taken up arms for the Visconti in 1440, had been taken
prisoner in the battle of Anghiari, and brought to Florence. Freed from
prison, he had murdered him into whose power he had fallen in the battle at
Bologna, for which Francesco Sforza set a price of a thousand gold florins
on his head. Yet he succeeded in reconciling himself with the Republic, in
whose service he fought against the Neapolitans in the Chiana valley in
1452. Florence had repeatedly concluded defensive alliances with both lines
of the Manfredi since the year 1384. The Alidosi, once reigning in Imola,
which they lost now to the Church, now to the Visconti, and now to the
Manfredi, had been obliged to content themselves with the little Castel del
Rio in the territory of Imola, towards the mountains, with which in 1392
they had joined the Florentine Accomandigia. A younger family had
associated itself with these elder dynasties. Alessandro Sforza, brother of
the Duke of Milan, had in 1445 acquired the lordship over Pesaro, by the
cession of Galeazzo Malatesta, maternal grandfather of his wife Costanza
da Varano, and maintained it under many changes of fortune. Pope Nicholas
V. had invested him with the government; he had been an essential support
to his brother in the contest for Milan, and he afterwards performed
mercenary service for King Ferrante and for Venice.[144]
Among all the towns of this province, Bologna was the largest, richest,
and most powerful, and would have been destined to exercise the greatest

influence on the fate of Romagna, had not irreconcilable factions weakened
her internally, and robbed her of the fruits of that heroic time in which she
so gloriously conquered the Emperor Frederick II., and the lion of San
Marco. The supremacy of the Church, which obtained greater authority here
in proportion to the weakening of the civil constitutions of Lombardy and
the bordering countries, was not able to suppress the factions which in 1337
brought the Pepoli to power, and thirteen years later gave the city into the
hands of the Visconti, from whom Cardinal Albornoz wrested it after a
possession of ten years. Even then the quarrels did not cease, which in the
beginning of the fifteenth century brought the Visconti back again, who
were again expelled by Cardinal Baldassar Cossa, to return a third time in
1438 and assume the position beside the Bentivogli (who had risen to the
first rank among the contending native families) which belonged to the
Popes. The evident endeavour of Filippo Maria Visconti to convert this
relation into unlimited power, soon led to war. Supported by Florence and
Venice, who fought here in their own cause as well as in that of Bologna,
Annibale Bentivoglio completely defeated the Milanese army, August 14,
1443, on the plain of San Giorgio, only to fall two years afterwards beneath
the dagger of murderers of high rank who were in league with the Duke. It
was especially important for the Florentines not to let a party serviceable to
their hereditary enemy rise to power in a city which they rightly regarded as
a protection against the power of the Visconti. The members of the
Bentivoglio family were, however, either too young, or not in a position, or
not inclined to take the lead. Under these circumstances they hit upon a
peculiar idea. The exiled Count of Poppi, Francesco da Guidi, then in
Bologna, is said to have related that a cousin of Annibale Bentivoglio had
had a love affair with a girl in the above mentioned castle of Casentino, and
had a son who lived there with his maternal relatives. Cosimo de’ Medici,
and, at his suggestion, Neri Capponi, who knew more about Casentino than
anyone, took up the matter, and the end was that Sante, the nephew of
Antonio da Cascese, was recognised as Sante Bentivoglio, waited upon in
Florence most respectfully by deputies from Bologna, who escorted him to
their city, where he succeeded in maintaining himself till his death by
prudence, not unmixed with acts of violence towards his opponents.
As the Florentines had done the most in enabling Sante Bentivoglio to
seize on the power, so they made it easier for him to preserve it. The
Bolognese ambassadors had represented how the position of the city was

such that they must throw themselves into the arms of the Duke of Milan if
the Holy See did not deal mercifully with them. ‘Beg his Holiness,’ so
wrote the Signoria on February 3, 1446, to their ambassador to Pope
Eugenius IV., Paolo da Diaceto,[145] ‘to be gracious towards the poor
Bolognese people, who have been so afflicted by oppression and misery, by
fierce civil discord and strife, that it must move everyone to pity. The
Bolognese hope from the gentleness of his Holiness, and the authority of
the Republic of Venice, that it may be possible to discover some decent
form of paying the Pope a reasonable tribute; but remaining otherwise in
their present freedom, without Papal legates or other officers in the name of
the Church. Do you make the observation that with people who are
accustomed to bloodshed and full of suspicion, violence does not suffice;
and that one must rather temporise in order to attain from them afterwards
by love what violence cannot effect.’ So much, indeed, Bologna did not
attain in the agreement concluded at Rome with Pope Nicholas V. on
August 24, 1447, for she was obliged to receive a legate who shared the
administration with the senate and the city magistrates. But the choice of
these bodies was free; the city had its own militia and unrestricted power
over its revenue, while the Papal troops were bound to protect her from
foreign enemies. It is clear that such a relation might easily afford an
opportunity for difficulties, and it is to be accounted a merit in Sante
Bentivoglio that none arose under his government. When he died on
October 1, 1463, his party appointed Giovanni, the son of Annibale and
Donnina Visconti, then twenty years old, as his successor. By a treaty
concluded with Pope Paul II. in 1466, the latter acquired a legal power such
as none had had before him. This treaty secured him a seat and two votes in
the Senate, which consisted almost entirely of his partisans and was
renewed every six months, and thus placed him at the head of the citizens
who, after Sante’s death, had already shown themselves so complaisant that
they had conferred upon the youthful Giovanni the dignity of Gonfaloniere,
to which only men of mature age could usually attain. By his marriage with
Ginevra Sforza of Pesaro, Giovanni Bentivoglio entered into relationship
with Milan, in which he hoped to gain some support against any hostility on
the part of the Pope. That he held fast to his friendship with Florence was,
to say nothing of the tradition of his predecessors, caused by his
connections with Sforza. We have seen that it was he who gave Piero de’
Medici information of the unfriendly movements of Ercole d’Este.[146]

This was the state of Romagna when the country became the scene of
warlike events. The Florentines had not ceased to negotiate with Venice, but
in vain. Only by assuming that this Republic wished to fish in troubled
waters can we find a key to the events of 1467. The last Visconti had
accustomed his neighbours to his sending his condottiere upon them
without declaration of war, under the pretext of dismissing them from his
service. Venice had, however, not yet given so bad an example. There was a
pretence of pacifying Bartolommeo Colleone, whose mercenary compact
was expiring; but the condottiere must have known better the real intentions
of the Signoria, for he would hardly have entered upon a daring undertaking
had he feared their serious displeasure, instead of being certain of their
opportune support, at least with money. When the Florentines saw that war
was imminent, they concluded on January 4, 1467, at Rome and with Papal
consent, the compact already mentioned with King Ferrante and the Duke
of Milan. It was called ‘for the preservation of peace in Italy,’ and Venice
acceded to it in due form; while Siena, Lucca, and the Margrave of Mantua
were invited to join.[147] On the 18th, the alliance was proclaimed in
Florence. An extraordinary tax of a hundred thousand gold florins was
proclaimed to cover the first expenses of the war. In the preceding
November the government had been already empowered by a special law
passed in the Balia to enlist 1,500 horse and 500 foot, or, if necessary, twice
as many; with power to raise extraordinary taxes, which excited violent
complaints, as contrary to the freedom of the people and to good order,[148]
for though they wished to be safe they did not like to pay. As the Duke of
Milan had more troops than were necessary, two thousand of his cavalry
were taken into pay. Donato Acciaiuoli had conducted the negotiations with
Sforza. His cousin Agnolo was an exile, his sister-in-law a daughter of
Diotisalvi Neroni; but his patriotism was trusted, and he deserved this
confidence. Federigo of Montefeltro was appointed general-in-chief, and he
accepted the offer, though Venice tried to turn him from it. Astorre and
Taddeo Manfredi both took service with the Florentines. The Neapolitans,
under the command of Napoleon Orsini, Count of Tagliacozza, crossed the
Tronto in April, twelve squadrons of cavalry strong, and joined Federigo’s
troops in Romagna.
On May 10, Bartolommeo Colleone crossed the Po. The lords of
Mirandola and Carpi, Ercole of Este, and the Count Deifebo of Anguillara,
who had been banished by the Pope, and was son of the old disturber of the

environs of Rome, had joined him immediately. On his further march, the
Ordelaffi of Forli and Alessandro Sforza of Pesaro came to him, the latter of
whom, won over by Venice, opposed his own nephew; while Astorre
Manfredi faithlessly turned his back upon Florence. Colleone’s army soon
numbered 8,000 horse and 6,000 foot. Galeazzo Maria Visconti, persuaded
by the representations of the Count of Urbino, now first set out with his
troops and marched against the Count by way of Bologna, from whence
men were sent to reinforce the allies. The general of the latter, now of equal
strength with Colleone, would willingly have given battle; but he, on the
one side, true to the old system of marches and counter-marches, avoided a
decision, and on the other the presence of the Duke of Milan, whose
experience did not equal his rank and claims, hindered the allied
commander in his movements. At last Sforza was persuaded to visit
Florence, and yield the command to Roberto da Sanseverino. Meanwhile
the Count of Urbino attacked the enemy on July 25 at Molinella, in the
territory of Imola. From a skirmish of the outposts of both armies a general
battle arose, which was all the more bloody because light field-pieces were
employed, and a Milanese troop of horse was enticed into an ambuscade;
whereon, the Count, whose horse had been killed under him, commanded
that no quarter should be given. The fight lasted for seven hours, in which,
according to one of the lowest estimates, 300 men and 400 horses were
killed—a great number for Italian warfare at that time. At nightfall they
ceased to fight on Colleone’s proposal, and then the Count of Urbino and
Alessandro Sforza, whose son Constanzo was amongst the prisoners, rode
up to one another and shook hands.
The battle was, as we have said, undecided. The dread of the Venetians
that their frontiers might be threatened—a dread which urged them to stir
up Savoy and the Genoese exiles to make a diversion for the Duke of
Milan, which was successful—shows on which side the advantage was. To
this was added, that King Ferrante, however much he longed for peace, for
which he exerted himself to the utmost by his ambassadors, voted for
energetic continuance of the war in order to bring peace, and sent
considerable reinforcements through his son Alfonso. Those reinforcements
were indeed outweighed by the conduct of the Duke of Milan, who,
discontented that a battle had taken place in his absence, returned home
notwithstanding all warnings, and called his troops home to protect his own
country. Galeazzo Maria has left a sad name in history; but that he did not

lack political insight is shown by the representations he made to a Venetian
ambassador travelling through Milan, in respect to the policy of the
Republic. ‘You Venetians,’ he said, ‘who possess the most beautiful state in
Italy, you are very wrong not to be contented with that, but to destroy your
peace and that of your neighbours. If you knew how everyone is against
you, your hair would stand on end, and you would leave all in peace. Do
you suppose these Italian powers leagued against you really wish each other
well? Not in the least. The necessity of protecting themselves against you
has brought them together, and each one will do what it can to clip your
wings. Do you think to have accomplished something grand by arming all
Italy? Let others live! You have set everything in excitement by this
Bartolommeo of yours; you will see how far it brings you profit. You have
expended a quantity of money, and caused others great expense too; you
preach peace and sow war. May you reap the result. At the death of my
father, it seemed to me that a beautiful estate had fallen to me, and I thought
of nothing but leading a pleasant life; you have obliged me to join King
Ferrante, and to win my father’s principal adherents who I formerly did not
know. The Pope who has sprung from your nobility will act more against
you than all the rest; and if the war lasts, he will demand Faenza, Forli,
Ravenna, and Cervia back again. The King of Naples is your declared
enemy; and if his power equalled his evil intentions, it would go hardly
with you. How Florence and Genoa are disposed towards you, you know,
and it is not much better with the other Italian commonwealths. You throw
your money away, and have nothing but disgrace from it; for it is said that,
according to your custom, you wish to swallow everything. Now you are in
pecuniary difficulties. I know with what pains you collect levies, and how
your criers march through the whole town. I know that you have raised
loans from banks and private persons which you will not be able to repay.’
(‘He spoke,’ adds the ambassador, ‘as if he had witnessed everything in
Venice.’) ‘Ruling lords have one great advantage over republics—they act
for themselves, and swiftly; while in these, the individual is always
dependent on several. A Signor with fifty thousand ducats is worth more
than a free State with a hundred thousand, because he can superintend the
soldiers, and these act in his presence. It depends upon you to have peace or
war. If you choose war, you will see all leagued against you, not only here,
but beyond the mountains. Believe me, your enemies will not sleep. I know
all that you have plotted against me with the Duke of Savoy and Fiesco, and

the Archbishop of Genoa. I pray you, annoy no one: keep peace for your
own advantage and that of Christendom.’[149]
Galeazzo Maria was right. His warning regarding foreigners referred to
the French King, who directed a letter, written in an angry tone, to the
Republic, saying that he knew of their machinations to disturb the peace,
and entreating them not to cause the Duke of Milan any further annoyances
in his territory, if they did not wish that he should regard their foes as his
friends.[150] But Galeazzo Maria, on his side, had given Venice and Savoy
much cause for suspicion and complaints, planning even then an attack
upon Vercelli, the possession of which he had been promised at his
marriage by King Louis XI. as dowry.[151] So stood it then with Italian
affairs and Italian princes. The Venetians, moreover, relied on the want of
harmony among the allies, which the Duke could not deny. None trusted the
other. It was the Florentines who principally held the league together.
However much King Ferrante wished to agree with Piero de’ Medici, and
whatever the Republic might effect through her financial connections, she
was yet too weak in military matters to exercise preponderating influence.
Between the King and Sforza distrust and aversion prevailed, and Ferrante
said repeatedly that he suspected a separate peace with the enemy, in which
he was not deceived. The Pope said neither Yes nor No. He had entered the
league, but entrance into the league did not imply fulfilment of the
stipulations. He wished to free Romagna from the war that desolated the
country, but he had no inclination to make overtures to Venice, his native
country; always put the tardiness of the Neapolitan’s movements forward as
a pretext; wished for peace after the battle of La Molinella, especially
because he feared being drawn into the thick of the contest by the allies, and
wished to prescribe the conditions of this peace, while he really did so little
to bring it about. But beside this, the war had displayed more than any other
the defects of the Italian armies, and from this point of view it deserves
more attention than it would otherwise claim. When we consider that the
two most famous generals of Italy at that day, Federigo of Urbino and
Bartolommeo, stood at the head of a considerable army; that a Duke of
Milan and Crown Prince of Naples were there; that the lords of Lombardy
and Romagna, who passed their lives in arms, and the best Neapolitan
warriors, the Sanseverini, Orsini, Davalos, &c., were in the field; when we
consider, on the other hand, the miserable results of this eight months’
campaign, we shall anticipate the approaching complete decline of that

system of war which Alberigo da Barbiano had inaugurated a century
before, and which had passed through many glorious days of military art
and valour, although an evil lay in the very existence of mercenary troops
from which other countries had to suffer.
The Neapolitan troops were certainly not among the worst, and had
practised leaders. And yet how did they prosper? Even before they had
marched out, there were the most unfavourable opinions as to their quality
and discipline. ‘When you hear from ill-wishers,’ wrote the King on
February 10, 1467, to one of his agents, ‘that our soldiers will run away as
soon as they have passed the frontiers, you must not heed this, for, with
God’s assistance, we hope to send them out in such excellence and order,
that they would rather attract others than go over to them.’ But the result did
not correspond with the expectation of the monarch, who, however, devoted
untiring care to military affairs. The Duke of Calabria employed three
months in crossing the Tronto and dragging his army through Tuscany and
Umbria, while the enemy was in the heart of Romagna. The militia
dispersed without fighting. ‘It grieves my very soul,’ wrote the King on
August 1, ‘this flight of a part of our men-at-arms. But as the fault lies in
their badness and cowardice, and not in the treatment they had experienced
from us, we will bear it more easily.’ And on January 15, 1468, during the
truce: ‘Most of the soldiers leave the camp and return home, which does not
promote the general good, and is highly displeasing to us.’ The Duke of
Calabria was amusing himself in the meantime in Florence and Milan,
whither his consort had gone to sweeten for him the hard campaign, in
which he never faced the foe. With the money advanced by the Florentine
banks, those of the Medici, Strozzi, Gondi, &c., the desertion of the
enemy’s horse and foot was purchased, while the Neapolitans, as they
remained without pay, acted in friendly countries, in the districts of Arezzo
and Cortona, as if they had to do with their enemies.
Besides Louis XI., another foreign sovereign tried to put a stop to a war
so prejudicial to the common Christian interest in a moment when the
progress of the Turks menaced both Italy and the Danubian provinces. It
was Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who sent George Hasznoz,
afterwards Archbishop of Colocza to Venice, in order to bring about an
arrangement.[152] The Hungarian envoy, getting nothing but empty words,
went to Colleone’s camp, and meeting there with the same ill-success,
proceeded to Florence and Rome, to give an account of his negotiation.

More than six months had passed since the day of La Molinella in useless
marching and treating, in the midst of mutual reproaches and quarrelling.
Tommaso Soderini at Venice, Otto Niccolini in Rome, acted with zeal and
ability as Florentine ambassadors; the Marquis of Ferrara did his best as
mediator; Florence itself had made many efforts, but in vain. At last, on
Candlemas day 1468, Pope Paul II. proclaimed peace in the church of Sta.
Maria Araceli, on the Capitol. The existing league, including Venice, was to
be renewed. Bartolommeo Colleone was to be sent to Albania to fight the
Turks, with an annual salary of 100,000 gold florins as captain-general,
after resigning the places in the Romagna held garrisoned by him. He had,
besides, demanded thrice the sum as compensation for the expenses of a
war which he had himself begun! King Ferrante protested four days later;
shortly before, he had declared he would do the Holy Father’s pleasure in
everything reasonable, but he would rather lose everything than give
Colleone a farthing. Galeazzo Maria was of the same opinion; he said his
money should not serve for an attack upon his state. The Florentines
seemed to have most wished to come to terms, and were much disturbed
when the King, Sforza, and Venice took up arms again. Finally, the Marquis
of Ferrara succeeded in reconciling the parties, though Pope Paul was very
angry; and on April 25 the definitive peace was proclaimed at Rome, and
two days later at Florence, in which Colleone was not mentioned, and every
one was to receive his own again. In Florence the peace was solemnised by
church festivals and illuminations. Bartolommeo Colleone, then seventy-
five years old, but still in full strength, did not go to Albania, where the
death of Scanderbeg, which had happened in the February of the same year,
1468, would have made a valiant general necessary, if the tactics of Italian
condottieri had been suitable for such a land and such an enemy. A throne
such as the Florentine exiles had placed in his view, he certainly was as far
from obtaining as he was from reaping laurels in his last campaigns. But he
enjoyed for seven years longer the highest honours paid to him by the
Republic of Venice and foreign and Italian princes, in his castle, where he
died February 1, 1475, having made a use of his colossal fortune which
more honoured him than many of the means by which it had been brought
together.
The ill-success of Bartolommeo Colleone’s undertaking put an end of
course to all the exiles’ hopes of returning to their homes.

The biographer of Donato Acciaiuoli, Angiolo Segni, observes rightly,
‘The war excited by the exiles was soon ended. Bartolommeo’s army was
not defeated in battle with the allies, but it was equally far from conquering,
and the cause of the rebels was lost thereby. For those who ruled in
Florence it was enough not to be defeated; not so with those in the field.
Only by a victory could they expel their enemies, and regain their home.’
All the distinguished men of the losing side had been with Colleone—
foremost of all Diotisalvi Neroni and Niccolò Soderini, who in Venice
opposed his own brother, whom Florence had sent thither as her
representative. Agnolo Acciaiuoli joined them at last. Persuaded at length
by the representations of his friends, he had quitted Barletta and gone to
Naples; King Ferrante, who, remembering old connections, wished him
well, vainly sought to persuade him not to trust to the matter, nor to break
the exile pronounced on him. He went to Rome, and from thence to
Romagna. When he saw the organisation of Colleone’s troops, he is said to
have anticipated the result at once. When peace was concluded, he was
declared a rebel with all the others, his property confiscated, and a price put
upon his head; he returned to Naples, where he lived on the support
afforded him by the King, and passed his days mostly in pious exercises and
the companionship of the Carthusian monks, whose order had stood in
intimate connection with his family for more than a century. Niccolò
Soderini went to Ravenna, where the Emperor Frederick III. made him a
knight and Palatine on his second journey to Rome—cheap honours then,
which could hardly have sweetened the exile in which he died, 1474.
Niccolò, says Alamamo Rinuccini, was far more courageous than prudent;
he did not know fear. Had his advice been followed when he wished
directly to give battle, his party would not perhaps have had to submit, but
Messer Luca, either cowardly or bribed, betrayed his party and himself.
Diotisalvi Neroni, at first banished to the island of Sicily, saw sixteen years
of exile pass away, and died in extreme old age at Rome, where his
tombstone is to be seen in the Dominican church, Sta. Maria sopra Minerva,
which contains many Florentine monuments.[153]
One event during the war shows how high the waves of party feeling
rose. Lucrezia de’ Medici was at the Bagno a Morba with her son Giuliano,
the bath in the district of Volterra employed, perhaps even in the times of
the Romans, for rheumatic complaints. It is a lonely spot on the southern
side of the chain of hills which, separating the valley of the Arno and Elsa

from the sea-shore, bears the old Etruscan town on its ridge. The retired
situation had long attracted many a prowler, and made the desolate region
unsafe. One evening a hasty messenger from Piero came to his wife with
the command that she was to repair without delay with the youth to
Volterra, as it had been announced in Florence from San Gemignano that
the exiles meditated a coup-de-main to carry off both mother and son,
whom they needed as hostages. Giuliano had set off for Florence that same
day; Madonna Lucrezia, ill as she was, was carried to Volterra, fifteen miles
distant, in a litter by night, by the arrangement of the officials of the place
and vicinity, and here she was in safety. After having rested here, where she
was kindly received, she returned to her family.[154]

CHAPTER IV.

PIERO DE’ MEDICI’S LATER LIFE. LORENZO’S MARRIAGE.

After the Colleonic war the Republic had peace for a time. For though she
took an auxiliary part in the contest for Rimini, which broke out in 1469,
her affairs were little influenced by it, and her territory not even touched.
Sigismondo Malatesta, who had just been in negotiation with the
condottiere of Bergamo, but had held aloof from the strife and entered the
Papal service, died on October 9, 1468. When we review the variety of
events that followed close upon one another in this man’s life, and then
consider that he only reached the age of fifty-one, we shall form some idea
of the restless character of the epoch. According to the last stipulation, Pope
Paul II. expected the reversion of Rimini, as Sigismondo had died without
legitimate heirs, but his natural son Roberto, then only six and twenty,
succeeded in taking possession of the city, and formed numerous allies,
when the Pope prepared to expel him by force. When Alessandro Sforza
undertook the siege of Rimini with the Papal army, Naples, Florence,
Milan, and Urbino, came to the assistance of Malatesta, and on August 30,
1469, Sforza suffered a severe defeat, whereas the Pope’s allies, the
Venetians, did not appear till after the event. Paul II. wished at first to
continue the contest, but resolved the following year to come to terms, a
decision confirmed by his conviction that Venice thought more of extending
her own power in Romagna than of supporting him, and also by the
progress of the Turks, which caused serious anxiety, not only to Venice,
whose possessions in the Levant were threatened, but to all Italian powers.
Paul’s successor had, at a critical moment, no reason to regret that Roberto
Malatesta remained in Rimini.

It was a fortunate thing for Florence that peace was concluded, for the
expenses had long been enormous. The allies seemed to think that the
Florentine purse was inexhaustible. When Galeazzo Maria arrived in July
1467 from the camp, he carried an open empty purse at his belt: they were
obliged to pay him a large sum, says a contemporary, to enable him to
return to the camp.[155] At the same time the sum of 1,200,000 gold florins
was raised, partly by a property tax, partly by additional imposts, to which
the clergy and those otherwise exempted from taxation were forced to
contribute, while the half of their salaries was deducted from all officials
outside the city. The heavy expenses of the war did not, however, hinder the
expenditure of large sums for other purposes, as, for example, in February
1468, even before the peace was ratified, 37,000 gold florins were paid for
Sarzana and the neighbouring castle, which the Genoese Fregosi sold to the
Republic, a bargain which caused violent disputes afterwards. There was no
lack of complaints of the great expenses. Even before the war numerous
failures had taken place, and created a serious panic in the commercial
world. The war had crippled industry and commerce. The government could
not blind itself to the prevailing discontent, and if they sought to amuse the
crowd by festivals in honour of foreign princes, and in other ways, they
only increased the expenses of the city. The Duke of Calabria, who had his
winter quarters in the Pisan territory, was twice in Florence in the autumn of
1467, where great honour was shown to the son of the most powerful of the
allies. In the following May, after the peace, he resided in Pisa, and
informed Lorenzo de’ Medici, through Luigi Pulci,[156] that he thought of
spending the festival of St. John at Florence, and recommended him to see
that it should be brilliantly celebrated.
Pleasure-making and expensive pursuits were certainly ill-adapted to
the frame of mind which prevailed in Florence in the latter times of the war,
and to the general condition of affairs. ‘The whole city,’ wrote Niccolò
Roberti, the Ferrarese ambassador, to Duke Borso, on January 12, 1468,[157]
‘is discontented and in the worst humour. Not only enemies, but even most
friends, agree in the opinion, that if peace be not soon concluded, all must
emigrate, or something new be resolved on, for it is no longer possible to
bear the burdens. Few people work, and shops are daily closed. The one
consolation is, that peace cannot be far distant. Three days ago a meeting of
the council took place, and it was determined to collect money for the
equipment of twenty galleys, as it is said the Duke of Milan and King

Ferrante intend to put a powerful fleet to sea, and attack Venice in the gulf,
if she does not agree to peace. It is certainly whispered by some that if the
money were to be had, Piero de’ Medici would take it for himself.’ So little
satisfactory was the state of affairs, and so great the discontent. When peace
was concluded after long uncertainty, a contagious illness tormented the
citizens. ‘The pestilence is in many houses here,’—thus writes the
ambassador from Ferrara on August 12—‘and although, on account of the
imperfection of the statistical reports, the number of deaths cannot be
ascertained, they are estimated at from six or eight daily. Piero de’ Medici
shuts himself up, and, it is said, will go to Careggi next week.’ Public
festivals were rather out of place.
Lorenzo was then nineteen years old. As his father was hindered by ill-
health from appearing in public, or taking an active share in civic festivities,
the gifted young man, who had shown in the Pitti conspiracy how ripe was
his understanding, and how he could combine forethought with prompt
action, naturally was brought prominently before the public. In festivities he
took the foremost place, as became the position of his family and his own
inclinations. On February 7, 1469, a festival took place at Florence, which
forms a brilliant page, not only in the history of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s life,
but also in the history of Italian poetry of the time closely connected with it.
Niccolò Machiavelli, in describing this tournament, accuses Lorenzo of
having sought to amuse the people in order to avert their attention from his
politics. Savonarola had expressed the same opinion long before. But it is
unfair to ascribe the splendid tourneys of Lorenzo, the spirited amusements
then common to high-born and vivacious youths, to indirect political
motives. When in 1467 Braccio Martelli, the son of a distinguished family
allied by friendship with the Medici, celebrated his marriage, there was a
tournament, in which Lorenzo de’ Medici took part. Among the young
ladies present was Lucrezia Donati. The name of the ancient and ambitious
race from which she sprang was mentioned in the first ranks of those who
in the days of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and afterwards in those of the
White and Black factions, filled the city with sanguinary quarrels. Dante
Alighieri, who allied himself in marriage to that family without making
peace with them, has bestowed on Piccarda, a daughter of the Donati—of
whom he makes her brother Forese say, he knows not whether her beauty or
her goodness is her greatest ornament—a crown whose glory far outshines
historical fame.[158] In the introduction to one of his youthful poems, which

will be mentioned afterwards, Lorenzo has described the object of his early
love, whose name, never mentioned by him, has been made known by his
friends and admirers. The story of the rise of his love is a mixture of truth
and fiction, as he connects it with the death of a young girl who was
beloved by Lorenzo’s brother, a circumstance which belonged, however, to
a later time. We know nothing of Lucrezia Donati but what is said of her by
the young poet—who at this tournament begged for a wreath of violets
which she held in her hand, and promised to give a similar entertainment in
her honour—and what his friends say of her, one of whom puts a verse into
her mouth, in the pompous style of the stilted poetry of the fifteenth century
which Lorenzo mainly contributed to do away with; while another seeks to
persuade her to return the young man’s love.
Nearly two years passed before Lorenzo could fulfil his promise at the
wedding of Braccio Martelli. The times were not favourable for festivities.
At length the Piazza Sta. Croce witnessed the brilliant spectacle. The Piazza
differed from the present one in the appearance of the surrounding
buildings, but its form was the same, and well suited for such purposes, so
that many a grand pageant had been displayed here. Tournaments were in
vogue then and at a much later period. And though they were mostly free
from danger, they yet afforded opportunity to exhibit and to try knightly
skill, while they led to a not ignoble expenditure of money, to the display of
costly weapons and beautiful horses, and to an ingenious though sometimes
affected invention of devices and emblems. Numerous were the
distinguished young men who took part in the chivalrous games. Besides
two stranger knights, Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo Pazzi, and his
brother Francesco, two Pitti, Donigi Pucci, Salvestro Benci, Benedetto
Salutati, Braccio de’ Medici, Carlo Borromeo, Piero Vespucci, and Jacopo
Bracciolini, figured there. Who could have dreamed then that more than one
of the combatants would be victims to a plot against that very Medici with
whom all seemed to be at peace!
The costumes and state of all who took part in this tournament were
exceedingly splendid, and especially gorgeous was the array of Lorenzo
himself.[159] Before him rode nine trumpeters, and a page bearing a red and
white banner, and accompanied by two others. Next came two squires in
full armour, whom the Count of Urbino and Roberto Sanseverino had
placed at Lorenzo’s disposition; twelve young noblemen on horseback,
Giuliano de’ Medici in a tabard of silver brocade with a silk doublet

embroidered in pearls and silver, and a black velvet baret cap, adorned with
three feathers made of gold thread, set with large pearls and rubies. The
youth’s attire was estimated at eight thousand ducats. Now came five
mounted pages with fifers and drummers, and then Lorenzo himself. He
wore a surcoat with a shoulder-piece of red and white silk, and across it a
silk scarf embroidered with fresh and withered roses, and the device ‘Le
temps revient’ in large pearls. On the velvet baret cap, adorned with a great
number of pearls, he wore a feather made of gold thread, set with rubies and
diamonds, and having in the centre a pearl of five hundred ducats value.
The diamond on his shield, called ‘Il Libro,’ was estimated at more than
two thousand ducats. The horse, a present of King Ferrante, which he
afterwards exchanged for one sent him by Borso d’Este, wore red and white
velvet housings, embroidered with pearls. When the tournament began he
laid aside the velvet surcoat, and attired himself in another of Alexandrian
velvet with gold fringes, and the golden lilies of France in an azure field,
which he wore also on the shield; while he put on a helmet with three blue
feathers, instead of the baret cap. Ten young men on horseback and sixty-
four on foot, armed and helmeted, concluded the splendid procession,
which, as we need not say, formed the climax of this brilliant tournament.
Lorenzo has made the following note of the festivity and its result: ‘In order
to do as others, I appointed a tournament on the Piazza Santa Croce, with
great splendour and at great expense, so that it cost about ten thousand gold
florins. Although I was young and of no great skill, the first prize was
awarded to me, namely, a helmet inlaid with silver and surmounted by a
figure of Mars.’ We see that it was only a step from citizen to prince. The
court poet was not wanting. A long poem in eight-lined stanzas describes
the festival and those who took part in it, with all the details and profuse
display of mythological learning, and not without allusions to a yet more
glorious future. Whether it is by Luca Pulci or by his more famous and
talented brother, the poet of the Morgante, remains undecided. It is hardly
worthy of the latter, although it is not wanting in poetical beauty; its chief
fault lies, not in the poverty of separate parts, but in the trivial subject and
the fulsome multiplication of details. Comparison with a later poem on a
similar subject throws into relief the deficiencies of this.[160]
Long after the tournament at Sta. Croce had taken place, poets
continued to celebrate the love of Lorenzo for Lucrezia Donati, and
Lorenzo did not cease to record his feelings of joy and sorrow, hope and

fear, as they rose and fell, in a series of sonnets and canzonets which have
procured one of the foremost and honoured places among the poets of the
fifteenth century for him in whose hand the fate of his native country lay for
years. But while the poet occupied himself thus with the lady of his
thoughts, the fortune of the man who was to be the head of his family and
his state took a decisive turn. When he held the tournament he had been
already betrothed for some time; indeed, the tournament was intended to
celebrate his betrothal! Piero de’ Medici did not follow Cosimo’s principle
of choosing for his son and heir a bride among the daughters of the land. He
seems to have been indifferent to the aversion with which intermarriages
with foreign baronial families were generally regarded at Florence. Corso
Donati, the brother of Piccarda, had once aroused a rebellion against
himself which cost him his life, by proposing to offer his hand to a daughter
of Uguccione della Fagginola, the powerful partisan and friend of Dante.
The news that Lorenzo de’ Medici intended to enter into an alliance with
one of Rome’s oldest and greatest families was heard with displeasure at
Florence, because the people suspected that the object was to raise himself
above the ordinary position of a citizen, and to seek foreign support. Clarice
degli Orsini[161] was the daughter of Jacopo, lord of Monterondo, and of his
second wife, Maddalena, daughter of Carlo, lord of Bracciano, and sister of
Napoleon, who gave this castle its present grand form, and of Latino, one of
the most influential cardinals of his time, whom Pope Nicholas V. adorned
with the purple. Orso, Clarice’s grandfather, had met his death at the battle
of Zagonara, 1424, which was so disastrous for the Florentines, and in
which he had fought under Carlo Malatesta for the Republic against the
Visconti. Of her father, who possessed in common with a brother the castle
of Monte Rotondo, which stands on a low hill, fifteen miles from Rome,
commanding the Salarian road leading to the Sabine hills, there is little to
tell, except that he founded a Minorite convent at this place, in Pope
Nicholas V.’s reign. In the beginning of 1467, when Lorenzo was only
eighteen years old, the negotiations had already begun between the two
families; after the youth had seen Clarice, probably on the occasion of the
journey to Naples as his father’s representative, and, apparently, without her
or her mother’s previous knowledge. The plan of the union had undoubtedly
originated with a maternal uncle of the bride, Roberto, who took part in the
Colleonic war, and fought at La Molinella. In March of the same year,
Lucrezia de’ Medici repaired to Rome, to conclude the affair with her

brother Giovanni Tornabuoni, who seems to have conducted the preliminary
proceedings. The letter which she addressed to her husband on her first
meeting with her future daughter-in-law and her family[162] is a
characteristic example of the manners of the time, as well as of the views of
a family which combined the positions of citizen and prince in so
exceptional a manner:
‘I have repeatedly written to you on my way, and informed you of the state of the
roads. On Thursday I arrived here, and was received by Giovanni with a joy which you
may imagine. I have received your letter of the 21st, and it made me happy to learn your
pain has entirely ceased. But each day seems a year to me till I am again with you, to your
joy and mine.
‘As I was going to St. Peter’s on Thursday, I met Madonna Maddalena Orsini, the
cardinal’s sister, with her daughter, fifteen or sixteen years old. The latter was attired in the
Roman style, with the handkerchief on her head, and appeared to me very beautiful in this
costume, of fair complexion and tall; but as she was veiled, I could not see her so well as I
wished. Yesterday I went to see the aforesaid Monsignore Orsini, who was at his sister’s
house, adjoining his own. When I had spoken to him in your name, his sister entered with
the daughter, who wore a closely-fitting dress, such as the Roman women wear, and was
without kerchief on the head. Our conversation lasted for some time, so that I had
opportunity of looking at her. The girl is, as I have said, above the middle height, of fair
complexion and pleasant manners, and, if less beautiful than our daughters, of great
modesty; so that it will be easy to teach her our manners. She is not blonde, for no one is so
here, and her thick hair has a reddish tinge. Her face is round in shape, but does not
displease me. The neck is beautiful, but rather thin, or, more properly, delicately shaped:
the bosom I could not see, as they cover it entirely here, but it seems to me well-formed.
She does not bear her head so proudly as our girls do, but inclining a little forwards, which
I ascribe to the timidity that seems to predominate in her. Her hands are long and delicate.
On the whole, the girl seems to be far above the ordinary type, but she is not to be
compared to Maria, Lucrezia, and Bianca. Lorenzo has seen her himself, and you can hear
from him whether she pleases him. I am sure that whatever he and you decide will be good.
May God rule it for the best.
‘The girl’s father is Signor Jacopo Orsini of Monterotondo, her mother the cardinal’s
sister. She has two brothers: one has devoted himself to arms, and stands in good repute
with the lord Orso; the other is priest and Papal sub-deacon. They possess the half of
Monterotondo, the other half of which belongs to their uncle, who has two sons and three
daughters. Besides this, three castles belong to them—that is to say, to the brothers of the
girl, and, as far as I hear, they are rich, and likely to be richer. For, not to mention that they
are on their mother’s side nephews of the cardinal, the archbishop, Napoleon, and the
knight, they are on the father’s side cousins in the second degree to these lords, who have a
great affection for them. This is about all that I have learned. If you decide to await our
return before proceeding to other measures, do what seems good to you. I think of leaving
on Monday week, and will write to you on the way. We shall be there at the time fixed.
May God’s grace lead us safely home, and preserve you in health. I do not write to
Madonna Contessina because it seems unnecessary. Recommend me to her, and greet the
girls and Lorenzo and Giuliano.—Your
‘Lucrezia.[163]

‘Rome, March 28, 1467.’

In a letter addressed to Piero shortly before the departure she says, ‘If
you will hear my opinion at my return, I believe you will be satisfied,
especially as the girl pleases Lorenzo. We have not seen her again, and I
know not if we shall; but that does not signify. You say I express myself
coldly; I do so in order to attain the end more certainly, and believe that
there is here no marriageable girl more beautiful.’
The remainder of the year 1467, and the greater part of the following,
was occupied in treaties. In November 1468 Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop
of Pisa, a distant relative of Cosimo’s line, went to Rome, in order to
proceed to a conclusion, and the choice of a high prelate shows in itself
what position the Medici took and meant to maintain towards the
distinguished Romans. Piero’s brother-in-law at last came to an agreement
with the Orsini with respect to the conditions. On November 27, the bride’s
uncle, Cardinal Latino, wrote as follows to Piero de’ Medici:[164]
‘Magnifice vir, affinis tanquam frater carissime, salutem. With great joy
have we ratified what Giovanni Tornabuoni conveyed to us on your behalf.
Thank God, I hope it is concluded for the welfare of your house and ours,
for it is a joy to us old people as well as to the women and young folks. At
Christmas we hope to see our nephew Lorenzo, or at least his brother. We
shall organise festivities, brilliant, or modest, or simple, just as you like and
will inform us, as all our thoughts will only be directed towards carrying
out your wishes. Be assured all that we are and have is at your disposal.
Take care, therefore, to preserve yourselves in health and joy, for you, like
us, can need nothing else.’ On the same day the Archbishop of Pisa wrote to
Piero, to announce to him the conclusion of the contract:[165] Clarice’s
dowry was to amount to six thousand Roman scudi in gold and trousseau.
Should she die childless and without a will, the dowry was to revert to her
family. Otherwise the conditions were drawn up, half according to Roman
and half according to Florentine customs. ‘I was present at the conclusion,
and the compact seems to me honourable and reasonable. You do not need
the possessions of others, and yours remain to you. Illustrious Piero, I
esteem the new relationship very highly, much more that these (the Orsini)
have shown themselves so willing and ready to ally themselves with you.
This must be a great satisfaction to you, which, with God’s permission, will
increase every day for you and us. With a hundred tongues I should not be

able to express my joy to you.’ At the same time the Archbishop begged
him to send the mandate of proxy for the marriage speedily, if Lorenzo
could not come to Rome personally. No announcement had yet been made
to the Pope, but the matter could not long remain a secret, as many, the
Pazzi among others, knew of it.
Neither Lorenzo nor Giuliano went to Rome, and Filippo de’ Medici
represented the former at the marriage. ‘I know not,’ he wrote to him,[166]
‘where I shall begin in order to inform your Magnificence that I have to-day
espoused the noble and illustrious Madonna Clarice degli Orsini in your
name; according to my opinion, a maiden of such physical gifts,
appearance, and manners, that she deserves no other bridegroom than him
whom, I believe, heaven has destined for her. You must thank God for the
protection which he has afforded you in this as in other things depending on
good luck.’ The bride remained for a time with her parents, as was not
unfrequent in such cases. Lorenzo seems to have had the intention of
fetching her, an intention implied by a letter of his mother-in-law addressed
to him at the beginning of March 1469.[167] What hindered him is not
known; that the new relations should have wished to see him in Rome is
very natural. Meanwhile, letters were exchanged between him and his bride.
‘Illustrious consort,’ wrote Clarice on February 25, ‘I have received a letter
from you, which has given me great pleasure, and wherein you inform me
of the tournament at which you won the prize. I am glad you are successful
in what gives you pleasure, and that my prayer is heard, as I have no other
wish than to see you happy. Recommend me to my father Piero and my
mother Lucrezia, and Madonna Contessina, and all who are near to you. At
the same time I recommend myself to you. I have nothing else to add.—
Your Clarice de Ursinis.’ Rinaldo Orsini also congratulated his brother-in-
law on his success in the tournament.
On May 15, 1469, Clarice left Rome, and on her arrival in Florence
lodged at the house of Bernardo degli Alessandri, in the Borgo degli
Albizzi.[168] The marriage festivity was fixed for Sunday, June 4. Two days
before, all the cities and localities of the Florentine territory had sent
presents to the Medici—food, sweetmeats, wine, and wax; among these,
150 calves, and more than two thousand pairs of capons and hens, a kind of
tribute or donation brought to rulers on family festivals and other occasions.
The present was divided between 800 friendly citizens. On the appointed

day Clarice made her entry into the Medicean house; she wore a dress of
brocade, white and gold, with a splendid mantle, after the Florentine
fashion, and rode the horse presented by King Ferrante. Trumpeters and
fifers marched in front, the bridesmen walked beside, and behind rode
Messer Carlo and Messer Tommaso de’ Medici, surrounded by their
servants.
At the house, before which a splendid ball-room was erected in the Via
Larga, thirty richly clad young girls and matrons received the bride, who
was followed by an equal number, escorted by the bridesmen. When they
arrived, an olive-tree was drawn up to the upper windows by a contrivance
similar to that customary on the feast of St. John. Now began the banquet.
The bride and about fifty young matrons dined in the loggia of the garden;
in the colonnades enclosing the courtyard on three sides about seventy of
the most distinguished men; in the hall of the ground floor about thirty-six
young people; and in the hall of the first storey forty elder ladies with
Madonna Lucrezia. On the whole there were about two hundred guests.
Forty youths of good families served as stewards. The dishes were carried
in preceded by trumpets at the large door on the street-side, and the
arrangement was so perfect that they stood at the same moment on every
separate table, the stewards directing the whole with the carvers and
bearers. The number of dishes amounted to fifty, over each of which two
carvers presided. The number of courses was not great, ‘in order to give the
citizens an example of moderation, which must not be forgotten at
weddings.’ At dinner soup, boiled and roast meat, cakes and sweetmeats; in
the evening jelly, roast meat, cakes and sweetmeats. The wines were
Malvasie, the native light and somewhat sharp wine called Trebbiano, and
several very excellent red wines. The quantity of silver plate was moderate,
consisting of spoons, knives, forks, salt-cellars, great bowls for cooling the
wine, and others for washing the hands. In the court, around the column
which bears Donatello’s statue of David, stood four tables covered with
cloths, and upon these great brazen bowls with glasses, and beside these
tables the cellarers, who offered wine and water to those serving at table.
There was a similar arrangement in the garden round the fountain. So on
Sunday, Monday, and on the forenoon of Tuesday, the banquets took place,
in which, on the whole, about four hundred distinguished citizens shared.
Beside these first tables, in the house itself, and at Messer Carlo de’
Medici’s, covers were laid for about a thousand guests, and all respectable

persons who came to offer congratulations found a breakfast ready in the
rooms adjoining the loggia. In the house of Messer Carlo a hundred casks
of wine were daily emptied. Food, sweetmeats, and wine were sent to the
citizens who had a share in the wedding gifts, as well as to several
ecclesiastical orders. The quantity of sweetmeats was calculated at more
than five thousand pounds. The guests assembled in the forenoon, rested for
a time after dinner, and then danced on the boarded floor before the house,
which we have mentioned, the walls of which were hung with embroidered
carpets, and which was covered with large cloths, violet, green, and white,
with the arms of the Medici and Orsini. Before the dance began, the
trumpeters blew, and sweetmeats and wine were served. The weather was
fine with the exception of the Monday, when a sudden shower of rain
disturbed the pleasure and spoiled many a costly dress. When the bride,
early on Tuesday, accompanied by all the bridesmen and bridesmaids, went
to hear mass at San Lorenzo, all appeared in rich new costumes. About fifty
more or less valuable rings were presented to the newly-married pair, with a
silver sweetmeat dish, a piece of brocade, and from Messer Gentile Becchi,
an office of the Madonna of wonderful beauty, golden letters on an
ultramarine ground, with miniatures, and a binding of crystal and silver,
which is said to have cost 200 florins.[169] After divine service on Tuesday
there was a joust of arms, after which Clarice once more rode to the house
of the Alessandri in the same costume which she had worn on Sunday, and
with the same escort.
Thus was the marriage of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice degliOrsini
celebrated. In Lorenzo’s oft-mentioned notices we find the event spoken of
in the following words:—‘I, Lorenzo, took to wife Clarice, the daughter of
the lord Jacopo Orsini, or rather she was given to me, in December 1468,
and I celebrated the marriage in our house on June 4, 1469.’ These words he
wrote some months after the birth of Piero, who came into the world on
February 15, 1471. A daughter had preceded him, for whom King Ferrante
stood sponsor. She was named Lucrezia after the grandmother; it was at the
same time the name of her who was the object of the father’s poetical
homage, years before. Clarice was again about to be a mother when the
above named notice was written. ‘God leave her long in our midst, and
preserve her from all harm.’ The words betray more feeling than the
expressions about the wedding. But we should be mistaken if we regarded
the ‘mi fu data’ as an indication of coldness. It would be a misunderstanding

of the naïveté with which the events of life were judged and spoken of at
the time. Lorenzo de’ Medici saw no harm in simply mentioning the fact, as
it was not only in his case but generally customary, as indeed it still is in
Italy. The parents chose their children-in-law, and choose them still. And his
friends saw as little harm in celebrating the bridegroom and husband of
Clarice Orsini as the poetical admirer of Lucrezia Donati.
In July, Lorenzo, in company with his two brothers-in-law, Guglielmo
de Pazzi and Bernardo Rucellai, the chancellor Bartolommeo Scala, his
former tutor, Gentile Becchi, Francesco Nori, one of the most zealous
adherents of the family, and others, repaired to Milan, to stand sponsor in
his father’s name to the son (born June 20) of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who
had married, in the preceding summer, Bona of Savoy, the daughter of Duke
Louis and Anna of Lusignan, and sister-in-law to King Louis XI.[170] The
child was the unhappy Gian Galeazzo, who was destined to fall a sacrifice
to family intrigues, which the Sforzas had inherited from their predecessors.
Not only the child to whom Lorenzo stood sponsor had an unhappy fate; the
father and mother also experienced vicissitude of fortune. But then all was
brilliant and joyful, and the Medici appeared like princes. ‘I was much
honoured,’ says Lorenzo, ‘more than any of those who had come for the
like purpose, even though they were above me in dignity. In order to do
what was fitting, we presented the duchess with a gold chain and a large
diamond, which had cost about three thousand ducats. The result was that
the duke wished me to stand sponsor to all his children.’[171]
Immediately after his arrival at Milan, Lorenzo had written to Clarice.
The letter[172] is simple, but warm. ‘I have arrived here without any mishap,
and am well. This, I think, will be more welcome to you than any other
news, excepting my return, for so it is with me, who long for you, and wish
to be again with you. Be good company to Piero, Mona Contessina and
Mona Lucrezia. I shall finish my business here quickly and return to you,
for it seems to me a thousand years till I see you again. Pray God for me,
and if you wish for anything from here, let me know it before I depart.—
Your Lorenzo de’ Medici.’ The details wanting in this short letter were
contained at full length in another addressed to Clarice by Gentile Becchi,
enumerating all the civilities shown to Lorenzo during his journey, which
took eight days, from Florence to Milan. Lorenzo de’ Medici had scarcely

returned four months, when the event occurred which placed him at the
head of his family and the State.
‘Piero our father,’ so he writes in his notices, ‘quitted this life on
December 2 (3), 1469, at the age of fifty-three, after long rheumatic
sufferings. He did not wish to make a will, but after his death an inventory
was made which showed an amount of 237,982 scudi, as was proved by the
memoranda made by my hand on p. 32 of our large green parchment-book.
He was interred in San Lorenzo, where we are now erecting a tomb, as
worthy as we can devise, for the reception of the mortal remains and those
of his brother Giovanni. May God grant mercy to their souls. His loss was
sincerely regretted by the whole town, for he was a just man and of great
kindness of heart. The Italian princes, especially the greater ones, consoled
us by letters of condolence and embassies, and offered their assistance for
our protection.’ The funeral procession was simple, as the deceased had
wished it. Three years after his departure, the monument which the son
mentions was set up in San Lorenzo, where it is let into the wall which
separates the sacristy from the sacraments-chapel then dedicated to SS.
Cosmo and Damian. It consists of a tomb of red porphyry, resting on four
lions’ paws on a pedestal, and ornamented at the four corners and on the top
with rich antique foliage and beautifully formed cornucopias of bronze.
This sarcophagus stands in a round arched window niche, enclosed by an
elegant railing, the upper part of which is occupied by net-like bronze
interlacings, with artistically twisted knots. On the front we read in a full
wreath of foliage and flowers, ‘Petro et Johanni de’ Medici Cosmi P.P.F.,’
and on the pedestal ‘Laurent. et Jul. Petri F.’ Andrea del Verrocchio
executed this excellent work, which exceeds in artistic value many more
splendid monuments by its tasteful simplicity.[173]
The opinions of contemporaries and later writers on Piero de’ Medici
are pretty unanimous. Donato Acciaiuoli, then captain of Volterra, wrote
immediately after the event to Lorenzo.[174] ‘When shall we find another so
reasonable in council, so just, true, mild in character, so loving towards
home, relations, friends, so worthy of respect, as your excellent father, who
has been taken from us to our great sorrow. When we see the whole nation
saddened at his loss—the neighbouring towns, ecclesiastics and laymen,
people of every rank—how much must not you, his family, suffer, with
myself and his other intimate friends, for whom the general loss was a

personal one?’ The high character of the man who wrote these words gives
them a higher value than that of an ordinary letter of condolence.
‘Florence,’ says Machiavelli, in the seventh book of the Florentine History,
‘could not perfectly recognise the value and kindness of this man, because
he only survived his father for a few years, and this short time was occupied
by internal difficulties of the State and his own illness.’ In a similar strain
Francesco Guicciardini[175] says: ‘His death saddened the whole town on
account of his reasonable and mild disposition. Of his zeal for the common
good he gave proof in 1466, for he punished only where it was necessary,
and would have proceeded still more cautiously had not many of his
partizans urged him on.’ To these opinions we can add that of a man in
whom the Medicean family traditions of the older time still lived, which he
had known through his parents, Alessandri de Pazzi, Piero’s grandson. ‘He
was,’ so speaks he of his grandfather,[176] ‘rather a good man and anxious
for the good of all than the head of a party. Unfortunately, he was much
troubled with rheumatism, and for some time nearly lamed by it. It thus
chanced that his position was endangered in 1466. Not only were several
friends from Cosimo’s time already dead, but fresh accessions to their
number was small, because the Medici did not take so much pains to
conciliate as formerly.’
That Piero’s relation to the distinguished and influential members of his
party was not that of his father is evident. If his character had been
different, his health stronger, and his action prompter, he would still have
not attained to Cosimo’s authority, the fruit of many years’ experience and
unusually favourable circumstances. It had even been difficult for Cosimo,
with all his skill and activity, to attach permanently to him men who only
acknowledged his supremacy because it was for their interest to do so. ‘In
Florence,’ says Francesco Guicciardini,[177] ‘the citizens love equality by
nature, and yield unwillingly when they should acknowledge anyone as
their superior. Besides this, our head men are restless and active, so that the
few who guide affairs do not understand each other; and in the desire to
surpass each other, one draws in one direction and one in the other, whence
it naturally follows that the guidance is uncertain. This disinclination to the
preponderance of others has for its result, that on the slightest occasion the
existing government falls into ruin. For as the greatness of others displeases
all who do not belong to their circle, so it cannot exist if it has not a sure
foundation. But where shall this sure foundation be, when they who have

the power in their hands at this minute are disunited?’ If we could give full
credit to Machiavelli, Piero de’ Medici, uneasy at the increasing
arbitrariness of his own partisans, after the failure of the conspiracy of
1466, and urged by his conscience, was only prevented by his death from
attempting to neutralise the influence of his overpowerful friends. In order
to cover his responsibility, as he was no longer able to restrain their
ambition and covetousness, he had called them to him in order to represent
to them into what danger they brought the commonwealth by their
appropriation of all offices and honourable positions, as well as by the
heavy pressure exercised on all the citizens. As his representations availed
nothing, he determined to put himself into communication with the
moderate among the opponents who were living in exile, and Messer
Agnolo Acciaiuoli, the calmest and most reasonable of all, was secretly
summoned to his country-seat, Cafaggiuolo, in order to consult with him.
Had he lived longer, he would have recalled the exiles in order to put an end
to the system of plunder of the prevailing party. It is as doubtful whether
this information be correct as it is uncertain, in the peculiar position of the
political parties, whether a measure of this kind, the carrying out of which
would have dissolved the prevailing Medicean faction, would have been
possible without a deep and dangerous convulsion. The Medici were too
firmly united to their party to separate from it so easily, and to ally
themselves with those who had just threatened to ruin them by conspiracy
and war.[178]
Placed between a celebrated father and a more celebrated son, Piero de’
Medici, who did not guide the State much above five years, stands
necessarily in the shade. But it would be a mistake to believe that he was
despised. The respect which so practised a politician as King Ferrante
constantly showed him was not caused by interested motives only. In the
Colleonic war, only Naples and Florence were united, and Piero had
actively influenced this good understanding: but for him the distrust
awakened in the councils by the backward preparations of the Neapolitans
would have prevailed.[179] The king attached great importance to Piero’s
approval, and repeatedly commissioned his ambassador as well as his son
never to act otherwise than according to his opinion and sensible advice.
When Alfonso of Calabria joined the army in August 1467 (when there was
nothing more to do), he wrote to him as follows: ‘If it appear fitting to the
illustrious Piero that you go to Florence, we would remind you that you

have to employ all industry and zeal, and to take all pains to do honour to
yourself, and to appear a son worthy of us. Set all your ingenuity to work by
means of expressions of kindness and politeness, such as are due to the
friendship which the illustrious Florentine people has concluded with
us.’[180] Beside Piero, the Duke was especially to consult Messer Tommaso
Soderini and Antonio Ridolfi, and adapt himself so to the wishes of the
Florentine government as if they were the commands of his royal father.

CHAPTER V.

HOME AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN THE EARLY YEARS OF
LORENZO’S GOVERNMENT.

‘On the second day after my father’s death,’ so we read in Lorenzo de’
Medici’s memoirs, ‘the most distinguished men of the State and of the
ruling party came to our house to express their condolence, and at the same
time to request me to undertake the conduct of affairs in the city and
government, as my father and grandfather had done. As such a
responsibility seemed too great for my inexperience (I was only twenty-
one), and involved so much labour and so many dangers, I accepted it
unwillingly and only for the sake of our friends and fortune, for those who
are shut out from political influence have a bad position in Florence.
Hitherto (the beginning of 1471) all has succeeded to the general honour
and satisfaction, not in consequence of my wisdom, but by God’s grace and
by reason of the wise measures of my predecessors.’
These words show clearly how the matter stood, and justify the opinion
which Francesco Guicciardini[181] puts into the mouth of one of his
interlocutors. ‘The government of the Medici,’ says Bernardo del Nero,
‘was a party government, usurped by the party, preserved by tyranny,
neither violent nor cruel, except in a few cases in which they were
constrained by necessity, but founded upon the policy of favouring the
lower classes, uniting the interests of the stronger with their own interests,
and suppressing all who seemed inclined to go their own way. As the power
passed from father to son, the memory of ancient rivalry and enmity lived
on. The Medici had always more their private advantage at heart than the
general good. But as they had neither any position nor Signoria abroad,
their interest was generally one with that of the commonwealth, whose
glory and fame were likewise theirs. But even with so keen-sighted a man
as Lorenzo, such a position might easily lead to errors, and we shall see
what mistakes he did make in important cases to the great disadvantage of

the State, either by allowing himself to be carried away by passion or by
regarding only his personal position and advantage, always under the
pretext that his greatness and that of his family was necessary to the
common good.
Lorenzo had taken so large a share in the conduct of affairs in his
father’s last years, and displayed such capabilities, that we need not be
surprised if, after the authority of the Medici had been acknowledged now
for two generations, all eyes should have been directed towards him,
notwithstanding his youth, which excluded him from offices of State.
Without an understanding between the heads of the party, however, he
could not have been offered the responsible position of which he has told
us. Piero had, on his death-bed, recommended his two sons to his brother-
in-law, Tommaso Soderini, on whose prudence and attachment he placed
great reliance. Since Tommaso had essentially contributed to save the cause
of the Medici in the conspiracy of 1466, he had been in constant activity.
He had not been able to persuade the Venetians to hinder Colleone’s
proceedings, but, as member of the magistracy of war, and during the fourth
year that he was elected Gonfaloniere in 1467, he had exercised a
favourable influence on the conduct of affairs, and honestly exerted himself
for the restoration of peace with Borso d’Este, first in Venice and afterwards
in Milan. The opinion of him was so high in Florence that he could easily
have raised himself to the leadership of the ruling party. But whether it was
that he would not betray the confidence reposed in him, or that he was of
opinion that the preservation of this family in the position they had held
now for thirty-five years was at the same time the preservation of the peace
and safety of the State at home, as well as of its connections with foreign
states, he abstained from following Diotisalvi Neroni’s example.
Immediately after Piero’s death, on the evening of the day when he had
been interred, Soderini summoned to him all the distinguished citizens
attached to the existing government. More than six hundred, ‘the flower of
the city,’ assembled in the convent of Sant’Antonio, in the neighbourhood
of Porta Faenza. It was here determined to preserve unity and the present
state of affairs, and to leave Piero’s sons in their father’s position. ‘Messer
Tommaso Soderini,’ writes the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘took the word as
eldest, and explained how Piero had left his sons already grown up and
gifted with good judgment and intellect. Out of regard for their
predecessors, and especially Cosimo and Piero, who had always been

friends, protectors, and preservers of the commonwealth and benefactors of
the State, for which reason they had taken the first rank and borne the whole
weight of government wisely and with dignity, always displaying courage
and mature judgment, it seemed to him that they should leave to Piero’s
family and sons, notwithstanding their youth, the honourable position which
he himself and Cosimo had enjoyed. He added that he saw the two no less
considerate and desirous of winning the good opinion of the commune, and
of all the Florentine citizens, than their grandfather and father. This was
confirmed by three or four of those present, by Messer Manno, son-in-law
of Messer Luca Pitti, who was not himself present, by Messer Giannozzo
Pitti, and Domenico Martelli. The last two remarked that a master and a
head was needed to give the casting-vote in public affairs.[182] The whole
city,’ adds Guicciardini, ‘agreed to this, chiefly through the exertions of
Messer Tommaso Soderini, who at that time enjoyed more authority than
any other citizen, and was, perhaps, the wisest of all. He thought that
Lorenzo, on account of his youth, and because he owed his position to him,
so to speak, would allow himself to be guided by him; in this, however, he
was mistaken.’[183]
That Lorenzo considered the favourable opinion of himself as by no
means sufficient to secure his authority, shows on the one hand how he,
young as he was, had sounded the unsteady basis on which the whole fabric
of the State rests in a commonwealth of this kind, and on the other hand,
how his thoughts were immediately directed to gaining a position no longer
dependent upon internal agitation, such as had disturbed his grandfather’s
administration and endangered the life of his father. A report of the
Ferrarese ambassador plainly shows how the heads of the ruling party
hoped to conduct affairs after Piero’s death. ‘They are agreed that the
private affairs of the Signoria shall pass through Lorenzo’s hands in the
same manner as previously through those of his father, for which purpose
his friends will take care to procure him credit and reputation from the
beginning. They can easily do so, for they have the government in their
hands, and the ballot-boxes at their disposal. Others with whom I have
spoken are of a different opinion, and think that within a few days all affairs
will again be disposed of in the palace (i.e. by the magistrates themselves).
If, however, they guide the bark rightly at the beginning, and while they can
influence the election of the magistrates, I believe they will reach the
desired haven, for the philosopher says, “Principium est plus quam

dimidium totius.”’ The ambassador was right; he could not, however,
foresee the measure of Lorenzo’s personal share in this gradual change of a
republican constitution into one that was guided by the will of a single man.
He had scarcely attained the head of the State when he began the work
which he brought to a termination ten years later, after the violent storm
which had threatened his life.
The deliberation of September 6, 1466, had placed the election of the
highest magistrates for ten years in the hands of electors appointed by the
Council of a Hundred. The heads of the party were accustomed to decide
upon the names of these electors in an extraordinary meeting, and to lay
them before the said council, which usually accepted them without further
scruple, since only those not unfavourable to the party, even if they did not
belong to its actual partizans, sat in this council. Sometimes, however, it
occurred that the candidates were not all accepted, so that anxiety arose in
the minds of Lorenzo and his confidants lest electors disagreeable to them
might some day be appointed, and their influence over the Signoria and
other high magistrates be thus limited. This seemed serious to them.
However large, too, and constantly increasing an authority might be which
was independent of the responsible magistrates forming the fabric of the
State, the respect for forms was equally great, and is indeed a characteristic
feature of these Italian communes; and their endeavour was to give to
measures which gradually destroyed the spirit of the constitution the
appearance of legality. In the summer of 1470, the Signoria, which was
entirely subject to the Medici, made the first attempt in this direction. They
proposed to the Council of a Hundred to form out of all the electors from
the year 1434 who were still living, forty in number, and five new ones, a
College of Electors. From this for the next sixteen years five might be
annually drawn, with power to appoint the Signori and Gonfaloniere out of
the lists or ballot-boxes containing the names of the citizens capable of
office. The opposition to a measure which would have placed forty-five
tyrants over the people was, however, so strong that the Signoria judged it
advisable to withdraw the proposal. Six months later, in January 1471,
something similar was, nevertheless, carried out. Instead of leaving the
electors to be appointed by the Council of a Hundred, the Signoria sitting in
July and August, together with the electors acting for the current year,
agreed that they should appoint the new ones, the Council of a Hundred
only confirm them, and a single voice above the half of the members

present should give the casting-vote, whereas a majority of two-thirds of
voices had previously been requisite. The same thing happened in the
following July, and when the votes were collected it naturally followed that
only the names of persons considered reliable came upon the electing
tickets, so that the threads of the whole administration were more than ever
confined to a few hands. Immediately after Piero de’ Medici’s death, under
the plausible pretext that the war occasioned by the Malatesta affair was not
yet at an end, an extraordinary tax of 300,000 gold florins was levied, so
that the government was provided with funds for all emergencies.
‘By such measures,’ remarks Francesco Guicciardini, ‘Lorenzo de’
Medici began to gain firm footing in Florence. The prevailing party
strengthened itself, and he obtained influence and reputation. So he began
to wish to be lord and master. Instead of allowing himself to be guided by
others, he took care that Messer Tommaso and the others who enjoyed high
influence, and had a large number of relations to support them, should not
become too strong. Although he never refused to send them on embassies,
and confer on them the highest honours and offices, he held them within
bounds, frustrated their intentions in several cases, and brought forward
others who caused him no anxiety, as at first Messer Bernardo
Buongirolami and Antonio Pucci, afterwards Messer Agnolo Niccolini,
Bernardo del Nero, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, &c. He was accustomed to say
that if his father had done so, and somewhat restrained Messer Diotisalvi
and his companions, he would not have been in danger of losing his
position in 1466.’ Another measure was taken with the evident intention of
withdrawing the government of the city by degrees from all other influences
than those of the Medici and their confidants. This time it concerned the
lower classes, as that just mentioned did the higher. On September 20,
1471, the Balia appointed in July to superintend the new elections, reduced
the number of smaller guilds from fourteen to five, so that there should be
altogether only twelve guilds; but the property of the dissolved corporations
should serve to form a new credit-fund for the salaries of the officials. But
this measure, which had a wider significance than people seemed inclined
to attribute to it in the first moment, was never carried into practice.[184]
When Piero died, foreign affairs were by no means secure. The dispute
about Rimini was not terminated. Pope Paul II. was extremely indignant at
the assistance which Florence and Naples had given his disobedient vassal,
and by means of which this vassal had been able to oppose him

successfully. He indulged in the most violent expressions against the
Medici, even before the assembled Consistorium. His rage against Ferrante
even led to action. The old quarrel between Rome and Naples on account of
the feudal relation injurious to both, but still legal, had also come to an
outbreak between Ferrante and Paul. The king did not pay the tribute, and,
when enjoined to do so, was always ready with one excuse or another. Now
it was the embarrassment into which troubles at home had plunged him,
now it was the expenses for the aid granted to the Church in the contest
with the restless counts of Anguillara. If pressed, he answered by claiming
Benevento and Terracina and places in the Abruzzi, claims which were not
always unfounded, in consequence of the complicated and wavering
connections of the empire with the Church. At last, when all seemed to be
peacefully settled, a quarrel broke out between the Pope and the Orsini, on
account of the rights claimed by the latter over the Alum district of Tolfa,
which Paul had contested with force of arms, while the king defended them
in like manner. It went so far that Ferrante threatened to league himself with
the Turks; the Pope, however, answered him by not only threatening to
drive him from Naples, but by actually planning a new campaign against
the Aragonese with John of Anjou. This happened just after the affair with
Malatesta had ended, and who knows what intrigues would have been
begun, had not the war of the Catalans against the Aragonese, in which
Anjou commanded, occupied him till a higher hand interfered?
Under circumstances of this kind, the necessity of attaching themselves
as firmly as possible to Naples and Milan was made clear to the people of
Florence, and as long as Lorenzo lived this necessity always remained
uppermost with him, even through momentary fluctuations. The conviction
that no firm reliance was to be placed upon the two other great powers of
Italy, Venice and the Pope, made the Florentines regard such an alliance as
the salvation of Italy. Venice could not be trusted because her thirst for
Italian conquest was proportionate to the danger of her Levantine
possessions; nor the Pope, because the papal policy changed with every
new ruler, nay, it altered several times under the same ruler. When the Pope,
displeased with the Venetians, began to lean towards reconciliation, these
natural allies determined to agree beforehand on the position to assume
towards him. Plenipotentiaries from Naples and Milan came in the spring of
1470 to Florence for this purpose. But when difficulties arose, the
consultation was transferred to Naples, whither Otto Niccolini went on

behalf of Florence. On July 12 the news reached Florence that the alliance
between the three states was prolonged for fifteen years, reserving the
power of bringing about a general alliance of the Italian powers beside this
special one—a piece of news which was celebrated with festivals and
bonfires. It was indeed high time to unite. On the same July 12, the Turks
took Negroponte. The besiegers suffered severe losses, but they avenged
themselves by a fearful slaughter among the inhabitants and the garrison,
and the Venetians had to expiate heavily their neglect in defending one of
their most important fortresses. On August 7, they heard of the sad event
through an announcement of King Ferrante’s. From all sides unity was now
urged, in order to resist the formidable enemy, before whom the whole
Archipelago, the Ionian Sea, and the entrance to the Adriatic, lay open. The
Pope summoned an assembly of plenipotentiaries of all the Italian States to
Rome, while at the same time he determined to compose the Malatesta
contest by mediation. To effect an understanding was, however, difficult,
because the three powers reserved their separate alliance, and Paul
consented to this very unwillingly. Nevertheless, the treaty was concluded
at Rome on December 22, express emphasis being laid on the article that
the new league should rest on the basis of that which had been agreed upon
at Venice at the end of August 1454, by the active mediation of Pope
Nicholas V., when the conquest of Constantinople had first brought the
threatened danger home to all. During the seventeen years which had
elapsed since then, affairs had only grown worse. The Pope, the King of
Naples, the Duke of Milan, the Republics of Venice and Florence, and
Borso of Este, to whom the title of Duke of Ferrara had not long been
granted, joined the alliance, which was to be extended over all
Christendom, for which purpose Paul II. appointed the Cardinal of Siena,
Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, as legate to the Emperor and Empire.
Jacopo Guicciardini had concluded the treaty on the part of Florence.
But this time also the result by no means corresponded to the general
expectation. Sforza did not ratify the treaty, because the purport of the
document did not suit his wishes in some important particulars. Although
the Signoria of Florence sent in their ratification, Guicciardini suppressed it,
because Lorenzo de’ Medici, who wished to hold with Milan, had given him
secret instructions not to sign, so that things remained unsettled. In
Germany and Hungary, where the Pope and Venice placed their chief hopes
on King Mathias Corvinus, it was not much better. After the sanguinary

Bohemian war, which the latter had waged against George Podiebrad, had
weakened their strength on both sides, and the Turks, pressing on from
Bosnia through Croatia and Carniola, had already set foot on the soil of the
empire, and roused Emperor Frederick from his sleep, still nothing could be
really effected by the Ratisbon Congress in the spring of 1471. As the
princes here were dilatory and the towns disinclined for action, quarrels
began anew in Italy. Not to mention the contest between Pope and King,
disagreeable communications passed between the former and Florence. The
Florentines were willing indeed to furnish subsidies for the Turkish war, but
insisted upon including the clergy in the taxes, which the Pope refused to
permit.
While this was proceeding, Paul II. died in the night between July 25
and 26, not fifty-four years old, and apparently in the enjoyment of perfect
health. At a time when Christendom was everywhere torn by factions and
threatened from without, when Italy saw herself exposed to the attacks of
the infidels, as in the ninth century, the unity of her states being always
problematical, the election of a Pope was of more importance than ever.
Shortly before, several princes had passed away who had exercised more or
less influence on the course of affairs—George Podiebrad, King of
Bohemia, Borso of Este, John of Anjou, who concluded a life more eventful
than successful at Barcelona, having only attained the age of forty-five
years, and carrying with him to the grave the hopes of his old father René,
and of his house. In him, a still numerous party in the south of Italy lost
their head; yet they could not make up their minds to give in their
allegiance decidedly to the Aragonese government, which seemed daily to
grow stronger by its activity, talents, and alliances.

CHAPTER VI.

POSITION AND CONNECTIONS OF THE MEDICI.

The house of Medici seemed to be blind to the gravity of the situation, to
judge by their outward behaviour. The days were passed when an
experienced man like Cosimo weighed everything with anxious
deliberation, and was afraid to show how high he stood in city and State, or
when his son was led to a retired life by illness and inclination. A young
man, brilliant, talented, self-conscious, early called into active life, and who
had grown up in a prominent position, stood at the head of the State, and
was determined to enjoy life. A second was growing up, perhaps less gifted,
but yet a genuine son of a house in which intellectual capacities and the
wish not to hide his light under a bushel already appeared hereditary,
powerful, splendid, a born leader of youth. It was only natural that the
youth of Florence thronged around Lorenzo and Giuliano. The house and
household in the Via Larga were already grown beyond the modesty of the
citizen. The large income of the family derived from banks, trade, farming,
estates, made great expenditure possible; and if expenses of the most
various kinds, for public and private ends, perhaps began to exceed the
income, no one troubled himself about that. Lorenzo once expressed
himself concerning the considerable sums which were expended, especially
in his grandfather’s time, for churches and convents, for houses and villas,
on scientific and artistic objects, for household and social expenses, in such
a manner as to show how high he placed the gain resulting from it. ‘I find,’
he says in his notices,[185] in an extract of the accounts, ‘that we have spent
a large sum of money from 1434 to the end of 1471. This sum appears
incredible; it amounts to 663,755 gold florins for benevolent purposes,
buildings and taxes, not to mention the other expenses. I will not complain

of it. Although many may think it would be better for us to have a part of it
in our purse, I feel satisfied that this outlay does great honour to our
position, and the money is well spent, so that I am quite content.’ No house
in Florence was furnished with objects of art, antiquities, and luxury like
that of the Medici. When princes arrived in Florence for whom the quarters
of the popes in the convent of Sta. Maria Novella seemed too austere, or
when illustrious ladies came on a visit, they generally alighted at the house
of the Medici. In Florence men were accustomed to see them do the
honours; the Signoria needed only to provide for the suite, which was then
exceedingly numerous, even with princes of the second rank.
Of Lorenzo’s daily intercourse with scholars and artists, and of their
share in his domestic life, we shall speak further on. A learned education
was, however, so common in Florence, and the citizens, who divided their
time between commerce, State business, and literary or scientific pursuits,
were so numerous, that beside those who made learning their calling as
teachers, authors, collectors, there existed a whole class of men whose
learning, especially in ancient literature, was as profound, while their views
were much widened by active business life, and by missions that carried
them beyond the narrower circle of the philologists and book-learned. Many
of these have been already mentioned; others we shall meet hereafter.
Nearly all belonged to the Medicean circle. It is evident that from such a
centre a powerful influence must be exercised over the whole of society. It
also contributed to raise Lorenzo into the princely position which he
assumed more and more, and to establish him there. It effected also at the
same time the dissemination of that higher culture, the combination of
intellectual with material interests, which have spread a glory which cannot
be pronounced deceptive over a state of things which had its dark side, and
over tendencies which were dangerous in many ways.
The Italian princes had already accustomed themselves to reckon the
Medici among their own class. The greater ones regarded them almost as
their equals, while the smaller ones looked up to them. Great and small, the
Aragonese and Sforza not excepted, needed Florentine money, and knew
that they could not obtain it without their intervention, either from the State
or from the banks. Even the Medici did not always succeed in obtaining
grants from the State; as in the spring of 1471, when a loan requested by
King Ferrante of 20,000 gold florins, not a very large sum, was not granted,
on account of the opposition of the Gonfaloniere Bardo Corsi, who drew

upon himself thereby the ill-will of those in power. This, however, was an
exceptional occurrence. Most of the petty princes and Signori depended on
the protection of the Republic, as we have said, or took mercenary service
under her, so that they naturally sought to retain the favour of the heads of
the Government. From all sides and in affairs of every kind,
recommendations, proposals, requests and representations were sent to
Lorenzo and his brother.[186] Most numerous of all are the letters of
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who never ceased to address to Lorenzo
recommendations for the transfer of offices which were filled by foreign
nobles. When the command of the Milanese troops was granted to the
Marquis of Montferrat at the beginning of 1474, he hastened to notify it to
Florence. ‘I consider it my duty to inform Your Magnificences of the
matter, as I am convinced that you take interest in all pleasant and
honourable things which befall me, as becomes the fraternal sympathy and
friendship which have always existed between us.’ When the same marquis
sends his seneschal and councillor, Pietro de Tebaldeschi, to Rome, he
recommends him to the Medici. Ercole of Este and his consort, Lodovico,
Federigo, Rodolfo Gonzaga, Leonello Pio of Carpi, Jacopo Appiani, the
Sanseverini, with King René and his son, Duke John, all turn to the Medici;
King Edward IV. of England applies to them in mercantile affairs;
Ferdinand of Aragon and Sicily recommends to them a nobleman who had
conducted the administration of Corsica, and who wished to be Podestà in
Florence. Numerous are the letters of Federigo of Montefeltro, whether they
concern the settlement of his pecuniary affairs, or his recommendation to
offices, or the like. ‘I know well,’ he writes in a letter addressed in April
1476 to Lorenzo, on behalf of M. Francesco da Sassatello, ‘that it is
unnecessary to recommend to you such as your friends and servants,
especially when I also am interested in them.’
Most numerous of all, however, are the communications with King
Ferrante and his family, after the year 1471. There are requests of every
kind, recommendations of Florentine merchants settled in Naples, or Jews
from Nola and Salerno, imprisoned in Florence, for whose loyalty the king
pledges himself. We find also intercessions for Madonna Selvaggia, wife of
Piero Gambacorta, of the family who formerly ruled in Pisa, but had
removed to Florence on account of a lawsuit; for Raffaello Acciaiuoli,
Agnolo’s son, who, like his father, was sentenced to banishment in
consequence of Diotisalvi Neroni’s conspiracy, for the Abbot of St. Paul’s at

Rome, and for numerous Neapolitans, who had interests or business in the
territory of the Republic. ‘If we,’ writes the king to Lorenzo on July 12,
1476, ‘wish to obtain any kind of favour from the illustrious Republic, we
long for no other mediator and representative than Your Magnificence, as
your great authority is known to us, and we have always known by
experience how readily you fulfil our wishes.’ In September 1473, Ferrante
begs him to charge his business correspondents in Lyons and Vienne to
forward the despatches of the Neapolitan ambassador at the court of King
Louis XI. with their own communications. And so one letter follows
another. The same relations continued with the king’s sons, especially the
two eldest, Alfonso and Federigo. We have already spoken of the personal
connections of both with Lorenzo, and their repeated meetings; their
epistolary correspondence answered to this friendly relation, and the sons
added their recommendations to their father’s.
The Duchess of Calabria, Ippolita Maria, always counted on the
friendship which united the Medici with the house of Sforza. That
intellectual and highly cultivated woman who once greeted Pope Pius II. at
the Congress of Mantua with a Latin speech, always kept up
communication with Lorenzo. Even in the lifetime of Piero de’ Medici, in
1468, when she, three years after her marriage with the Aragonese prince,
was on a visit to Milan, she was already corresponding with Lorenzo, and
recommended to him a knight well known to her for the office of Podestà in
Florence. In 1473 she wrote to him concerning Florentine merchants who
had had a great quantity of coarse woollen cloth (it was called Perpignano
after the town where this kind was first made) woven at Capua, and sought
permission to import it. On March 8, 1478, shortly therefore after the
outbreak of the eventful dissensions of which we shall speak in the course
of this history, she interceded with Lorenzo for the liberation from prison of
Lorenzo Cavalcanti, a man of an old noble family, describing to him the
poverty and distress of his family. Four years before, she had requested of
him a loan; her letter is a characteristic proof of the position which the
citizen and banker held towards the princes, to whose circle he indeed
belonged without the external insignia. ‘Illustrious and mighty and
paternally respected lord,’ so wrote Ippolita Maria d’Aragona Visconti on
July 10, 1474, from the Castle of Capuano, then the residence of the
Neapolitan heir-apparent,’the old existing kindness and intimate friendship
between the family of Your Magnificence and our late illustrious parents,

and your especial affection for our most illustrious brother, the Duke of
Milan, assure us, and fill us with the certain hope, that you will support us
in our great embarrassment, for which we shall ever owe you gratitude. We
beg you, therefore, to lend us 2,000 ducats gratis for a time to be fixed by
yourself, we promising its punctual repayment on the word of an
honourable woman (“a fede de leale madama”). For the sake of the
affection that Your Magnificence cherishes for us, as well as the dear
remembrance of our parents, and your friendly relations with our brother,
we hope that you will readily fulfil our request. Should you, however, not
have the sum ready to hand, we beg you to use your influence with your
friends and adherents to procure it for us. As deposit we will send some of
our jewellery corresponding in value to the sum mentioned, and be ever
grateful to you for this service, according to our own character and our
hereditary custom. When Your Magnificence sends the sum we will deliver
the jewels to the messenger, or send a special messenger to you with them,
in case you should prefer it. So we beg you to send a kind and speedy
answer by the messenger who brings this, and recommend ourselves to you
as always ready for your service.’ We shall speak further of later
communications between the Duchess and Lorenzo, who received perfumed
waters from the Castle of Capuano.
If the Neapolitan Crown-Princess thus wrote, it is no wonder that one of
the victims of Mohammedan conquest and Christian feud which the East
then sent to Italy, Caterina, Queen of Bosnia—the most unhappy of queens
(‘omnium reginarum infortunatissima’), as she called herself—adopted a
yet humbler tone. From Rome, where the unfortunate princess had found
refuge in 1466, and, like so many princely exiles before and after, lived by
the Pope’s support, till, after twelve years, she was buried in Sta. Maria
Araceli, she turned on January 28, 1472, to Lorenzo and Giuliano, with
whom she had already been in communication for two years. The Medici
bank in Rome was charged with the payment of her annual pension; she
begged for cash, instead of being obliged, as frequently happened, to take
payment in kind. She also appealed to old connections of the Medici with
her family, which might have been through the mediation of Mathias
Corvinus, and to the universally famed magnanimity of the brothers, which
befitted their position. At the same time she recommended herself and her
interests to their mother, ‘the illustrious lady whom she loved as a sister’—

expressions which the Duchess of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti Sforza, had
employed seven years before in a letter to Madonna Lucrezia.
While Italian and other princes stood on this footing with the Medici,
their clients must have been numerous in Florence itself. It is a proof of the
tact with which they understood how to manage their fellow-citizens, that
while making use of them they never forgot their equality of rank, but
treated them as confidants as well as friends. In the first rank of these was
Luigi Pulci, whom we have already known as court-poet and protégé of
their mother. In the autumn of 1470 he accompanied Madonna Lucrezia to
Fuligno, from whence he proceeded to Camerino, lying in the mountains
between Umbria and the border land, to execute a commission given him by
Lorenzo to Giulio Cesare Varano, lord of the little town and state. The
Varani had risen in the latter times of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and had
gradually, as usual, by the administration of civil offices, attained a lordship
restricted by the church, and often endangered by quarrels and
insurrections. From the fourteenth century they had repeatedly entered the
Neapolitan service.
In the Malatesta war, the lord of Camerino had fought on the Papal side;
he had an intention of breaking with the Florentines. When Lorenzo sent
Luigi Pulci to him, with what commission is not known, he received him
with the greatest deference. ‘He assured me,’ wrote Pulci to his patron,[187]
‘that there was no one in all Italy for whom he would do what he would for
you. Your father had once procured him a Florentine condotta, and he was
much indebted to yourself.’
From Umbria the poet and man of business repaired to Naples,
proclaiming on the way, as he writes, ‘from Monterotondo, and in Rome
and Bracciano and wherever there were Orsini, the wonders of Madonna
Clarice, so that her picture will be hung up everywhere.’ When Lorenzo
needed a man of heart and tongue to be with the king and duke, he might
rely upon him. ‘All the world speaks here of you, your position, your
demeanour, and holds you and us in high honour. In especial, you are a
favourite of the king.’ The king sent Lorenzo two beautiful horses, and a
third to Guglielmo de’ Pazzi; the Duke of Calabria wished much that the
Medici would set up a bank in Naples, like the Strozzi, &c. True, Florentine
affairs were not quite satisfactory. ‘They are arming here with all their
might against the Turks, but the ambassador of the king announces that little

assistance is to be expected from you. I hope God may convert you during
this Lent, and that you also may wish to be Christians’ (1471). But more
serious affairs ensued. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, of whom more will be said
presently, tried to use his familiarity with Lorenzo to obtain his assistance in
a treacherous attack on the lord of Piombino, and it is not to Lorenzo’s
honour that he consented to give it. The intrigue failed, but it created
discontent both at Naples and at Venice. The intimacy between the Duke of
Milan and the Medici continued. In the month of March 1471, Galeazzo
Maria paid a visit to his Florentine friends. He was in every way dissimilar
to his father, who had been fully acquainted with the serious side of life
before attaining to sovereignty over a large city. As he was of a coarse
sensual nature, and regarded neither right nor law where it concerned the
gratification of his desires, so he also showed a childish love of pomp and
splendour, even far beyond his means and those of his country, although he
oppressed the inhabitants with taxes. However much we must guard
ourselves in judging of the luxury and expenses of former days, from giving
implicit faith to the complaints of contemporaries (the Milanese
complained, for instance, of the heavy burden laid upon them by the paving
of the streets), yet the details which we possess respecting Galeazzo Maria’s
and his consort’s journey to Florence, show that all reasonable measure was
exceeded. Never had Florence witnessed similar pomp. The duke’s suite
was endless. Vassals and councillors accompanied him, all clothed in gold
and silver cloth, and with numerous servants, the courtiers in velvet and
brocade, the chamberlains in rich embroidery, forty of them with gold
chains of honour, the least of which was worth a hundred gold florins. Fifty
grooms appeared in costumes of cloth of silver, partly of silk brocade; even
the kitchen-boys glittered in velvet and silk; fifty war-horses with saddles of
gold brocade, gilded stirrups and silk embroidered bridles, each one led by
a groom in rich livery with the Sforza-Visconti arms on his doublet. The
guard was formed of a hundred heavily-armed knights, each with the rank
of captain, and 500 select foot. No less splendid was the suite of the
Duchess Bona. Fifty palfreys with gold and silver saddles and trappings
were led by richly clad pages; twelve transport waggons, with coverings of
gold brocade, adorned with coats-of-arms, contained mattresses and
cushions covered with crimson silk and gold embroidery, and were brought
over the mountains by mules. The entire suite needed 2,000 horses and 200
mules, whose drivers wore new liveries. On all sides only gold and silver

cloth, velvet and silk, were to be seen. The ducal party was followed by a
numerous troop of hunters, with dogs, falcons, sparrowhawks, forty
trumpeters and pipers, musicians and merrymakers. The cost of the
equipment was calculated at 200,000 gold florins. No emperor had travelled
as did the son of a condottiere of Romagna, who called himself duke of the
Imperial fief of Milan, in defiance of the powerless emperor and empire.
When the procession approached the Porta San Gallo—it was on March
15—many distinguished men and youths went to meet it, accompanied by
various bands of young men in various costumes, with women and maidens
singing songs in praise of the eminent guests. The duke rode in front, the
duchess slightly behind him, and on they went through the crowded and
decorated streets to the square of the Signoria, who awaited them at the
Ringhiera, in company with many illustrious citizens. When the duke drew
near he dismounted, while his consort did the same, and the Signori, the
Gonfaloniere, Gino Capponi, Neri’s son at their head, came to meet him,
and all gave one another their hand. The Gonfaloniere said a few words
bidding them welcome, which Galeazzo Maria answered, upon which the
ducal pair mounted again, and the Signori returned to the palace. The new-
comers now rode to the church of the Annunziata, to perform their
devotions in the chapel built by Piero de’ Medici, and from thence by the
square of San Marco to Via Larga, where they were lodged in the house of
the Medici. They had chosen to reside here, while their suite was provided
for in the city, and entertained at the public cost, which was no trifle.
Whatever splendour Sforza might be accustomed to, he was yet astonished
at the immense wealth of the house where he lodged—at the number of
paintings, sculptures, antiques, and the large and rare vases and other
objects of precious kinds of stone, partly from distant countries, at the
medals, carved stones, jewels, rare and rich manuscripts—in short, at a
quantity of things he had never seen before in such abundance, as he
confessed. Everyone flocked to do the guests honour, and as Galeazzo
Maria showed himself friendly and conciliating, displayed great liberality,
remembering the long-standing connection of his father with the city and
the Medici, and had enjoined his followers to avoid everything which could
excite displeasure, affairs went off to the general satisfaction.
On the day after his arrival the duke made a visit of ceremony to the
Signoria, accompanied by many distinguished citizens, after having
announced himself, and expressed the wish to meet the most illustrious men

of the State. The Signori went across the Piazza to meet him, and escorted
him into the festively decorated council-hall, where all took their places,
Galeazzo Maria beside the Gonfaloniere. The Duke now spoke in detail of
recent events, explained and justified his conduct at and after the conclusion
of the general confederacy, offered to maintain the number of troops for the
Republic which she had bound herself to keep up, and declared his
readiness to go with the Florentine people in everything. On the following
day the Signori repaired with him to the house of the Medici. The
exclusiveness imposed upon the members of the highest magistracy during
their term of office did not hold good in such cases. To celebrate the visit
the city caused three sacred dramas to be acted in churches. In San Felice
the Annunciation was given, in Carmine the Ascension, and in Sto. Spirito
the Descent of the Holy Ghost. Unfortunately, fire broke out during the last
festival, which seriously injured the interior of the beautiful church, and
necessitated a restoration, for which the duke expended two thousand gold
florins. The visit of the Milanese prince and the Florentine festivals were
much spoken of at foreign courts; Giovanni Bentivoglio and the lords of
Romagna were expected, but did not appear. The duke and duchess, after
eight days’ residence, left the city and the hospitable house with gratitude
and affectionate remembrance, and went to Lucca, where they were also
received with rejoicing. The Lucchesi actually made a new gate in the city
wall, in eternal commemoration of so great an event! Sforza’s all-powerful
private secretary, Cecco Simonetta, received the right of citizenship. It was
very important to the little Republic to remain on good terms with the son
of the man to whom they owed perhaps the maintenance of their existence
as a state, and they had willingly taken part in the new confederacies. The
ducal pair returned to Milan by Genoa.[188]
For the sake of contrast, after the extravagant pomp of a duke belonging
to a family which had just arisen, may be mentioned the simplicity with
which a Northern sovereign appeared in Florence three years later, by no
means to his prejudice in the eyes of reasonable men. It was King
Christiern,[189] with whom, in 1449, the house of Oldenburg ascended the
Danish-Norwegian throne. The wars for Sweden, which had withdrawn
from the Colmar union of the three kingdoms, the difficulties with the
dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, which he did not succeed in uniting
to the Danish throne, and the disputes with the Hanseatic League, which
had the trade of Norway in its hands, had preyed upon the king’s strength