UC-NRLF 
 
 *B 513 5tl 
 
 University of California 
 Department of University Extension 
 
University of California 
 Department of University Extension 
 
 
GIFT OF 
 
 Yl F 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF FLORENCE 
 
 1434-1492 
 
THE HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 FLORENCE 
 
 UNDER 
 
 THE DOMINATION OF COSIMO, PIERO, 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS 
 
 1434-1492 
 
 BY 
 
 F.-T. PERRENS 
 
 MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 
 HANNAH LYNCH 
 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. 
 LONDON 
 
 1892 
 
 3 > > 1 
 
 > \ ' , j 
 
HJSTSRrT 
 
 A 2-oB 
 
 Printtd iy Ballantyne, Hanson & Co, 
 At Me Ballantyne Prist 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Booft JL 
 
 THE DOMINATION OF COSIMO DE> MEDICIS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 « PACK 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF COSIMO'S POWER BY FOREIGN POLICY AND WAR 
 
 (I435-I44I) I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF COSIMO BY HIS HOME POLICY ( 1 43 5- 1 444) . 4 1 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COSIMO'S DOMINATION — WARS AND NEGOTIATIONS FOIl THE 8UCCES- 
 
 SION OF THE VISCONTI (1442-I450) 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COSIMO'S RULE — WARS AND NEGOTIATIONS WITH VENICE AND NAPLES 
 
 (1450-1454) 99 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LAST YEARS OF COSIMO (1454-I464) 1 24 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS UNDER COSIMJ DE' MEDICIS . . < . . 171 
 
 vii 
 
 373132 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 Boofe «L 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOF. 
 
 PIKRO DE' MEDICIS ( 1 464- 1 469) . . .   . . . .228 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS — THE CONSPIRACY OF THE PAZZI (1469-I478) 266 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LORENZO DE J MEDICIS IN STRIFE WITH THE HOLY SEE (1478-1480) 316 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS FROM HIS RECONCILIATION WITH THE HOLY 
 SEE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ITALIAN EQUILIBRIUM 
 (1480-I491) 3°° 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DOMINATION OF LORENZO DE' MEDICIS IN FLORENCE UNTIL HIS 
 
 DEATH (1481-I492) 4°3 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS UNDER LORENZO DE' MEDICIS .... 434 
 
HISTORY OF FLORENCE 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE DOMINATION OF COSIMO DE' MEDICI S. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF COSIMO'S POWER BY FOREIGN POLICY AND WAR. 
 
 I435-I44I. 
 
 Foreign policy of Cosimo — His alliance with Francesco Sforza — The league with 
 Venice renewed — Sforza captain-general (June 1435)— Hostilities of Sforza in the 
 States of the Church and of Fortebracci in Tuscany — Peace of Ferrara (August 
 20)— Florence engaged in the war for the succession of Naples— Help sent to 
 the Genoese against Milan — Consecration of S. M. del Fiore by Eugene IV. 
 (March 25, 1436) — He leaves Florence — Intrigues of Rinaldo des Albizzi with the 
 Duke of Milan — Piccinino on the frontier of Lucca — He is beaten by Sforza and 
 Neri Capponi (February 8, 1437)— New enterprise for the conquest of Lucca — 
 Sforza called into Lombardy by the Venetians (October)— Embassy of Cosimo in 
 Venice (April 1438) — Truce of three years (April 23)— Underhand manoeuvres of 
 Filippo-Maria and of Piccinino — Sforza in the pay of Venice and Florence 
 (February 19, 1439)— Embassy of Neri Capponi in Venice— Campaign of Sforza in 
 Lombardy— The war brought into Tuscany (February 7, 1440)— Sforza engaged by 
 the Venetians— Success of Piccinino round Florence (April)— Agitation in Florence 
 — Neri Capponi beats back the enemy — Piccinino called into the Casentino by the 
 Count of Poppi— Battle of Anghiari (June 29)— Defeat and retreat of Piccinino— 
 Consequence of victory— Fresh persecutions of the exiled— Fate of Rinaldo des 
 Albizzi and his family— Expulsion of the Count of Poppi (July 31)— Campaigns of 
 Lombardy (1440-1441) — Exactions of Piccinino — Marriage of Sforza (October 24) 
 — Peace of Cavriana (November 20). 
 
 RECALLED from exile by his countrymen, 1 brought back in 
 triumph, Cosimo de' Medicis can no longer be regarded as a 
 simple citizen. This upstart merchant reigned over Florence, so 
 
 1 See Histoire de Florence depnis ses origines jusqi? a la domination des Meaicis, 
 vol. vi. book xii. c. 3, 4- Paris, 1883. 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
2 COSIMO DE' MEDICIS. [i43S 
 
 to say, but we must also admit that lie reigned solely by force 
 of opinion. He would not have stood his ground twenty-four 
 hours if he had not represented a great party — those conquered 
 by the democracy, the victims of the oligarchy. His return 
 for them was a long-desired vengeance, and their satisfaction 
 was his strength. It was by means of their faithful and inte- 
 rested support that he was able to establish his power, pro- 
 scribe his principal enemies, and attach the rest to himself, 
 transform the power of influence into the power of authority 
 and action, and Florentine instability, that secular plague, into 
 stability. 
 
 This was certainly not the work of a day. The slow pro- 
 gress of this hypocritical encroachment alone explains the 
 error of some of our contemporaries regarding the role of 
 Oosimo. Rarely seeing his name upon documents, they are 
 persuaded, and would fain persuade us too, that nothing was 
 changed in Florence; that there was but one Florentine the 
 more ; that the establishment of monarchical power was of 
 later date, when Piero, Cosimo's son, rid himself by exile of the 
 chief hangers-on of the oligarchical factions, that is, in 1466. 1 
 But they mistake appearance for reality ; they forget the 
 precedents of history. Cosimo has often been compared to 
 Octavius Augustus, and, all proportions preserved, there are 
 many points of resemblance between them ; there is none more 
 apparent than this prudent and progressive seizure of posses- 
 sion. In Florence under Cosimo, as in Rome under Augustus, 
 the Republic practically ceased to exist, although these two 
 patient usurpers feigned to respect the forms, manoeuvring 
 for and obtaining the functions. From his palace, where he 
 kept himself aloof, Cosimo governed with no less mastery than 
 Augustus had done, than Maso des Albizzi did before him ; 
 and between him and this last named there is this great 
 
 1 This is the opinion of M. Pellegrini. On the contrary, M. Villari thinks, as 
 we do, that Cosimo was absolute master, preserving the appearance of a simple 
 individual. See Niccolb Machiavelli t i suoi tempi, vol. i. p. 44-45- Flor., 
 1877-82. 
 
1435] MASTER OF FLORENCE. 3 
 
 difference, that, Maso dead, his son Einaldo, although capable, 
 is disputed recognition as virtual chief of the town, whereas 
 upon Cosimo's death, his heir, Piero, though incapable and 
 impotent, is recognised as his successor almost without contest. 
 
 This progress supposes a slow and underhand work ; that we 
 must not deny, even when at the start we do not grasp, day by 
 day, in detail, the results. To cry " Thief ! " the Florentines 
 waited until the thief was their master. They were not ex- 
 perienced in usurpations and in usurpers. But the fact is 
 saliently evident even in the silence of documents. The old 
 history is for once right, and not the new. It is the first 
 impression that is good, and we must know how to hold to it. 
 
 Thanks to the satisfied revenge of the insignificant, Cosimo 
 seized the place that Rinaldo had not been able to take, though 
 it had been prepared for him by his father. But he knew too 
 well how fleeting is' the kindness of the gods not to procure 
 his citizens other sources of contentment. His rare sagacity 
 penetrated that which was unseen by others, the spirit of the 
 wearied Florentines, leaning to peaceful servitude rather than 
 agitated freedom, which disposed them unconsciously to subjec- 
 tion. In order to turn them from politics, he impelled them 
 towards trade and industry, towards letters and art. To succeed, 
 violence was not necessary on his side nor on theirs. They 
 willingly called him the " great merchant ! " * For centuries 
 the sacrifice of lucrative work to ruinous wars was painful to 
 Florence. A taste for arts and letters was at this time spread over 
 Tuscany and all Italy. To increase and protect it, to encourage 
 the growth of work and the development of wealth, were good 
 means of government. There were others less edifying in the 
 public career of this far-seeing politician, but we must not 
 overload him with blame, nor forget that in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury — century of adventurers and bastards 2 — the curtain of 
 
 1 Luca Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 15 16, published and annotated 
 by M. Jodoco del Badia, Flor., 1883, p. 3. 
 
 2 According to Borso d'Este in Ferrara, Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini, 
 Francesco Sforza in Milan, Ferrante of Aragon in Naples, and many others. 
 
4 POLICY OF COSIMO. [*435 
 
 honour, to quote Gonsalvo of Cordova, was loosely woven ; that 
 already the revolting theory of success, whose laws Machiavelli 
 later set down, was wide-spread and deeply planted, and that 
 at this hour of history it was almost a virtue to replace violence 
 by cunning, and cynicism by hypocrisy. 1 
 
 Saluted upon his return with universal applause, Cosimo 
 could count upon peace in Florence ; but would he enjoy out- 
 side such peace as was necessary to the establishment of his 
 power ? Neither the future nor even the present was sparing 
 of threat. Until then, he had only found friends among the 
 foreign nobles ; but was not their friendship for an exile 
 another form of enmity for the Kepublic ? Would they not 
 welcome the fresh exiles, aid them in their devices, lend 
 themselves to any league, to any warlike design ? And in 
 this event the " great merchant " would hardly be their open 
 foe. He had about as little of the military instinct and the 
 taste for fighting as his ancestors and the rest of his country- 
 men — an hereditary and henceforth incurable evil. Thus 
 Florence was obliged to hire a condottiere, and Cosimo cast his 
 eyes upon Francesco Sforza. 2 
 
 He might have chosen worse. Born at San Miniato at 
 Tedesco, upon Florentine territory, of a woman of the country, 3 
 Sforza was not altogether a stranger. Tuscany was proud of 
 this celebrated half-Tuscan. Although a bastard, at twenty- 
 three he had replaced his father in the command of his army, 
 and was recognised by all the captains ; 4 then, at the age of 
 thirty-five, he had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter 
 of the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria, and sole heiress, 5 a mere 
 child, twenty-four years younger than he. Strong, brave upon 
 
 1 Leo is too favourable to Cosimo and Sismondi too hostile. The one, a true 
 Teuton, delights in the spectacle of growing Cesarism ; the other cannot forgive the 
 conqueror an aristocracy where he saw liberty, and fails to distinguish in him the 
 good from the evil. 
 
 2 Fabroni, Magni Cosmi Medicei vita, p. 53. 
 
 3 July 23, 1401. His mother was called Lucia Frezzania. 
 
 4 Bonincontri, xxi. 82 ; Simoneta, xxi. 188, 202. 
 6 Litta, Famiglie italiane. Visconti Family. 
 
1435] ALLIANCE WITH SFORZA. 5 
 
 necessity, capable of fixed ideas and turned to evil by interest or by 
 hate, 1 he inspired distrust and forced others to reckon with him. 2 
 
 Filippo Maria seized countless pretexts to escape the fulfil- 
 ment of his promise, 3 and it became necessary for Sforza to 
 compel him to keep it. He was strong in his resources. In 
 his army lay the hope of his independence, but he needed 
 money to support it. Money was not difficult to find. Venice 
 and Florence were rich enough to pay their servants, but they 
 were hand-in-glove with the Pope, Eugene IV., whom Sforza 
 suspected of a design to poison him, 4 and whom he defied by 
 dating his letters ex Girifalco nostro FirmianOj invito Petro et 
 Paulo? It was a hard and uncertain step to make overtures 
 to him ; however, if he refused, he had only to turn to the 
 adventurers Bracceschi, who were unalterably devoted to the 
 Visconti, whom he wished to intimidate and reduce to their 
 proper limits. 6 There was no longer any doubt : like Cosimo, 
 Sforza desired equilibrium in Italy, and at least provisional 
 peace. It was impossible for them to escape a mutual under- 
 standing. 
 
 Peace by equilibrium was a policy. How much more serious 
 even than that which from the year 1428 strove to unite all 
 the states of Italy in a single league, forcing upon them the 
 imaginary obligation of punishing whichever of the contrac- 
 tors broke his word ? 7 Cosimo's views were more practical, if 
 less broad. He shut his eyes upon the devices of one portion 
 of his enemies to gather all his efforts to one point, and, if 
 
 1 Ricotti, iii. 103, 104. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti speaks of his shameful actions, calls him wicked robber, mad and 
 bestial, but more of a felon than a madman {Seconda Storia, c. 18, 19, ii. 170-172, 
 202). 
 
 3 M. Ant. Sabellico, Rerum Venetiarum, Dec. Iff., book iii. f. 589. Venice, 
 1718. 
 
 4 The project of poisoning was known through Baldassare d'Offida, who was in 
 the Pope's service. Was the Pope concerned in it ? One cannot say. See Simonela, 
 book iv. xxi. 255, 256. 
 
 5 All authors report this bravada. See Machiavelli, 1st. Fior., book v. p. 67 A. 
 
 6 Ricotti, iii. 51, 52; Sismondi, vi. 31. 
 
 7 December 9, 1428. Osio, Doc. diplom., ii. 269, and Cipolla, p. 346. 
 
6 WAR AGAINST FORTEBRACCI. [*435 
 
 necessary, march towards peace through war. He was on 
 friendly relations with Sienna, a disturbing neighbour, easily 
 made dangerous. 1 He desired to get on well with Venice, 
 and instructed Neri Capponi to renew with her for ten years 
 the alliance, less cordial since the defeat of Imola. 2 Then, 
 in June 1435, he named the "Count Francesco" captain- 
 general ; for so Sforza was called since he became Gonfalonier 
 of the Church and Lord of the Marches. 3 
 
 Arms were taken up against Milan, and a march was made 
 upon the environs of Rome, to clear them of the " devil Forte- 
 bracci," chief of the Bracceschi, who infested them. 4 It was 
 an exaction of Eugene IV. ; and since he was refused the 
 pardon of Rinaldo and the rest of the defeated still in Florence, 
 this concession was necessary to soothe his temper and merit 
 his friendship. Besides, what did it matter how the war 
 began ? Filippo Maria could not abandon Fortebracci, beaten 
 off Roman territory and besieged in Assisi ; he helped him 
 in forsaking Piccinino in Tuscany, a diversion which at once 
 brought back Sforza. At a blow, Sforza's brother, Alexander, 
 was beaten, taken prisoner by Fortebracci, once more free to 
 move ; but the terrible Count Francesco, the sole and real 
 Sforza, flew to his rescue. Defeated in turn, killed in the 
 fray, the chief of the Bracceschi, by his death, was the ruin of 
 the cause his redoubtable arm had sustained. 5 This was the 
 end of the two months' war. 
 
 On the 20th August, peace was definitely concluded at 
 Ferrara, but upon a base no less fragile than in 1428 : each 
 recovered what had been lost, and the confederates contracted 
 the platonic engagement to march hand-in-hand against per- 
 jury. 6 They foresaw so well their approaching disunion, that 
 
 1 See G. Capponi (Append, ii. 505), three letters addressed to Neri Capponi. 
 
 2 See our Hist., vol. vi. book xii. c. 4, p. 485. 
 
 3 Boninsegni, p. 62 ; Fabroni, p. 52 ; Ammirato, xxi. 2, 3. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 63. 
 
 5 Boninsegni, p. 62, 63 ; Machiavelli, v. 68 a ; Ricotti, iii. 59. 
 
 6 Boninsegni, p. 62 ; Ammirato, xxi. 3 ; Machiavelli (v. 68 a) was mistaken 
 about the date j he places these events during Cosimo's exile. 
 
14353 SUCCESSION OF NAPLES. 7 
 
 defiance showed itself in the very instrument of peace. "No 
 one can," it said, " declare war alone, because others will be 
 dragged into it." Venice exacted this clause : she distrusted 
 these ephemeral Signories of Florence, that could, every second 
 month, inaugurate a new policy. 1 Though it was usually far- 
 seeing enough, nothing warned the Council of Ten that, under 
 this apparent mobility, Cosimo was introducing a government 
 more stable because it was more personal. 
 
 But it did not suffice to will in order to direct events. Like 
 everything else, the most personal government is subject to the 
 law of circumstances. Cosimo needed peace to strengthen him- 
 self ; and hardly was it established in the north than he saw it 
 threatened in the south. No less versatile than Filippo Maria, 
 old Queen Joan of Naples had successively named as her heirs 
 Alphonsus of Aragon, Louis of Anjou, then, instead of this last, 
 after his death without children in 1434, his brother Bene*, 
 Count of Provence. 2 When, in turn, her own death came 
 (February II, 1435), her fantastic testaments gave a chief to 
 the two parties into which her kingdom was divided ; the people 
 declared for Ken£, the barons proclaimed Alphonsus. These 
 latter held the trumps in their hands. Alphonsus was in 
 Sicily, within call, and, descendant of Constance, daughter of 
 Manfred, his title seemed older even than that of the first 
 house of Anjou. 3 With a large fleet he hurried to lay siege 
 to Gaeta; but he was beaten by the Genoese (August 5, 
 143 5), 4 who, ever menaced at home, held to the freedom of 
 
 1 Letter of the Signory to Neri Capponi, who remained in Venice as ambassador 
 after the league was concluded, April 1, 1435, m G. Capponi, ii. 6, n. 2. 
 
 2 See in Giannone (book xxv. c. 6, p. 336) the final testament giving the suc- 
 cession to Rene. Cf. Lecoy de la Marche, Le Rot Rene, vol. i. p. 112, Paris, 
 1875 '■> H. Martin, vol. v. p. 307 ; Sismondi, vol. vi. p. 8. 
 
 8 See Sismondi on these reciprocal rights, vi. 6-9. 
 
 4 Cavalcanti (book xi. c. 3, 4 ; vol. ii. p. 4-10) gives the names of the prisoners, 
 the vessels taken, and of those who bought them. On these events see Stella, 
 xvii. 1316; Bracelli, De bello hispanico, book iii. G. 3 v°, Hagueneau, 1530 (the 
 pages of this book are numbered below as follows : A, A ii., A iii., B., &c.) ; P. 
 Bizari, Senatus jpopulique genuensis historia, book xi. p. 246-248, Antwerp, 1579 ; 
 Barth. Facio, De rebus gestis ab Alphonso I ., 1. iv. p. 49-61, in Burmann, Thes. 
 
8 REVOLT OF GENOA. [i435 
 
 this fine and secure port as an anchorage and a depository for 
 their merchandise. This unforeseen victory, big with con- 
 sequences, did not, as in the communal period, permit the 
 Florentines to shut themselves up in their customary isolation, 
 in their beloved neutrality. 
 
 The Duke of Milan, the " protector " of the Genoese, only 
 permitted them to rush into war, foreseeing their certain 
 defeat. 1 Vexed by a victory that rendered his oppression 
 more difficult, he prevented the conquerors from announcing 
 their triumph to Europe. Upon the vanquished king, con- 
 ducted like the other prisoners to Milan, he lavished every 
 mark of affection, and listened complaisantly to his advice. 
 Alphonsus, so superior by his chivalrous character and his 
 cultivated mind 2 to his contemporaries that he was called the 
 Magnanimous, pointed out without difficulty the faults of his 
 policy : to lower the house of Aragon was to raise that of 
 Anjou, which Milan as well as Naples desired, and which was 
 a closer neighbour. 3 Recognising his error, Filippo Maria 
 went so far as to order the Genoese to make restitution of the 
 captured vessels, to lead back their prisoner to the scene of his 
 defeat, and henceforth engage to fight upon his side. 4 But 
 this was straining the cord. The only advantage to the Duke 
 was a revolt ; Genoa recovered her liberty on the 24th or 
 27 th December 1 4 3 5 . 5 
 
 To defend herself against her perfidious protector, she im- 
 plored assistance, and sent one of her citizens, the historian 
 Bracelli, to Florence to solicit that of the Florentines and of 
 
 antiq. ital., vol. ix. part 3; Giomali napoletani, xxi. 1100; Simoneta, 1. 2, xxi. 
 244 ; Boninsegni, p. 62 ; Monstrelet, ed. of Panth. lilt., c. 185, p. 702 ; Mariana, 
 Historia general de Espafla, vol. ii. p. 428, Madrid, 1848; Giannone, 1. xxv. c. 7, 
 P- 338 5 Sismondi, vi. 6-12; Cipolla, p. 400. 
 
 1 Giomali napoletani, xxi. 11 00. 
 
 2 See Folieta, 1. x. p. 215 ; Facio, 1. iv. p. 53, 54. 
 
 3 Folieta, 1. x. p. 219 v°; Simoneta, 1. 3, xxi. 245; Bracelli, L iv. H 4 V ; 
 Bizari, 1. xi. p. 249 ; Machiavelli, v. 69 A ; Mariana, 1. xxi. c. 10, vol. ii. p. 
 429; Sismondi, vi. 15-17. 
 
 4 Bracelli, 1. iv. 1, 2 ; Machiavelli, v. 69 B, 70 A; Sismondi, vi. 18. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 6, vol. ii. p. 12; Folieta, 1. x. p. 221 ; Ammirato, xxi. 4. 
 
1435] DEPARTURE OF THE POPE. 9 
 
 Eugene IV. The temptation was great, for all that weakened 
 Milan was to the profit of her rivals ; but the league was an 
 obstacle, for it united to the Duke the great Eepublics and the 
 Pope. But we know how much treaties weigh in the balance 
 against roused passions and interests. Not to break his word, 
 Eugene abstained from lending succour, but he did not pre- 
 vent the Florentines from furnishing theirs, on the condition 
 that there was no fighting. 1 Under the conduct of one Bal- 
 daccio d'Anghiari, destined to a tragic celebrity, wheat, horses, 
 and men were sent to Genoa. But Florence was vexed that 
 her sacred guest should restrain her freedom of action ; and as 
 he had already made himself obnoxious to Cosimo by his protest 
 ■against the banishment of Rinaldo, everybody was against him. 
 He was accused of wishing to annex the town that offered him 
 hospitality to the States of the Church. 2 His departure was 
 thus hailed as a relief. As the perfidy of his legate at Bologna 
 Jiad made him master of that town,, he went there to live, 3 
 October 6, 1435. 
 
 Desired by both parties, the separation was accomplished 
 with an outward show of respect and good feeling. On the 
 day of the Annunciation, the 2 5 th March 1436, which was 
 the first day of the year for the Florentines, Eugene IV. con- 
 secrated the reconstructed cathedral, the old Santa Reparata 
 or Liberata, under its new name of Santa Maria del Fiore, 
 beautified by the bold cupola of Brunelleschi. To avoid a too 
 narrow passage for the Pope from Santa Maria Novella to 
 Santa Maria del Fiore, instead of a line of armed men, a path 
 of wooden planks two fathoms above the ground was con- 
 structed. The path was covered with foliage, rich stuffs, and 
 
 1 Embassy of Neri Capponi at Genoa. MS. of the library of G. Capponi, quoted 
 in his Stor. di Fir., vol. ii. 8, n. 2 ; Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 7, ii. p. 14. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1183. 
 
 8 This legate granted peace to all the emigrants from Bologna and Bentivoglio 
 •exiled for fifteen years, who returned upon the faith of these words. Without being 
 accused of any crime, without confession, he was beheaded, and he was not even 
 allowed Christian burial. See Burselli, Ann. Bonon., xxiii. 876; Cron. Bol. y 
 xviii. 655 (and 526 on the facts of Bologna) ; Ammirato, xxi. 6. 
 
io INTRIGUES OF RINALDO DE ALBIZZI. [143^ 
 
 handsome tapestries, and the Pope traversed it followed by 
 seven cardinals, thirty-seven archbishops and bishops, many 
 ambassadors, and nine members of the Signory. From the 
 altar steps he blessed the building, then Cardinal Orsini, in 
 official robes, mounted the ladders to sprinkle the walls with 
 holy water. The ceremony lasted five hours. Upon the return,, 
 the Gonfalonier of Justice, Davanzati, served the Pope as train- 
 bearer, and his reward was the belt of chivalry. A banquet 
 given to the foreign ambassadors terminated the proceedings. 1 
 Florence forgave the Father of the Faithful ; he had amused 
 her for an instant. 
 
 Cosimo rejoiced a while in elbow-room and time to turn his 
 attention to Milan. Thence, in fact, blew the wind of war. 
 The Duke naturally wished to punish the allies of the rebel 
 Genoese. Beside him stood the fiery Rinaldo, who, at the risk 
 of his life, had defied his sentence of banishment. 2 More than 
 one of his friends had paid as heavily for the like disobedience- 
 But his risk was slight if he kept out of the territory of Flor- 
 ence's allies. He was in security at Milan. To the Visconti, 
 once the object of his hatred and now of his hope, he proved 
 that the Florentines, having recognised him as the protector 
 of Genoa, should not have prevented him from subduing 
 it ; that Cosimo alone was capable of such a want of good 
 faith ; that he had subdued, impoverished, divided, and irri- 
 tated his countrymen, who now only longed for a liberator. 3 
 We readily believe what it suits us to believe, and the proof 
 that Rinaldo was sincere in his confidence lay in the fact that 
 he cast bravadoes broadcast. " The hen is hatching," was the 
 threat he had carried to his fortunate rival. Cosimo replied, 
 wittily and sensibly, " The hen cannot hatch out of her nest," * 
 
 1 Cambi, Del., xx. 208 ; Boninsegni, p. 64 ; Rinuccini, p. 71 ; Machiavelli, v. 
 74 A ; Ammirato, xxi. 5 ; Cesare Guasti, La Cupola di S. M. del Fiore y p. 9, 37, 
 89, Flor., 1857; C. J. Cavallucci, S. M. del Fiore,storiadocumentatadalP 'origins 
 fi.no at nostri giorni, Flor., 1881. 
 
 2 See our Hist., vol. vi. p. 511. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, v. 70 ; he gives Rinaldo's speech. Ammirato, xxi. 6. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxi. 6. 
 
1436] HOSTILITIES AGAINST GENOA. n 
 
 but he had his doubts, and he feared the exceptions. An arti- 
 ficial nest is everything, and Milan was certainly one. 1 
 
 Thus it was that, on account of the Genoese, war broke out 
 again, not openly nor quickly. Niccolo Piccinino, condottiere in 
 the Duke's pay, when beaten by their town, 2 turned his hostile 
 attentions towards their possessious ; now engaged with Pietra 
 Santa, which the people of Lucca had made over to Florence 
 as a pledge for a loan, 3 now with Sarzana, which he attacked 
 upon the pretext of opening the road to Naples. The year 
 1436 passed before his army fronted Florence. In threatening 
 Vico Pisano and Barga, he declared himself to be acting in his 
 own name, and not as captain of Milan. 4 But how believe his 
 word once he was in Lucca, however willing one might be to 
 feign credulity before ? Feared as much as admired, 5 he might, 
 upon a two days' march, be upon Florence. Neri Capponi 
 rushed to Pisa with every available force, 6 but his military 
 talents were useless here. Against any other adversary they 
 might have sufficed, but only Sforza could inspire confidence 
 against Piccinino. 
 
 At this time Francesco Sforza happened to be in Florence, 
 where Cosimo hastened to do him every honour with jousts 
 upon the square of Santa Croce and public balls in the place 
 of the Signory. Only, having made his choice between the 
 two leagues, he belonged to the Pope's service, and the Pope, 
 
 1 It is curious to note that Gino Capponi, so honest elsewhere, is here so partia 
 to the aristocratic party represented by Rinaldo, that he passes these intrigues in 
 silence. See Stor. di Fir., ii. 8, 9. 
 
 2 Folieta, 1. x. p. 222 r° ; Bracelli, 1. iv. k 2 ; Machiavelli, v. 70 B. 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1184; Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 8, 9, vol. ii. p. 15, 17. 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1185 ; Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 9, vol. ii. p. 18; Poggio, 1. 7, 
 xx. 385; Machiavelli, v. 71 a; Ammirato, xxi. 7. 
 
 6 Neri Capponi, xviii. 11 85 ; Machiavelli, v. 71 A. 
 
 6 " Richorda che Nic. Piccinino consumo tutto il verno passato in Lunigiana 
 e a Pontriemoli, stando sempre a campo nelle nevi, e vivendo di castagne (Agnolo 
 Pandolfini a Averardo, 18 Oct. 143 1). Nic. Piccinino, l'anno passato, di verno e 
 sanza danari sempre stette in hopera, et in uno punto quando bisognio ando da 
 staggia Arezzo, et chosi poi di subito d'Arezzo in Lombardia. Et perche potresti 
 dire de' suoi pari ce sono pochi " (Cosimo a Averardo, Oct. 3, 1 43 1. See these 
 texts in the Doc. Pellegrini, Append. Nos. 76, 81). 
 
12 NICCOLO PICCININO. [1436 
 
 disliking war, refused to yield him. At length Eugene did 
 yield him, when he lost all hope of obtaining pardon for having 
 endeavoured to poison Sforza by throwing all the responsibility 
 upon one of his dead advisers. 1 Besides which, he had to 
 submit to the condition of not sending his condottiere into 
 Lombardy. 2 Then Count Francesco started for Pisa, carrying 
 the commander's baton. He was expressly ordered to hold 
 himself upon the defensive, and not to accept battle. This 
 prudence pleased Sforza ; he did not wish to lose the Marches ; 
 but it suited the Florentines less. Not being in the confidence 
 of the gods, and ignoring the conditions and repugnances of 
 the Pope, they gave vent to carping criticisms : if the famous 
 condottiere shrank from an encounter, he must either be afraid 
 or entangled in some unworthy marriage. 3 
 
 Among the exiles in Piccinino's camp the disappointment 
 was as great. Face to face, animated by their traditional 
 hate, Sforzeschi and Bracceschi seemed to waste themselves in 
 futile skirmishes, too feeble to break the Pope's negotiations 
 with Milan. 4 Happily Piccinino was a mighty j ouster. With 
 him this state of affairs could not last very long. This son 
 of a Perugian butcher, brought up to the wool trade, not of 
 a calculating turn of mind, had become Braccio's favourite 
 pupil, and even his nephew by marriage, after having killed 
 his first wife upon suspicion, and afterwards recognised the 
 child of the supposed adultery. 5 Sleeping scarcely three 
 hours upon the ground and without removing his arms, he 
 was the most audacious and alert of the condottieri Italy had 
 till then seen, the most fertile in expedients, and the cleverest 
 in repairing his reverses, and the only one who, after defeat, 
 could terrorise his conquerors. Many vicissitudes had embit- 
 tered him. He spoke badly and with difficulty, and was 
 
 1 Simoneta, 1. 20, xxi. 255, 256. (See above, p. 5.) 
 
 2 G. Capponi, ii. 9. 
 
 3 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 9, vol. ii. pp. 17-19. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 65 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1185. 
 
 6 This child was Jacopo Piccinino, who attained great renown. 
 
1436] DEFEAT OF PICCININO. 13 
 
 taciturn and double-faced. Little, as his name indicates, 
 feeble and sickly, lame and paralysed later, it was necessary 
 to lift him into the saddle. After his most splendid sallies 
 he was obliged to stop for breath. The lightest armour was 
 too heavy for him, and he ended by fighting without any, upon 
 which he was spared ; but driven to fury by his own weakness, 
 he was not grateful even for this. Hard towards every one, 
 he would make targets of the traitors who fell into his hands. 1 
 
 To the great joy of the exiles, he took the offensive towards 
 the end of December. After a futile sally upon Yico Pisano, 2 
 he laid siege to Barga, the key of the mountain of Pistoia and 
 the valley of Nievole, the loss of which might involve that 
 of Florentine Liguria. 3 Neri Capponi and Francesco Sforza 
 received orders to sustain the struggle seriously, without 
 regard for the subjects of Lucca or of Milan. With three 
 thousand men they beat Piccinino, and compelled him to raise 
 the siege on the 8th February 1437. 4 His safety was per- 
 haps a disaster, for Venice, by strong-armed demonstration, 
 forced Filippo Maria to recall him northward. 5 
 
 Lucca was thus without defence, and exposed to old envies, 
 which were revived by a natural thirst of vengeance against 
 her people, and further excited by Piccinino. For this long- 
 wished-for satisfaction Florence counted upon Cosimo, and at the 
 start Cosimo could not withdraw. If he wished to reign, he must 
 
 1 Pietro Candido Decembrio, Vita di Nic. Piccinino, R. I. S., xx. 1051-84, a 
 declamatory work in the form of a discourse ; G. B. Poggio, Historie et vite di 
 Braccio Fortebracci detto da Montone et di Niccolb Piccinino pericgini, Venice, 
 1572, p. 144-164, the text is in Latin. The preceding title is that of the Italian 
 translation by Pompeo Pellini of Perouse. G. B. Poggio was one of the sons of 
 Poggio Bracciolini, who continued Leon. Bruni, and whose history is in the 
 20th volume of Muratori. Cf. Ricotti, iii. 7, 102 ; Sismondi, vi. 119. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 9, vol. ii. p. 18. 
 
 8 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1185 ; Boninsegni, p. 65 ; Crist, da Soldo, 1st. Bresc, xxi. 
 831 ; Machiavelli, v. 71 A; Ricotti, iii. 65. 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 11 85; Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 10, vol. ii. p. 20; Simoneta 
 L 4, xxi. 258 ; Bonincontri, xxi. 146; Boninsegni, p. 66 ; Machiavelli, v. 71 a ; 
 Ammirato, xxi. 8. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 11, vol. ii. p. 21 ; Poggio, 1. 7, xx. 387; Simoneta, 1. 
 4, xxi. 261 ; Sabellico, 1. ii. f. 555. 
 
i 4 OPERATIONS AGAINST LUCCA. [i437 
 
 please. He quite understood that Venice would look askance 
 upon this conquest, 1 but the oligarchy that he replaced having 
 given Pisa to Florence, he could not do less than give her Lucca, 
 a town of less importance, no doubt, but a strategetical post and 
 the capital of the smiling garden of Italy. By this means 
 he would strengthen his position by glory, and through a 
 distribution of numerous offices and fertile lands content his 
 partisans, procure himself new ones, and put an end to the 
 extravagance of his economical country, prodigal enough in 
 public loans as long as Lucca was in question, but willing 
 to welcome the day when she should be able to stop her 
 prodigalities. 2 
 
 To begin with, the much- used tactics of guasto were revived. 
 This showed a want of imagination. "Let it be given at 
 once," wrote the Ten to Neri Capponi, emissary at Lucca ; 
 and this was the unanimous cry. " If this could not be, we 
 should be stoned. The best guarantee we can have from 
 Lucca, if her people agree with us, is their necessity for 
 finding food through us." 3 The machiavellism of the object 
 lent freshness to the ancient means. Sforza obeyed (April 
 26), not without retaking upon occasion the places that 
 Florence and Genoa had lost ; 4 but Lucca held her own 
 behind her strong walls, appearing to forget her vines, her cut 
 wheat, and her cattle carried off. "With these people of 
 Lucca," wrote again the Ten in the following month of July, 
 " there is no hope of agreement ; they hold out more firmly 
 than before the loss of their contado." 6 The Florentines 
 were forced to abandon their arms, 6 but they did not lower 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxi. 9. 
 
 2 Letter from the Ten to Neri Capponi, emissary at Lucca, April 1, 1437, 
 quoted by G. Capponi, ii. 10, n. 1. Capponi here makes excellent use of his 
 domestic records. 
 
 3 Other letters from the same to the same, ibid. t n. 3. 
 
 4 See the names with the dates in Boninsegni, p. 66. Cf. Ammirato, xxi. 9. 
 
 5 Text in G. Capponi, ii. 10, n. 3. 
 
 6 Neri Capponi, xviii. 11 86; Poggio, 1. 7, xx. 386; L. Bruni, xix. 938 ; Caval- 
 canti, 1. xi. c. 12, vol. ii. p. 23 ; Machiavelli, v. 71 B, 72. 
 
1437] RESISTANCE OF LUCCA. 15 
 
 their cynical ambition, and it was one of their sons, Machia- 
 velli, who stamps it in a phrase in which simplicity accentuates 
 energy : " Rarely has any one felt more displeased in losing 
 his property than the Florentines felt in not having acquired 
 that of another." x 
 
 But the only soldier for this campaign was Sforza, and 
 Venice called loudly upon him. She had lately lost two 
 captains in her pay, Gattamelata, struck down by apoplexy, 2 
 and the Marquis of Mantua, won over by Milanese gold. 3 It 
 was a complete negotiation. " The war of Lombardy is the 
 essential," said the Council of Ten ; " upon it depends the 
 conquest of Lucca, the liberty of Florence, even that of all 
 Italy. Together the two Republics can hardly hold the Duke ; 
 what will Florence do alone when once Venice is vanquished ? " 
 The argument had weight, but it concealed the cards beneath 
 without deceiving the Florentines. According to Cavalcanti, 
 what so infuriated the people of Lucca, " till a mother could 
 have eaten her son, the husband his wife, rather than submit," 
 was the encouragement of Venice. 4 It needed nothing more 
 to compromise the alliance. " The two allies," he continues, 
 " dreaded a tyrant less than a republic, because he does not 
 last so long." 5 What indeed could Venice do with a captain 
 too jealous to preserve his beloved Marches, too wishful to 
 obtain the hand of Bianca to show much zeal in his fight with 
 her father ? 6 It was to weaken Florence that they wanted him 
 above all. Cosimo could refuse to allow him to go to them, 
 for the clauses of his engagement with the league released him 
 from crossing the Po ; but the refusal might break the league 
 and interrupt the war ; Florence's freedom of action with Lucca 
 depended upon a sharp encounter between Venice and Milan. 
 
 1 Machiavelli, v. 73 B. 
 
 2 Sanuto, xxii. 1063 ; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 798 ; Sabellico, 1. ii. f. 555 ; Cavalcanti, 
 1. xii. c. 1, vol. ii. p. 33 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1191 ; Simoneta, xxi. 286. 
 
 3 1st. Bresc., xxi. 797 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1062. 
 * Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 13, vol. ii. p. 25. 
 
 B Cavalcanti, 1. xii. c. 1, vol. ii. p. 34. 
 
 6 Letter from the Ten to Neri Capponi in G. Capponi, ii. 11, note. 
 
16 COSIMO IN VENICE. [143* 
 
 So Florence was forced to yield her condottiere, and in 
 October Sforza met at Reggio the Venetian ambassador, Andrea 
 Morosini, who ordered him to fight openly, with the alternative 
 of losing his command and his pay. 1 As the proverb says, 
 " We do not catch flies with vinegar," the wily peasant stuck 
 more closely to Cosimo ; 2 he even went back to Tuscany, 3 to 
 the great annoyance of the Venetians and the mutual satis- 
 faction of Cosimo and Filippo Maria. 
 
 Already the enemy of Milan, Florence was now on the 
 point of war with Venice. To avoid this grave danger, the 
 "great merchant" went thither as ambassador in April 1438. 
 He counted upon the friendships of exile to obtain from the 
 Venetians that an understanding between Sforza and the Duke 
 should be prevented, and that they should look with friendly 
 eyes upon a new enterprise with Lucca. "Our senate," the 
 Doge Foscari coldly replied, " knows its own strength and that 
 of the other Italian states. It is not in the habit of paying 
 those who do not serve it. Venice does not wish to advance 
 Count Francesco at her own expense. As for Lucca, Florence 
 is free to follow her wishes ; we do not understand the motive 
 of her overtures upon this subject." Beyond these reticent 
 phrases, Cosimo obtained nothing, and this explains his cold- 
 ness towards the Republic of the Lagoons, 4 a principal fact 
 in his history. It was thought that where he had failed, 
 
 1 See Sabellico on the defiance of Venice by Sforza, 1. ii. p. 557. 
 
 2 li Che la decta signoria faza quella propria stima de luy che faria el figliolo 
 verso el padre quando fosse in pericolo. Dicendo che se Sforza fosse vivo et fosse 
 assediato da Brazo et quella signoria fosse in pericolo del stato suo, lasseria peri- 
 colare el padre per aydare la decta signoria " (Sforza's letter, Oct. 12, 1437). " Ogni 
 mia volonta remetto in vuy. . . . Ben ve prego che al facto vostro vogliate havere 
 buona advertentia, perche non potete havere el vostro, che non habiate el mio " 
 (Sforza to Lorenzo de Medicis, March 6, 1438). These extracts have been pub- 
 lished by M. B. Buser, Die Beziehungen der Mediceer zu Frankreich wahrend der 
 Jahre 1434-1494. w» ihrem Ztisammenkang mit den allgemeinen Verhaltnissen 
 flattens, Leipzig, 1879, p. 351. Such is Sforza's language for many years. We 
 will see it further on in several documents. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 266 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 11 86; Ammirato, xxi. 10. 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1186; Boninsegni, p. 67; Sabellico, 1. ii. p. 558 ; Machia- 
 velli, v. 73 ; Ammirato, xxi. 1 1. 
 
1438] THREE YEARS' TRUCE. 17 
 
 Giuliano Davanzati, more eloquent and a friend of the Pope, 1 
 would succeed ; but this illusion did not last long. As an 
 added disgrace, Florence was soon abandoned by her other 
 allies. Genoa, asked for assistance, replied in vague terms, 2 
 in return for help recently accorded her. 3 Betrayed by his 
 lieutenants, flattered by Filippo Maria, persuaded that " it is 
 wiser to sheer the wool than tear off the skin," 4 Sforza came 
 to a formal understanding which once more assured him the 
 hand of Bianca when she reached a marriageable age, and he 
 promised to obtain peace. 
 
 Thus the Florentines were completely abandoned. They 
 were surrounded by enemies ready to turn upon them. No- 
 body wanted them to become masters of Lucca. 5 Ruined by 
 taxes, exhausted by famine, cut down by an epidemic, 6 how 
 could they expect to hold out ? To spare their pride, a truce 
 of three years was proposed, 7 and, while exacting that the 
 siege of Lucca should be raised, they were left their conquests, 
 and by this means unfortunate Lucca was reduced to a terri- 
 tory of six miles outside her walls. These conditions were 
 satisfactory, and accordingly were accepted (April 28). But 
 for the Florentines, it was a mortal blow to see them rendered 
 valueless by the action of their friend Sforza, who, on his own 
 authority, made restitution to Lucca of all she had lost, except 
 Montecarlo, Uzzano, and the port of Motrone. 8 
 
 Writers are astounded by this kind of treason ; they ignore 
 its motive. And yet it is not difficult to discover it ; is fecit cui 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxi. 12. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 67. 
 
 3 See above, same chapter, p. 9. 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 17, vol. ii. p. 30. 
 
 8 Letter reported in Cron. d'Agobbio, xxi. 975. 
 
 6 Boninsegni, p. 67. 
 
 7 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1 187 ; Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 17, vol. ii. p. 30. However, 
 L. Bruni uses the word " peace " ( Comm., xix. 939). 
 
 8 L. Bruni, Comment., xix. 939; Boninsegni, p. 67; Sabellico, 1. ii. f. 561; 
 Beverini in Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 17, vol. ii. p. 31, n. 2 ; Cron. cTAgobbio, xxi. 975 ; 
 Simoneta, xxi. 265; Poggio, xx. 390; Platina, xx. 814; Bonincontri, xxi. 147; 
 Machiavelli, v. 73 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 13. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 8L8 
 
18 NEGOTIATIONS AND INTRIGUES. [1438 
 
 prodest. From all times the Yisconti wished to see Lucca free 
 and strong against Florence. Now, the wily condottiere already- 
 looked upon himself as the Duke of Milan. 1 Filippo Maria, 
 abandoning the plan of a distant marriage, promised him Asti in 
 Tortona as a dowry, and had advanced him 30,000 ducats; 
 the trousseau and the gowns were ordered, invitations issued, 
 and the persons who were to accompany the bride named. 2 
 At the same time, to keep Sforza away from the Venetians, 
 the corrupting influence of whose gold he feared, he exaggerated 
 the dangers of the step, and sent him, with Piccinino's son, to 
 the far-off Abruzzi to defend one of his feudal states inhe- 
 rited from his father. Away from his future son-in-law, the 
 Duke breathed more freely. 8 
 
 This is only the first act of the comedy. The others which 
 compose the play are much more complicated. Even without 
 Sforza, the league still existed, and the Visconti wished to dis- 
 solve it. Here the principal part was played by his confidant, 
 Piccinino. Feigning a jealous anger in the Duke's choice of a 
 son-in-law, he retired and strengthened his position in Komagna, 
 and offered to restore the Marches to the Pope ; 4 and Eugene 
 swallowed the bait. This Heaven-sent auxiliary received from 
 him five thousand florins, the promise of feudal lands, the 
 liberty of choosing to fight in the pay of the Church or of 
 Venice. After the open rupture, who could have suspected 
 Piccinino capable of secret enmity ? 
 
 When the crafty partner had lulled both republican and 
 pontifical prudence, his private emissaries swept the States of 
 the Church, awakening old factions, and creating hope in the 
 support of Milan ; then in the middle of April he threw off 
 the mask, and while his son was surprising Spoleta, he com- 
 pelled Ostasio of Polenta, lord of Ptavenna and ally of the 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 266 ; Ricotti, iii. 66. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1187. 
 
 8 Simoneta, xxi. 266 ; Ammirato, xxi. 14. 
 
 4 G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Piccinino, p. 157. 
 
1438] FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PERFIDY, 19 
 
 Pope and of Venice, to recognise the Duke as protector. 1 
 Bologna soon rose (May 21), and twenty other towns fol- 
 lowed her example. Meanwhile Filippo Maria feigned sur- 
 prise, protesting ignorance of these revolts, and that they took 
 place against his will ; he swore by all the gods that Piccinino 
 would pay the price with his head as soon as he could. lay 
 hands on him. Piccinino bowed to the storm and ordered his 
 son to evacuate Spoleta ; but when he saw that the powder 
 had taken fire, he right-about-faced the Pope like a military 
 Tartufe. " His Holiness," he said, " only accuses him in order 
 to deprive him of the Duke's friendship, and in punishment 
 his Holiness deserves to lose his estates." 2 
 
 It would be idle to rail at perfidy in writing of the fifteenth 
 century. If we cannot, like Machiavelli, praise the art of the 
 players, at least we may recognise which of them plays the 
 best. The advantage then belongs to the Visconti and his 
 condottiere. Well conceived, the perfidious undertaking is 
 well carried out. Piccinino, in covering the right bank of the 
 Po with his soldiers, cut his enemies in two : the isolated 
 Venetians on one side, open to attack ; on the other, the Pope, 
 ■Sforza, Florence, incapable of succouring them, all at a dis- 
 tance, and all estranged. Then, leaving his conquests to the 
 care of his son, he flew to Lombardy ; in the spring he was 
 before Vicenza and Verona. Should these towns fall like 
 Brescia, Venice could no longer hope to defend her pro- 
 vinces. 
 
 At all cost the Council of Ten must secure her allies. 
 'Giovanni Pisani was sent to Sforza, then returning by the 
 Marches of Ancona, and Francesco Barbarigo went to Cosimo. 
 The question was if they would succeed in re-forming the 
 league, that the understandings of the 28th April, the three 
 
 1 Sanuto, xxii. 1057; Sabellico, 1. ii. f. 561 ; Simoneta, xxi. 271 ; Boninsegni, 
 p. 68 ; G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Piccinino, p. 158 ; Gir. Rossi, Hist. Ravenna Him, 
 1. vii. p. 626, Venice. 1589 ; Machiavelli, v. 74 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 14. 
 
 2 Sanuto, xxii. 1058; Machiavelli, v. 75 a; Ricotti, hi. 70; Sismondi, vi. 41 ; 
 G. Capponi, ii. ,15. 
 
20 CONVENTIONS OF FLORENCE [143* 
 
 years truce between Florence and the Duke, had so nearly 
 broken. 1 
 
 On the banks of the Arno, policy and calculation triumphed 
 over rancour. We recognise the growing influence of the- 
 cold and steady Medici. Barbarigo's overtures were received 
 in a very different way from the recent attitude ot Venice. 
 Florence undertook to engage the condottiere again for five 
 years, with three hundred lances and as many foot-soldiers, 
 supplying the half of their pay, 17,000 florins in gold a 
 month, though she found this a heavy charge. 2 The condotta 
 might even be prolonged a year upon the condition of giving 
 Sforza notice four months in advance (February 19, 1439). 3 
 The two Republics having the reputation of a full treasury, 
 Pandolfo Malatesta, Pietro Orsini, the lords of Faenza and 
 Ferrara, in turn offered their mercenary services. The Pope 
 and the Genoese entered into this league armed to the teeth ; 4 
 truly Penelope's work, undone only to be done again at once. 
 
 One thing surprises us : Sforza, bound to Milan, breaks with 
 his father-in-law. But Venice and Florence had touched the 
 sore spot in persuading him that the Duke was only fooling 
 him in the marriage question. They also gained him by gold, 
 for he was needy and eager for money ; 5 they raised his pay 
 on the 1st February. They had yet to persuade him to cross 
 the Po at the risk of an offensive return of Piccinino into 
 
 1 Sabellico, 1. iii. f. 563 ; Machiavelli, v. 75 B ; Ricotti, iii. 72 ; Sismondi, vi. 45. 
 
 2 In all the records there are abundant proofs that Florence and Venice never 
 agreed as to which should pay the biggest part of the pay. Take this passage : 
 " Cum ei turn a Venetis, turn a Florentinis discordia duarum civitatum avare malig- 
 neque stipendia persolverentur." — Platina, xx. 814. 
 
 3 See the authentic document in the Archivio Sforzesco, Bibl. Nat. MS. Ital. No. 
 1583, f. 5. Neri Capponi (xviii. 1188) and Ammirato (xxi. 17) give 18th February 
 as the date ; 1st. Bresc. (xxi. 809), the 7th. According to Neri Capponi, the sum 
 paid was not 1 7,000 florins, but 20,000, Venice paying 9000 and Florence 8400. 
 Perhaps there was an addition. Other authors credit Venice with two- thirds of 
 the expenses of armament, and Florence with only one. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 275 ; Poggio, xx. 400 ; Boninsegni, p. 69 ; Cavalcanti, 1. xii. 
 c. 2, vol. ii. p. 35 ; Machiavelli, v. 75 B, and the authors quoted in the preceding 
 note. 
 
   Neri Capponi, xviii. 1188 ; Cavalcanti, 1. xii. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 40. 
 
1439] WITH THE VENETIANS. 21 
 
 Tuscany. He refused, fearing to leave his lands in the Marches 
 unprotected ; hence they sent Neri Capponi to him. " If 
 Venice loses her states," said this subtle Florentine, " she will 
 not be able to pay her share of the 17,000 florins, and Florence 
 will not undertake to pay the whole." 1 This argument served 
 to remove the scruples of the interested soldier, now that he 
 was a lord. He allowed Neri Capponi to start for Venice and 
 settle the route of the expedition. 
 
 Neri reports the details of the interview. He found the 
 Venetian Signory, like the rest of the town, in mourning. He 
 ventured upon discreet reproaches concerning their conduct 
 to the Florentines, who, nevertheless, yielded them the Count 
 Francesco, in spite of his usefulness in keeping Sienna and 
 Lucca in order. Without waiting for the Doge to reply, 
 according to custom, the lords stood up, lifted their hands, 
 and tearfully thanked the Florentines and Neri himself in 
 terms that prevented the modest narrator from reporting them 
 in full. 
 
 The Venetian historians later gave a very different version 
 of the meeting ; the senate was noisy, it repulsed the league, 
 it condemned Florentine ingratitude, it preferred the conditions 
 of the Duke of Milan. But we may accept it that both sides 
 exaggerated. Two merchant republics would not be likely to 
 miss the occasion of making the best of their own side. We 
 may remark upon the confession of the Venetian, that the 
 senate, energetically exhorted by the Doge, ended by changing 
 its mind, 2 and that the Venetian funds went up after the 
 Florentine declaration. 3 
 
 By this they were able to agree upon the route, and Sforza, 
 outside the walls, marched off with his army. On the 20th 
 
 1 The missives to Sforza of the ambassadors and his own letters, are full of 
 unceasing and repulsive demands for money. We have only to glance at the 
 Archivio Sforzesco to see it. 
 
 2 Navagero, xxiii. 1104. This writer is of later date— 1498. See Muratori's 
 preface, p. 921. 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1189, whose account is followed by Machiavelli (v. 76) 
 ■and Ammirato xxi. 17). 
 
22 CHARACTER OF THE WAR. [143$ 
 
 June he was upon Paduan ground. 1 He unfurled the flags 
 of Venice, Florence, and Genoa, sent to him in sign of good 
 feeling. 2 With rare decision, without any heat, Florence had 
 shown the triumph of the policy of reason. 
 
 We need not follow the details of a war in which the Tuscan 
 Republic played small part, except by money. The details 
 are uninteresting ; they belong to what we call petty warfare. 
 The chiefs only risked their reputation, and the soldiers barely 
 risked their lives ; at the most, sixty men fell upon the field ; 
 their armour protected them, when in warm weather it did 
 not smother them. The strife consisted of a few rapid marches 
 to surprise the enemy or escape it, or to cover retreat by the 
 sure protection of a river or a canal, the art of bridging a. 
 river under fire being as yet unknown. A glance served to 
 count the forces, and the less numerous body regarded itself 
 as defeated. The defeated were dispersed and despoiled, a 
 simple matter for those who could gather themselves together 
 the day after under a new master, or the same, at the expense 
 of the lost or contested provinces and of their unfortunate 
 inhabitants. 3 Ammirato shows Piccinino surrounded by his 
 enemies, escaping, as he remarks, after the fashion of imperti- 
 nent lovers in comedy, 4 in a sack upon the shoulder of a German 
 soldier, who assumed quite naturally the role of plunderer. It 
 was just because these operations were sterile that the war 
 was brought back into Tuscany. Piccinino asked the Duke to 
 send him there with the Florentine exiles. He wanted serious 
 operations to mark out a principality like his rival, perhaps 
 at his expense. He believed that such a brusque evolution 
 would strike at the heart of the Medician republic, terrify 
 
 1 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1 190. 
 
 2 Romanin, 1. x. c. 7, vol. iv. p. 197, from Venetian documents. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 277; Sabellico, 1. iv. p. 566; Sismondi, vi. 51 ; G. Capponi, 
 ii. 16. On military operations see G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 158-164.J 
 Cavalcanti, 1. xii. c. 6-10, vol. ii. p. 41-51. Morelli {Be/., xix. 170) indicates the 
 principal. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxi. 20, who took the facts from 1st. Bresc, xxi. 815; Simoneta* 
 xxi. 281 ; G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 163. 1 
 
1439] HOPES OF THE EXILES. 23 
 
 the Pope, and frighten off Sforza from Brescia. In isolating 
 thus the Venetians, it would be possible to crush them, and 
 then come back and attack the Count Francesco and crush 
 him too, 1 a tactic old as the Horatii. The Doge understood 
 the danger, and wished at all cost to retain the captain of 
 the league. " To conquer in Lombardy is to conquer every- 
 where," he said. " Let the Count retreat, and Venice will 
 lose her possessions by land." 2 
 
 Already, with his natural confidence, Rinaldo de Albizzi 
 saw himself back in his country. He asserted it loudly, and 
 his friends chorussed him. 3 The hen had hatched, and, as 
 another bravada, he had it conveyed to Cosimo that the exiles 
 were not asleep. " I believe it," said Cosimo ; " I have robbed 
 them of sleep." 4 Events placed the laughers upon his side, 
 but at the time they laughed with both. Rinaldo promised 
 Filippo Maria a safe passage by the Casentino, where his 
 friend the Count of Poppi reigned ; then a revolt in Pistoia, 
 which the Panciatichi, allies of his son, would provoke, and 
 afterwards a rising in Prato and in Lucca. As well, at the 
 approach of the smallest army, Florence, crushed with taxes, 
 irritated by haughty rulers, trembling under oppression, would 
 rise. 5 
 
 We cannot doubt that there were malcontents" in plenty, 
 but this does not prove that the exiles were regretted or their 
 return desired ; for they certainly knew that Rinaldo and his 
 friends would not lead them to liberty, and to return from the 
 new aristocracy to the old did not offer sufficient advantages to 
 justify a devastating and ruinous war, and perhaps capture by 
 assault. There was everything to fear, for it was not likely 
 that the prudent Filippo Maria or the crafty Piccinino would 
 
 1 See MachiavelH, v. 78 b. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1192. 
 
 3 " Affirmantes se ipsos et eorum quemlibet tunc fieri et esse potentes in dicta 
 civitate" (Sentence of Rinaldo and others, July 6, 1440, Commis. Rin., iii. 667). 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxi. 22. 
 
 5 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 9, vol. ii. p. 88. See book xii. c. II, p. 51. This author 
 gives Rinaldo's speech. MachiavelH, v. 79 A ; Ammirato, xxi. 22. 
 
24 CARDINAL VITELLESCHI. [1440 
 
 embark in a struggle without the certainty of powerful re- 
 sources — " enter a vessel without biscuits ; " 1 and the danger 
 for those who lured him into Tuscany was so terrible as to 
 warrant a reconciliation between Cosimo and his most mis- 
 trustful countrymen. 
 
 But what were the resources ? The famous Vitelleschi was 
 suspected, the Florentine Cardinal, as he was called, officer of 
 the Pontifical States while the Pope resided at Florence. Did 
 he not show regret to have driven Rinaldo to arms ? Did he 
 not feel a lasting rancour towards Sforza, his conqueror in the 
 Marches, and to the two Republics who had denounced him 
 to his master for the embezzlement of 20,000 florins? The 
 rancour of this mitred blackguard was to be dreaded. Living 
 in Rome like a cruel and arrogant prince, he laid waste for 
 the pleasure of devastating ; he promised his soldiers a hundred 
 days' indulgence for every foot of olive ground they would 
 break down. 2 It was he, they said, who had advised the Duke 
 to send Piccinino into Tuscany. A letter in cipher was inter- 
 cepted in which he suggested to this last-named that they should 
 join their forces, and it was shown to the Pope. 3 Eugene IV. 
 was even persuaded that, having subjected Florence, his criminal 
 legate would have him removed in order to seize the tiara. 4 
 
 These were, of course, pure inventions, except the overtures 
 to Piccinino. Upheld by this disturbing prelate, the Count of 
 Urbino, and the Malatesti, 5 Piccinino was able to advance. He 
 left his winter quarters (February 7, 1 440) with 6000 men. 
 After crossing the Po, he rallied 3 OOO of Vitelleschi's men, 
 and advanced towards the south to the territory of Faenza. 6 
 All this time Sforza was cooling his heels before Brescia, con- 
 demned to inaction until the snow melted. Not wishing to 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, 1. xii. c. 13, vol. ii. p. 57. 
 
 2 Giorn. Napol., xxi. 1107. 
 
 8 G." B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 165, 166. 
 4 Poggio, xx. 406. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 13, vol. ii. p. 58. 
 
 6 Simoneta, xxi. 286; G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 165; Machiavelli, 
 v. 79 b ; Ammirato, xxi. 22. 
 
J440] DELIBERATIONS AT VENICE. 25 
 
 descend from the lord to the condottiere, 1 he wanted to fly to 
 the rescue of the Marches threatened. The Venetians feigned 
 to retain him. Florence solved the difficulty. Neri Capponi 2 
 started for Venice with the order to sustain Giuliano Davanzati, 
 the orator of his country. Both saw the danger for the Vene- 
 tian possessions in stripping Lombardy, and they promised to 
 raise another army to oppose Piccinino. 3 
 
 • Sforza assisted at these deliberations impatiently, for he 
 would not confide to others the defence of his domains. It 
 was doubtful if he would submit to the resolution adopted. 
 But sometimes events are hurried. Vitelleschi paid with his 
 life for his letter in cipher. 4 The Malatesti, on the point of 
 going over to Piccinino, changed their minds, and remained 
 faithful to their obligations. Gian Paolo Orsini, captain of 
 Florence, redeemed Bimini, 5 and there was no longer any 
 need to rescue the Marches. Sforza was willing to remain in 
 Lombardy if paid his salary. Even more, an offer of ninety 
 thousand florins persuaded him that he was strong enough to 
 take the offensive by sending Neri Capponi with a thousand 
 horses into Tuscany (April 18). 6 
 
 It was indeed necessary to defend it. Piccinino was roam* 
 ing round, looking to see how he might enter. He wanted to 
 force the passage of Marradi, at the foot of the mountains of 
 the valley of Lamona, which separate the Tuscan from the 
 Bomagna territories. Protected by a stream of water at the 
 bottom of a precipice, these rocks could arrest an army for 
 
 1 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1191-1192 ; Machiavelli, v. 80 A. 
 
 2 Neri had just been named for the fifth time one of the Ten of War with Cosimo, 
 Leon. Bruni, Angelo Acciajuoli, the principal citizens ; such was the importance 
 ,of this war. See Bonincontri, xxi. 149. 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1191 ; Simoneta, xxi. 286. 
 
 4 He was all-powerful at Rome. The commander of the castle of S. Angelo 
 captured him by perfidy and had him killed, March 18, 1440. See details in 
 Bonincontri, xxi. 149; Mesticanza di Paulo Petrone, xxiv. 1 123; Platina, Vita 
 Eugenii IV., p. 275; Boninsegni, p. 71 ; Cavalcanti, xiv. 3, vol. ii. p. 106. All 
 these writers admit his violent end, but Platina accuses the Florentines instead of 
 the Pope. Salvi {1st. di Pistoia, ii. 302) believes in an accidental death. 
 
 5 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1 192 ; Machiavelli, v. 80 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 22. 
 
 6 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1122 ; Ammirato, xxi. 24. 
 
26 PICCININO IN TUSCANY. [*4*> 
 
 several months; but Bartolommeo Orlandini, who commanded 
 for the Florentines, took flight, " like the peasant who mistook 
 the hornet's buzz for the sound of the trumpet," * and did not 
 stop until he came to Borgo San Lorenzo. This left Piccinino 
 free to advance without resistance to the mountains of Fiesole 
 (April 10), and ravage all the country within three miles of 
 Florence, camp at Remola, pass the Arno, and spread terror. 
 In the official documents his soldiers are charged with all sorts of 
 abominations, 2 which are doubtless exaggerated. Cavalcanti had 
 the curiosity to question the women who sought refuge behind 
 the town walls with the men and beasts. " We were only beaten 
 and robbed," they replied — a trifle in those days. They had 
 not even committed the traditional outrage of shortening their 
 skirts. 3 The adventurer Piccinino was no longer a barbarian. 
 The Eenaissance had influenced him. He threatened all who 
 burnt objects of art and beauty with death. 4 It was his soldiers 
 who described him as a terror in their own interests. " Yield 
 at once," they shouted outside the gates of Florence ; " don't 
 wait for Niccolo, for in an instant we will enter with him ! " 
 And in the neighbourhood the bells clanged violently to pro- 
 voke a rising in the town. 5 
 
 This rising, promised by Rinaldo to his allies, was not un- 
 likely. The Florentines were agitated " like fish in a poisoned 
 sea." 6 Their streets, crowded with contadini and cattle, were 
 in confusion bordering upon disorder. The approach of famine 
 was felt, and every one was under suspicion. 7 Thanks to this 
 supplement from those outside, never reputed faithful, Cosimo's 
 enemies seemed to increase to a majority. His friends profited 
 by his difficulties to insist upon high pay for their services, 
 and prevent the repression of abuses by which they profited. 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 2, vol. ii. p. 65. 
 
 2 Sentence of Rinaldo and others, July 6, 1440. Commiss. Rin., iii. 667. 
 
 3 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 3, vol. ii. p. 67. 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 3, vol. ii. p. 67. 
 
 8 Sentence of Rinaldo. Commiss. Rin.> iii. 667. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. I, vol. ii. p. 62. 
 
 7 L. Bruni, xix. 940 ; Simoneta, xxi. 287. 
 
1440] CONFUSION OF THE FLORENTINES. 27 
 
 " We gave you back to your country," they said ; " you are in 
 our debt." Counsel rained. Some wanted to have the prisons 
 emptied and filled with the suspects; others clamoured for 
 examples — that is, executions. There were many, whom Caval- 
 canti regarded as insane, who were of the " beastly " opinion 
 that the exiles should be recalled to bring about calm. 
 
 Not knowing to whom he should listen, like a good Tartufe, 
 Cosimo said, " Would it not be better for the Kepublic that 
 I should go ? " This would not have served either his accom- 
 plices, who enjoyed security and favours through him, or the 
 people who remained faithful to him, through fear of ven- 
 geance if the exiles returned. Neri Capponi, friend at the 
 eleventh hour, henceforth devoted, asked Orsini to have in 
 readiness for the Master's defence three hundred saddled horses, 1 
 so seriously was he menaced. Quite recently returned from 
 Venice, Neri gave a seasonable spur to the moral faculties of 
 the Florentines ; he even undertook the command of the mili- 
 tary operations. With the small band of cavaliers that Sforza 
 had given him, and a few foot-soldiers raised in the ranks of 
 the people, he ousted the enemy from Remola and arrested their 
 depredations, while Puccio Pucci by energetic speeches shamed 
 his countrymen in their inertia. Following the erudite fashion 
 of the day, he recalled the Persian story of the women who 
 stripped themselves and shouted to their sons who were fight- 
 ing without heart, " Cowards, attack the Medes, or return to 
 those from whom you sprang ! " 2 
 
 Florence being protected from surprise, thanks to Neri 
 Capponi, Rinaldo wanted Piccinino to establish himself at 
 Pistoia, where family ties formed a strong support for the 
 Albizzi. But Piccinino did not share the fury of the exiles. 
 Proud of his independence besides, he preferred to go towards 
 the Casentino, where a warm welcome awaited him. 3 He 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 6, vol. ii. pp. 73-76. 
 
 8 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 7, vol. ii. p. 76. (The translation is modified. — Trans.) 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1193 ; L. Bruni, xix. 940 ; Poggio, xx. 406 ; Machiavelli, 
 v. 81 A ; Ammirato, xxi. 23, 24. 
 
28 COUNT OF POPPI. [1440 
 
 knew this, and so did the Florentines. At Venice Neri 
 Capponi represented the enmity of the Count of Poppi as one 
 of the dangers of his country. 1 
 
 Francesco de Battifolle, Count of Poppi, was the heir of 
 the famous Guidi who had owned this mountainous district 
 for more than four centuries. Upon the mountain sides and 
 heights he possessed several castles, and even to-day that 
 which he inhabited may still be seen, magnificently situated. 2 
 Belonging to a branch of the ancient family of the Guelphs, 
 how did he happen to be the enemy of a town above and 
 beyond all Guelph ? Surrounded by republican territories, it 
 was his interest to be on good terms with it. Having obtained, 
 with the title of recommendation, the restitution of the property 
 of which the legate Vitelleschi had robbed him, having been 
 appointed vicar or commissioner in the Casentino, and being 
 provided by the Florentines with bombs for his defence there, 3 he 
 owed devotion to his protectors. But this subjection humiliated 
 him and lowered him in his own eyes. To strengthen himself 
 by alliances, he gave one of his daughters to the condottiere 
 Fortebracci, 4 and hoped to marry the other, the beautiful Gual- 
 drada, to Piero de Cosimo, 5 though Piero's attentions, by calcu- 
 lated modesty, were given to a Florentine of middle-class life, 
 Lucrezia Tornabuoni. 6 This was how Francesco de Battifolle 
 became the enemy of Florence ; this was why he had called 
 Piccinino to his aid, 7 " unlike the pheasant, that believes itself 
 unseen when it hides its head under its wings." 8 
 
 That this clever captain should cut Florence off from Pisa, 
 which supplied him with food, or from Arezzo and Perouse, 
 
 1 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1188. 
 
 2 Gino Capponi, ii. 20. 
 
 8 Boninsegni, p. 72; Machiavelli, v. p. 81 A. 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, 1. xiii. c. 2, vol. ii. p. 95 ; Neri Capponi, La Cacciata del Conte di 
 Poppi, xviii. 1 1 17-19; Bonincontri, xxi. 148. 
 
 6 See Fabroni {Doc, p. 147), letter of Battifolle, dated July 25, 1435, proving 
 the marriage projects. 
 
 6 Fabroni, p. 81 ; Ammirato, xxi. 24. 
 , 7 Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 7, vol. ii. p. 112. 
 
 8 Cavalcanti invents his letter. See 1. xiii. c. II, vol. ii. p. 92. 
 
i44o] PICCININO'S DESIGNS. 29 
 
 tlie road of the Pontifical army coming to her rescue, it mat- 
 tered little, so that she was cut off. 1 In a few days he took 
 Bibbiena and Komena. But, to his great surprise, his success 
 ended here. He was kept more than a month before the little 
 castle of San Niccolo, situated at the foot of the mountains that, 
 separate the Casentino from the Val d'Arno. Florence had 
 roused courage by offering protection to the women and chil- 
 dren, and promising the men, if they were defeated, to establish 
 them in the fertile country of Pisa. 2 There were no defections 
 in the invaded province, and even in Florence, in spite of the 
 provocations of the exiles, there was no movement. 
 
 Thus it was impossible to attack the Florentine walls, and 
 to stick eternally in the rocky Casentino, as Battifolle pro- 
 posed, was not Piccinino's plan — "his horses could not live 
 upon stones." 3 He preferred a turn with Perouse, his own 
 country. 4 He believed his fame would decide his compatriots 
 to acknowledge him as lord, as of old they had acknowledged his 
 patron Braccio : he only obtained from them a thousand florins 
 to turn on his heels. Same humiliation before Cortona and Citta 
 di Castello. He was reduced to applaud the successes of Sforza 
 in Lombardy, which compelled the Duke to recall his unfor- 
 tunate captain. 5 
 
 But before retracing his path, Piccinino was determined to 
 fight. His military fame was implicated ; the Florentine exiles 
 pressed him ; and finally, he wanted to protect the Count of 
 Poppi against the vengeance he easily foresaw. Success seemed 
 probable, for the Florentine camp was the camp of Agra- 
 mant, the court of King Confusion. 6 Neri Capponi and Ber- 
 
 1 L. Bruni, xix. 941 ; Boninsegni, p. 72; G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 
 166 ; Ammirato, xxi. 28. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 12, 16, 20-22, vol. ii. p. 1 14-132; Bonincontri, xxi. 
 150; Boninsegni, p. 72; Poggio, xx. 411; Machiavelli, v. 81 b; Ammirato, 
 xxi. 25. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, v. 81 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 29. 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1194; Cavalcanti, xiv. 21, vol. ii. p. 136. 
 
 5 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1194; Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 31, vol. ii. p. 144; G. B. 
 Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 166 ; Machiavelli, v. 81 b; Ammirato, xxi. 26. 
 
 6 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1194; Ammirato, xxi. 27. 
 
3 o PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE. [1440 
 
 nardetto de' Medicis were there, commissioners of the Kepublic, 1 
 Gian Paolo Orsini was commander. 2 The Patriarch of Aquilia 
 was the chief of the Pontifical contingent. 3 Micheletto Sforza 
 Attendolo commanded another levy. These chiefs, all more or 
 less warriors, disagreed upon one point — upon the recognition 
 of the authority, the acceptance of the interference of two mer- 
 chants, of two intrusive outsiders. The Ten and the Signory 
 were obliged to enjoin a temporising policy, leaving nothing to 
 chance, although the army showed the respectable front of 
 9000 horses. This tactic was wise, for Piccinino was near at 
 hand. Let him attack if he dared. 
 
 He had to dare, for he needed success to cover his retreat. 
 But the position of the two armies was such that an attack was 
 not easy on either side, and disadvantage lay in hurry. Upon 
 the hillock crowned by the castle of Anghiari the Florentines 
 were placed stairways. At the bottom, a few yards distant, 
 a little stream ran through sharp banks, spanned by a single 
 bridge, which southward flowed into the Tiber. Between 
 the Tiber, which sheltered Borgo San Sepolcro, and this tri- 
 butary, which sheltered Anghiari, spread a plain of four or five 
 thousand feet. 4 Whoever started the fight should pass the 
 bridge under the enemy's fire. Piccinino could only reach it 
 by crossing the plain, and the plain was cut by ditches to 
 mark the limits of the property parcelled out, receive the rains, 
 and prevent the cattle from browsing upon the seeds. 5 The 
 attack was difficult and the retreat dangerous. Both difficul- 
 ties and perils he hoped to lessen by offering battle on St. 
 Peter's day, 29th June, a feast then nearly as great as St. 
 John's ; and in the afternoon, when the sun was hottest, when 
 the Florentines, regarding this as a sacred day, in a sort of 
 
 1 Sentence of Rinaldo. Commiss. Kin., iii. 667. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 24, vol. ii. p. 136. 
 
 3 He was called Luigi Scarampi, being the Pope's doctor, and was made cardinal 
 and patriarch of Aquilia. 
 
 4 Letter of Neri Capponi to the Ten, June 25, 1440, in G. Capponi, ii. 22, 
 n. 1. 
 
 5 Decembrio, xx. 1081. 
 
1440] BATTLE OF ANGHIARI. 31 
 
 truce with the Almighty, should have laid aside their arms, 
 even part of their garments, to give themselves up to pleasure. 1 
 As well, he knew them to be without videttes or outposts — a 
 common error in those days, and a grave one ; for it is not an 
 affair of a few minutes to jump into heavy armour, harness 
 horses, and prepare for combat. 2 
 
 On the 28th a false attack was attempted, so as to divert 
 suspicion from the next day. On the morning of the 29th 
 the commissaries wrote : " Yesterday we nearly engaged in 
 battle. Four lances were broken, and then we retreated. 
 Niccolo came from Borgo with a few men, and found us ready. 
 This morning in his camp there is a good deal of fire. We 
 all believe he is going to the right-about ; but where will he 
 go ? We shall soon know." 3 In the afternoon, before sunset, 
 Micheletto Attendolo, an old stager, more vigilant than his 
 colleagues, thought he perceived in the distance a cloud of dust 
 coming slowly towards Anghiari. He scented the enemy and 
 called the dispersed soldiers to arms. Followed by those who 
 flew to him, he took his stand in front of the bridge. The 
 legate and Orsini and the commissaries flanked him right 
 and left, and the infantry was placed along the bank to pre- 
 vent any one from wading the torrent. The surprise fell flat ; 
 the enemy's plan was thwarted. 
 
 There remained two alternatives : to beat a retreat or attempt 
 to cross the bridge. The intrepid captain did not hesitate. 
 He pushed forward his Milanese, whom Micheletto vigorously 
 beat back. Astorre Manfredi and Francesco de Piccinino 
 hastened to the rescue with the remainder of the ducal army, 
 balanced the combat, and drove the Florentines back to the 
 ascent of Anghiari. The aggressor was henceforth placed 
 upon ground transformed by Orsini into an esplanade, and 
 suitable for a battle. There he was uncovered, threatened on 
 
 • a Poggio, xx. 413, and G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 167 ; Ammirato, 
 xxi. 36. 
 
 2 Sismondi, vi. 66. 
 
 * Text in G. Capponi, ii. 22, n. 2. 
 
32 DEFEAT OF PICCININO. [1440 
 
 both sides by the legate and by Orsini. The place was not 
 tenable, and he entrenched himself upon the bridge, which he 
 held for two long hours. At last, however, he gave in, fell 
 back, and found himself again upon the left bank, pursued, 
 tumbled into the ditches by the Florentine cavalry, cut down 
 by the arrows of the infantry and carbines of the longest range. 1 
 To rally was impossible, still more so to return to the charge. 
 Even the time lost in arming themselves turned to the advan- 
 tage of the Florentines, for they arrived like a reserve, fresh 
 and ready for their exhausted adversaries. Nature, too, lent 
 them her aid ; at sunset a violent wind blew from the moun- 
 tain, raising dust in the eyes of those Milanese that had not yet 
 run away. 
 
 The defeat was complete. The standard of the ducal cap- 
 tain fell into the hands of the conquerors, with a large number 
 of arms and men and horses. But according to Neri Capponi, 
 an irrefutable authority upon the subject, out of 1940 prisoners, 
 there were only 400 soldiers ; the rest were people from Borgo, 
 mere scum of the battlefield. Out of twenty-six, twenty-two 
 chiefs were taken ; only six were brought to the camp, their 
 friends in the Florentine army having procured the evasion of 
 the others. 2 Neri is silent upon the number of the slain ; but 
 we must not take seriously Machiavelli's ugly joke about one 
 solitary dead man fallen from his horse and trampled under 
 foot ; 3 it was made to discredit the mercenaries, and history 
 was not its place. Other authors mention from forty to sixty 
 
 1 Decembrio, xx. 1082. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1 195 ; Boninsegni, p. 73; Decembrio, xx. 1082; 
 Simoneta, xxi. 292 ; L. Bruni, xix. 942 ; Poggio, xx. 413 ; G. B. Poggio, Vita di 
 Nic. Pice, p. 167 ; Machiavelli, v. 83 A ; Ammirato, xxi. 28 ; Fabroni, p. 82, and 
 letter of Michele Attendolo to Cosimo, July 7, 1440 ; ibid.. Doc, p. 147. Here 
 L. Bruni is nearly as great an authority as Neri Capponi, for he was one of the 
 Ten of the War. He died four years later, and his Commentary goes no farther, 
 which is less celebrated than his History, but just as elegant, and perhaps more 
 useful. See again a letter of the legate, Scarampi, to the inhabitants of Spoleta 
 in Graziani, Cron. di Perugia {Arch. stor. t 1st ser. xvi. 459, n. 1), and Cipolla, 
 p. 472. 
 
 8 Machiavelli, v. 8^ A. 
 
1440] TARDINESS OF THE FLORENTINES. 33 
 
 slain, and speak of from two to four hundred wounded. 1 For 
 such a success but little blood was spilled. 
 
 Montesquieu would have reproached the Florentines as he 
 did Hannibal for not having followed up their victory. The 
 next day, June 30, Neri Capponi wanted to rush upon Piccinino 
 and the 15,000 men that were left him ; but it was too late, 
 since the defeated had had the night to get away ; and yet, save 
 Orsini and Micheletto, 2 there were none to follow him to regain 
 lost time. They gave as excuses their wounded, their prisoners, 
 their booty — even the heat of the day, when they had lost the 
 morning in discussion. However, the burning sun, which pre- 
 vented them from pursuing Piccinino, did not prevent them 
 from hurrying to Arezzo to put their booty in security. Thus 
 Piccinino had ample leisure to beat a retreat towards Komagna. 
 It was only on the 1st July that the Florentines thought of 
 replacing him at Borgo San Sepolcro, without even knowing 
 to whom the place would belong. 
 
 In their fright, the inhabitants wished to swear allegiance to 
 the Republic ; to avert the legate's anger, it was necessary to 
 turn them from this idea, for had they not engaged verbally to 
 return to the Church all the ancient possessions of the Church 
 that should be regained ? 3 The legate was not to be reconciled 
 because the Florentines had learned to shout " Long live the 
 Church ! " 4 He separated himself from his allies with half the 
 army to re-establish throughout the Papal States pontifical 
 authority. 5 But his master, short of money, was more manage- 
 
 1 Biondo Flavio de Forli {Historiarum ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii 
 Liber, Venice, 15th century edit., in Gothic characters, not paged) says 70 slain 
 and 800 wounded among the Milanese ; of the Florentines, 10 dead and 200 
 wounded. Poggio (xx. 414), 40 Florentines slain and 200 wounded, 10 of which 
 died of their wounds. According to Ammirato (xxi. 28), the artillery overthrew 
 600 horses on the battlefield. 
 
 a Micheletto declares himself of Neri's opinion. See letter quoted in Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 148. 
 
 8 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1195 ; Boninsegni, p. 73; Machiavelli, v. 8s A; Ammi- 
 rato, xxi. 29. 
 
 4 Letter of the Commissaries to the Ten, July 1, 1440, in G. Capponi, ii. 24, 
 n. 2. 
 
 5 Machiavelli, v. 83 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 29. 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
34 HARSHNESS OF COSIMO. [1440 
 
 able; for 25,000 ducats he gave up all the property of Borgo 
 San Sepolcro. Although less important than Lucca, Borgo was 
 worth something ; she guaranteed Tuscany from the offensive 
 return of the Milanese ; she transported the seat of war farther 
 off ; above all, she upset the intrigues of the exiles, and offered 
 a chance of finishing with them. Cosimo, like the oligarchy 
 of old, was fortunate at the dawn of his power. 
 
 He could act harshly : he was naturally severe ; such was 
 his reputation even before his triumphant return. Under him 
 Florence changed some of her best customs. In the olden 
 times, when she exiled the husband, she tolerated the wife ; 
 Dante's wife was allowed to remain in her dwelling and watch 
 over her husband's interests. But he forbade the wife of an 
 exile to pass through her native town. Francesco Gianfig- 
 liazzi was proscribed with all his family. His daughter-in-law 
 lay ill at Sienna, his son at Bologna. The unfortunate mother, 
 nursing the one, wanted to go to the other. Her shortest 
 road was by Florence. She passed through in disguise. The 
 first time she escaped, but not the second time. Returning, 
 she was captured and subjected to torture. Cavalcanti saw 
 her, her members disjointed, arms upheld by two herrovieri, 
 carried to the Stinche, to the quarter reserved for women of ill- 
 fame. 1 
 
 When he could not get hold of a man, Cosimo dishonoured 
 him. He had his principal enemies, Einaldo and his son 
 Ormanno, Ludovico des Rossi, Lamberto des Lamberteschi, 
 Bernardo Barbadori, Stefano Peruzzi, Baldassare and Niccolo 
 Oianfigliazzi, 2 painted in a state of nature, hung from the feet, 
 and placed upon the facade of the Podestal palace. 
 
 Under the new reign, it was the poet-hangman's important 
 
 1 April or May 1440. Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 4, vol. ii. p. 107. 
 
 2 * Eorum figuris et pitturis ad naturale detraendis " (Act of Condemnation, 6th 
 .and 13th July 1440. Commiss. Rin., iii. 667). The painter charged with the 
 commission owes him his name and renown. It was Andrea del Castagno, called 
 " degli impiccati," died in 1457, whom Vasari charges with the same office for the 
 Pazzi, condemned in 1478, while in reality it was Sandro Botticelli. M. Guasti 
 proves this (Commiss. Rin., iii. 669). See lower down, p. 396. 
 
1440] COSIMO'S VICTIMS. 35 
 
 function to explain the picture by infamous verses. The profits 
 and the privileges belonged to Antonio Palagio. He was buffoon 
 of the Signory, and his duty was to sing during the meals 
 of the priors moral songs and poems upon the great deeds 
 of the Kepublic. 1 In 1430 he was devoted to the Albizzi. 
 Delighted with his courtesy, Rinaldo, as a distinguished mark 
 of confidence, gave him his letters for the Ten. 2 In 1 440, in 
 his verses to order, he called Rinaldo " an ungrateful traitor, 
 the cruellest and wickedest of all ; " Ormanno is " rough and 
 deceitful ; " Rossi is " a liar, bold in words and cowardly 
 in action ; " Lamberteschi, " brainless ; " Barbadori, " the son 
 of the spoiler of churches and hospitals ; " Niccolo Gianfig- 
 liazzi, " a mule and a bastard, traitor to his country and his 
 God." 3 
 
 The chief reproach against the creator of these finished 
 poems is to have turned with the wind like a weathercock ; 
 but his victims are not all worthy of respect, and notably upon 
 the last-named much more might have been said had there 
 been space in an explanatory verse. Abbot of Passignano, 
 Niccolo Gianfigliazzi was accused by peasants before the 
 Holy See of adultery and sacrilege, of having converted his 
 abbey into a place of ill-fame, of having used the sacred cup- 
 board, in which the head of the glorious St. John Gualbert 
 was preserved, to violate a young girl whom he had been 
 charged to exorcise. 4 But the undeniable misdemeanours of 
 the few were noisily quoted, and odiously used against all the 
 defeated of the oligarchy. 
 
 1 Commiss. Rin. , iii. 669. This buffoon was' of good family, and had in the 
 Church of the Servi a tomb, and even a chapel. See Lettere di un Notaro, ii. 86, 
 n. 1. Del Palagio is often mentioned in these letters. 
 
 2 Letter of Rinaldo to Ormanno, February 3, 1430 {Commiss. LIV. Rin., iii. 345). 
 
 3 See these verses in Commiss. Rin., iii. 670. They were also published in 
 Cavalcanti, Append. II. 577, from MS. belonging to G. Capponi, and in the Testi 
 di lingua inediti of Guglielmo Mansi, Rome, 18 16. 
 
 4 " Che la badia era ridotta a bordello . . . l'armario ove sta la testa del 
 glorioso S. Gualberto come letto a piumaccio adopero ad ingravidare una fanciulla 
 . . . con la medicina, non che gli cacciasse lo spirito, ma egli gliene aggiunse uno 
 di nuovo " (Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 109). 
 
36 RINALDO DE ALBIZZI. [1440 
 
 Violence, once open, now became hypocritical ; outside, every- 
 thing was handsomely painted. Liberty was never more spoken 
 of than in the public documents of the day. The word is 
 mentioned in nearly every line. 1 Amongst the mouthers there 
 were a few honest souls, and they were duped by Cosimo's 
 affected modesty. These dupes clearly saw that Kinaldo's 
 return would not advance liberty, but they failed to see that 
 with Cosimo liberty was merely a word and a snare, and that 
 the only difference was to groan under one tyrant, or groan 
 under many. 
 
 For the exiles this time everything was at an end, and 
 hopeful as Rinaldo had hitherto been, he was now quit of 
 illusions. Old as he was, he thought of a voyage beyond the 
 seas; 2 since the year 1406 he had vowed to go to the Holy 
 Sepulchre, 3 and it was easy enough to send away Ormanno 
 and his ungrateful and insubmissive son. 4 He had just mar- 
 ried one of his daughters, betrothed in prosperous times to 
 Piero Panciatichi, and jilted by this practical person in the 
 hour of disgrace, 5 to Gherardo Gambacorti, son of the ancient 
 lord of Pisa. The old athlete considered himself free, when 
 death seized him in Ancona, on the point of departure, in the 
 midst of his family. 6 
 
 Of his three sons, not one saw Florence again. Two, Maso 
 and Giovanni, were already citizens of Ancona before their 
 father's death. 7 The eldest, Ormanno, basely compromised 
 the dignity of an exile. Needy and wishing to draw his wife's 
 
 1 See sentence of Rinaldo and others, Commiss. Rin., iii. 666. The words 
 " free " and " liberty " are to be met with four times at least. 
 
 2 " Cum ejus setatem et amos considero, vereor ne maris tsedium ac labor ejus 
 senectutem obruat." (Letter of Francesco Filelfo, October 18, 1440, Commiss. 
 Rin., iii. 673.) 
 
 8 In his notes, dated December 19, 1406, we find, "Promissio sancti sepulcri" 
 {Commiss. Rin., xvii. i. 116). 
 
 4 " Dum tibi mavis quam patri obsequi, omnibus es ridiculo " (Letter from Filelfo 
 to Ormanno, October 30, 1444, ibid. ). 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, 1. xiv. c. 35, vol. ii. p. 151. 
 
 9 M. Guasti establishes this date. See Commiss. Rin., iii. 677. Cf. Machia- 
 velli, v. 83 ; Ammirato, xxi. 32. 
 
 7 February 24, 144 1 {Commiss. Rin., iii. 681). 
 
1440] EXPULSION OF COUNT POPPI. 37 
 
 dowry, he sent her to Florence, knowing that she risked her 
 liberty and life. Wanting a loan of a hundred ducats, he 
 applied to Giovanni de' Cosimo, son of his father's mortal 
 enemy. 1 The first of the family that was allowed to return 
 to their country was the grandson of Maso, a great-grandson 
 of Rinaldo, and that only in 1478, 2 in the time of Lorenzo, 
 Piero's son. Neither Piero nor Cosimo had regarded these 
 degenerate folk as harmless. 
 
 It was necessary to follow at once the fortunes of this family, 
 great in the past, in the first place, because its complete defeat 
 shows the rapid and open acquisition of power by Cosimo, and 
 then because such was the fate, long since forgotten, of many a 
 family who had not a Passerini like the Alberti, or a Guasti 
 like the Albizzi, to retrace and record their vicissitudes. We 
 return to the day succeeding the battle of Anghiari, and to the 
 other consequences of this great success. 
 
 The possession of Borgo San Sepolcro promised ample fruits 
 of victory and an opportunity of gathering them. Bernardetto 
 de' Medici, one of the commissaries of the army, forced several 
 places into submission. 3 Neri Capponi, his colleague, and 
 Niccolo Gambacorti, took possession of the rebel castles in the 
 Casentino, and drove Battifolle from his hereditary lands. The 
 imprudent Count of Poppi was the last of the Guidi to exercise 
 sovereignty in Tuscany. His departure was not unaccompanied 
 by outrage. As he retired with his wife, his children, and forty 
 laden mules (July 31), 4 Neri Capponi said to him, with harsh 
 irony, " You are free to go and play the great lord in Germany." 
 " I should like to see you there," replied the insulted man, 
 and the offender laughed in his face. 5 It was customary in 
 
 1 See the two letters in Commiss. Rin.> iii. 680-681. 
 
 2 M. Guasti gives the documents (ibid., p. 682). 
 
 3 Valialla, Monteagutello, Monterchi. See Bernardetto's letter to the Ten, 
 July 4, 1440, in G. Capponi, ii. 25, n. 1. 
 
 4 Fragments of letters of July 25 and 31, in G. Capponi, ii. 25, n. 2 ; Bonin- 
 segni, p. 74; Bonincontri, xxi. 150; Poggio, xx. 414; Machiavelli, v. 84 a; 
 Ammirato, xxi. 31. 
 
 5 Neri Capponi, La Cacciaia del Conte di Poppi, xviii. 12-20. 
 
38 COSIMO'S DESIRE FOR PEACE. [i44° 
 
 Florence to sneer at the fallen 1 and overwhelm the conquerors 
 with admiration. Neri and Bernardetto were " wreathed in 
 triumphant gifts." 2 The Council decided to offer them the 
 honour of knighthood, and in case they refused it, to give them a 
 pennant, a harnessed horse, a magnificent casque, and a buckler 
 with the arms of the people. These gifts they accepted, and 
 others of a like sort, from the parte guelfa? They passed for 
 good captains solely because Michele Attendolo had shown 
 some military instinct. This was because the results obtained 
 were worth something. They might have been greater by the 
 pursuit of Piccinino, 4 but, as we have seen, it was not the 
 commissaries' fault if Piccinino had found retreat so easy. 
 
 Delighted with his success, Cosimo desired no further vic- 
 tories ; he wished for peace to assure his conquests, as well as 
 firmly to establish his power. In the happy period of his 
 ascending fortune, he had not long to wait for repose ; in Lom- 
 bardy even the most warlike were beginning to weary of the 
 vicissitudes of war. Now conqueror, then conquered, never 
 pushing his advantages to their limits because he had his 
 future father-in-law to humour, 5 Sforza might have paid 
 dearly for his tactics if Piccinino, who by his clever strategy 
 had besieged him in his camp, 6 had not compromised an almost 
 assured triumph by a political blunder. 
 
 He made the mistake of believing that the hour had come 
 to make terms with the Duke ; he wrote saying that at the 
 age for retirement, and after so many services, he did not 
 even possess a corner of ground for burial, and he demanded 
 
 1 See in Ammirato (xxi. 30), towards Eufrosina, widow of Bartolommeo de' 
 Pietramala, when obliged to yield them Monterchi. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, Seconda Storia, c. 16, ii. 158. 
 
 8 Neri Capponi, Comment., xviii. 1197 ; Boninsegni, p. 73, simply says, 
 "Donarona di cavalleria," without mentioning refusal of belt, which Neri hints. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, v. 83 A. 
 
 5 See details in 1st. Bresc, xxi. 820, 822 ; Sabellico, 1. v. ff. 628-642 ; Simoneta,, 
 xxi. 289-302; Poggio, xx. 416, G. B. Poggio, Vita di flic. Pice, p. 169; Ammi- 
 rato, xxi. 33. 
 
 6 Simoneta, xxi. 304; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1198; Platina, xx. 838; Sabellico,. 
 1. v. f. 634 ; Ammirato, xxi. 34. 
 
I44Q] MARRIAGE OF SFORZA. 39 
 
 Plaisancia or his dismissal with so much noise and fuss that 
 a like appetite grew among his comrades. Luigi de San 
 Severino demanded Novaro; Luigi del Verme, Tortona; 
 Taliano, Furtano ; Bosco, Figaruolo in Alexandrin ; and the 
 others in proportion. In the absence of a legitimate heir, 
 might not the Duke's heritage be cut up even during his life- 
 time ? * But the Duke took the proposal ill. He preferred 
 to yield to his enemies than to his exacting followers; he 
 advanced a pretext admirable on his part and in his century 
 — respect for his word. At the last moment he remembered 
 that he had promised his daughter to Francesco Sforza. 
 Seriously this time, although in private, he offered him the 
 position of arbitrator, and promised him Cremona as a dowry, 
 with its territories as a mortgage for that which Piccinino had 
 taken in the territories of Bergamo. 2 
 
 Piccinino was in despair ; another had reaped what he had 
 sown. But threatened with a worse fate, even with being 
 handed over to his rival, 3 he played a bad game with a pleasant 
 face. When he and Sforza met, these two good Christians flung 
 themselves into each other's arms, repeatedly kissed one another 
 on the lips, and shed tears of joy. 4 The camps intermingled, 
 and appeared as one at feasts and festivities. It was the 
 marriage of a middle-aged man of forty with a child of sixteen 
 (October 24), and when it was solemnised, Sforza took posses- 
 sion of Cremona and Pontremoli. 5 He had not lost anything 
 by waiting, and a handsome heritage crowned his patience. 
 
 Abandoned by him, Venice and Florence necessarily fell 
 under his arbitration. At Cavriana, November 20, 1 441, he 
 dictated to them the conditions of peace. As usual, each of the 
 contracting parties recovered what he had lost in the hostilities. 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 306 ; Machiavelli, vi. 85 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 35. 
 
 2 Simoneta, xxi. 306. 
 
 3 Sabellico, 1. v. p. 645 ; Platina, xx. 838 ; Machiavelli, vi. 85 B ; Ammirato, 
 xxi. 35. 
 
 4 1st. Bresc. y xxi. 828 ; Poggio, xx. 418 ; G. B. Poggio, Vita di Nic. Pice, p. 169. 
 6 Bonincontri, xxi. 82. The marriage contract, dated October 24, 1441* will 
 
 be found in the Archivio Sforzesco, Nat. Lib. MS. Ital., 1583, f. 14. 
 
40 PEACE OF CAVRIANA. [144* 
 
 This was an arrest of warlike ambition. In Venice, satisfied 
 or resigned, Sforza could rejoin the Florentine negotiators, 
 Neri Capponi and Agnolo Acciajuoli, without fear of the tragic 
 fate of Carmagnola, which his very prudent father-in-law 
 had held up to him as a prospect. 1 Florence was beside her- 
 self with joy ; her old condottiere, her ally of yesterday, was 
 powerful ; she could economise and set in order her prey of the 
 Casentino. Her prudent master had realised his wishes; he 
 was going to enjoy his strength. The least content was 
 Eugene IV. If he recovered Komagna, if he averted the 
 settlement of Piccinino in Perugia and Sienna, 2 he quite 
 understood that he could not recover from the mediator, the 
 arbitrator of peace, what he possessed among the ecclesiastical 
 lands. 3 This was the black cloud, destined soon to increase 
 and announce fresh storms. 
 
 1 The text of the treaty may be seen in the Archivio S/orzesco, copies No. 1597, 
 ff. 17-32. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1199. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 340 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1198 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1102 ; Sabellico, 
 1. v. f. 645; Poggio, xx. 419; Navagero, xxiii. 1108; Machiavelli, vi. 85 B; 
 Ammirato, xxi. 36. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF COSIMO BY HIS HOME POLICY. 
 143 5-1444- 
 
 Cosimo's efforts to draw the Council of Bale and Ferrara to Florence— The Pope 
 and the Greek Emperor at Florence (January 27, February 16, 1439) — Meeting 
 of the Council at S. M. Novella (February 26) — Debates upon the union — 
 Closing sitting (July 6)— The advantages of the Council to the Florentines— 
 Cosimo's bad government — The rivalry between Cosimo and Neri Capponi — 
 Attack upon latter warded off— Baldaccio d'Anghiari— His past life— Murder of 
 Baldaccio (September 6, 1441) — Indignation of Italy — Neri Capponi's decline — 
 Financial administration of Cosimo — Repeal of the catasto (1441) — The scala or 
 progressive tax — Multiplicity of taxes — The graziosa tax (1443) — The severities 
 of collectorship — Emigration — Condemnation of the morosi — Dishonesty towards 
 the state creditors — Jobbing the titles of the monti — Moral consequences of private 
 ruins — State usury — The persistent opposition of the upper classes — Balie to 
 overcome them (1444) — Fresh severities — Balie to nullify lot-drawing— Revision 
 of the laws and statutes. 
 
 While the political and military events recorded in the pre- 
 ceding chapter were being accomplished abroad, at home 
 Cosimo, who profited by them without directing them, ruled 
 in all things. Already, according to Guicciardini, he was 
 absolute master, and, as was his wont, sought only his own 
 interest. 1 He was clever enough to find it more than once in 
 the general good. At the outset he obtained for Florence the 
 honour, vainly sought by the oligarchy, of becoming the seat 
 of a Council. In 1408 the Albizzi had been obliged to con- 
 tent themselves with one at Pisa under their protection, and 
 the Council of Pisa, without achieving aught for religion, had 
 not benefited the Kepublic. 2 The Council of Florence was 
 
 1 " Avendo i Medici sempre per ultimo fine il ben suo particulare . . . che ad 
 ognuno fussi noto che loro erano i padroni assoluti " {Del reggimento di Firenze, 
 Opere inedite, ii. 41, Flor., 1858.) 
 
 3 See our Hist., vol. vi. p. 170-176. 
 
 41 
 
42 GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES. [i437 
 
 destined to hold another place in history, and to serve the 
 interests of the town that gave it hospitality, still more those 
 of the ambitious family who had turned this stream of wealth 
 towards the Arno. 
 
 Quite recently the fathers of Bale, violent in the pursuit of 
 the work of Constance, had summoned Eugene IV. before them, 
 and upon his refusal to appear had declared him guilty of con- 
 tumacy (October I, 1437). 1 It was a new schism in pro- 
 spect. The ambassadors of the princes had for the most part 
 protested, and the Pope was bold enough to transfer the 
 Council to Ferrara. 2 This was not a retort inspired by spite, 
 for the idea was an old one, justified by serious reasons. He 
 had long been in negotiation with the Byzantine Emperor. 
 John Paleologos, threatened by the Turks and in need of pro- 
 tection for his crown, was by no means averse to a union of 
 the Greek and Latin Churches ; 3 but he, and still more his 
 clergy, had no desire for a distant voyage to some town in 
 France or Germany ; he had refused Bale, Avignon, and the 
 towns of Savoy. 4 Then Eugene had proposed Ferrara ; if 
 need were, he would have proposed Constantinople, and would 
 have deputed a legate to preside. 5 
 
 These negotiations had at an early period suggested to 
 Cosimo the hope of attracting the Council to Florence. As 
 early as July 3, 1436, he addressed formal proposals to 
 x Bale. As he promised the seventy thousand florins claimed 
 by the cardinals and prelates for changing their seat, he 
 believed himself assured of success. On August 28 of the 
 same year all the provisions were made ; and as for the pen- 
 sions, the choice of abode, the prices of food, the Signory left 
 
 1 Ann. Eccl., 1437, § 18, vol. xxviii. p. 248 ; Labbe, vol. xii. p. 592. See Sis- 
 mondi on the Council, vi. 91 sg. t and Reumont, Lorenzo d£ Medici il Magnifico, 
 c. 7, vol. i. p. 170^., Leipzig, 1874. 
 
 2 Labbe, vol. xiii. p. 876. 
 
 8 See, on origin of this question, Vast, Le Cardinal Bessarion, 1. i. c. 4, 37 sq. 
 Paris, 1878. 
 4 Ann. Eccl.y 1434, § 13, vol. xxviii. p. 176; Labbe, xiii. 578, 580. 
 6 Ann. Eccl., 1435, § 8, vol. xxviii. p. 192. 
 
1437] NEGOTIATIONS FOR A COUNCIL. 43 
 
 all to the discretion of the legate. 1 The Greeks, they wrote, 
 are to have twenty-five houses absque ulla mercedis pensione. 
 It was arranged to send two large armed galleys to Constan- 
 tinople to meet them, with the Emperor and the Patriarch, 
 leaving two others to guard the capital during the absence of its 
 sovereign. If seventy florins were not enough, the Florentines 
 would go as far as a hundred. 2 The rumour having spread 
 that the approach to Florence was insecure, the Cardinals of 
 St. Sabina and St. Peter were reassured on October 30: 
 it was false to say that Piccinino had appeared outside the 
 gates of the town ; it was on the territory of Lucca, and as 
 Sforza had opposed him, he had not advanced farther. A little 
 later (December 24) there was a protest against the assertion 
 that the Kepublic was in league with the Pope ; it entertained 
 for him only the respect due to his dignity. 3 Lying has always 
 been diplomatic ; but this impudent specimen can only be 
 explained by some reticence or abuse of word or interpretation. 
 
 During the year 1437 the negotiations were continued. 
 There were objections to overcome ; it had to be established 
 " that no country is richer than Florence, or produces a better 
 quality of wine, oil, wheat, and fruit. It is an orchard with 
 more country-houses than elsewhere. The fertile lands of 
 Prato, Pistoia, Pisa, Arezzo ensure wealth. The buildings 
 are admirable. Who speaks of civil war ? There are only 
 four or five exiles of mark. Of a citadel there is no need. 
 Finally, the approach to Florence is easy, whether you travel 
 by sea as far as Pisa, or land at Eavenna and cross Italy by 
 the road of Rimini." 4 
 
 To the great disappointment of Florence, Ferrara neverthe- 
 less obtained the preference. The Council opened on January 
 s 8, 1438, but was sparsely attended. The Greeks, the Emperor, 
 
 1 Doc. in Giuseppe Miiller, Documenti sulle relazioni delle citta toscane colli 
 Oriente cristiano e coi Turchi fino alf anno 1531, p. 159. Flor., 1879. 
 
 2 Gius. Miiller, Docum., p. 161. 
 8 Ibid., p. 162, 163. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 167, 168. 
 
44 COUNCIL OF FERRARA. [1438 
 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople were in no hurry ; one after 
 another they arrived, the Emperor not until March 4. 1 In 
 April it was decided to await the Western princes and the 
 fathers of Bale ; thus was time lost until October 8 ; then, 
 after this long delay, was opened the first session of the two 
 Churches. 2 
 
 By this Cosimo was a little vexed. He kept up friendly 
 relations with those fathers of Bale who had refused to come 
 to Ferrara, lent them two thousand florins in gold, payable in 
 indulgences granted to whoever should favour the reconciliation 
 of the Greeks with Borne. 3 But circumstances served him ; 
 he was soon able to return to his design of securing the 
 Council. Ferrara was not without its drawbacks; the Pope 
 was afraid of a surprise on the part of Piccinino, now master 
 of Bologna and Komagna, or of the departure of the Greeks, who 
 were too near the sea and their own country, and were besides 
 indisposed to settle in Italy, especially if the sound of arms 
 reached them. He wanted money to meet their demands, and had 
 only Cosimo to turn to, who promised him more than he gave 
 if he would come to Florence. The plague decided him. It 
 broke out in Ferrara, and, according to custom, every one fled.* 
 On January 22, 1439, a nobleman of the Eastern Empire, 
 John Dissipato, came to Florence on a mission to inspect the 
 houses destined for the Greeks ; 5 a notable success, of which 
 Venice was jealous. " You want the Pope," said the Venetian 
 
 1 Letter of the Signory of Venice to Marco Dandolo, spokesman with the Pope, 
 February 17, 1438, in Buser, Die Beziehungen des Mediceerzu Frankreich, Append., 
 p. 349. Cf. Vast, Le Card. Bessarion, 1. ii. c. I, p. 53 note, and 59. 
 
 2 The acta grceca, a first-class source, in Labbe, vol. xiii. p. 5~^ 2 4> an ^ a ^ s0 * n 
 the collections of the Councils of Hardouin, vol. ix., and of Mansi, vol. xxix. M. 
 Vast gives carefully all the sources, ancient and modern. See Le Card. Bess., 
 p. 47, 48, 56, 63, &c. 
 
 3 The act of restitution, dated August 31, 1438, was published by M. Luciano 
 Scarabelli, Dichiarazione di documenti di storia piemontese, in Arch. Stor., 1st 
 ser. vol. xiii. p. 299, note 3. 
 
 * See our Hist., vol. vi. p. 96, 115, 238-242, 382, note I. 
 6 The Cardinal of Sant' Angelo wrote to Ferrara recommending Dissipato to 
 Giuliano and Lorenzo des Medici. Doc, in Gius. Muller, p. 172. 
 
1439] COUNCIL OF FLORENCE. 45 
 
 lords, " you want the Council, you want Lucca; the entire world 
 would not satisfy you." * 
 
 On January 27, Eugene IV. made his entrance into 
 Florence, where he had so long resided. He was followed on 
 February 12 by the Patriarch, and on the 16th by the 
 Emperor. 2 A magnificent reception was accorded to the Em- 
 peror. In order to have the official right to preside over these 
 solemnities, Cosimo had himself named Gonfalonier of Justice. 
 He came on foot with the Signory to meet Paleologos at the 
 gates of the town. Leonardo Bruni, chancellor of the Eepub- 
 lic, conducted the Greek Caesar to the houses of the exiled 
 Peruzzi, which were assigned him. The music of fifes and 
 other instruments rent the air. An immense crowd in bright 
 apparel gathered in the gaily decorated streets, at the windows, 
 upon the walls, upon the roofs. Unfortunately a violent storm 
 dispersed the crowd, all save the procession, which was obliged 
 to shorten its rate, and reached its destination drenched to the 
 skin. 8 
 
 On the 26th February the Council met for the first time. 
 Santa Maria Novello opened its doors, and, as in bygone days, 
 Eugene IV. established himself therein. It was only on the 
 1 3 th April that the debates on the union began. We need 
 not report them here. We know that matters were other than 
 satisfactory. 4 Several members of the assembly wanted to 
 leave ; upon the advice of Bessarion, Archbishop of Nicea, they 
 were detained as captives ; even those who ventured into the 
 country upon a pleasure party were arrested. 5 Only a small 
 minority pronounced for the union of the two Churches. One 
 day, seeing the greater part abstain from voting, the Emperor 
 cried out, " Why are the lower benches silent ? " This simple 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, 1. xi. c. 13, vol. ii. p. 25. 
 
 2 Leon. Morelli, Del., xix. 170, 171 ; Boninsegni, p. 68. 
 
 3 Acta grceca, in Labbe, xiii. 1 20 ; De ingressu Gracorum in civitatem Flor., 
 ibid., p. 1032 ; Vast, 1. ii. c. 2, p. 75. 
 
 4 The debate may be followed in Vast, p. 78 sq. 
 6 Vast, p. 84. 
 
46 RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF UNION. [1439 
 
 question worked sudden conversions. " Everybody accepts and 
 consents," * replied the Archbishop of Nicodemia. And no one 
 contradicted him. But of what use conversions when mistrust 
 was born ? Small and well-packed commissions replaced the 
 general sessions. Bessarion substituted diplomacy for his now 
 futile eloquence ; he acted as intermediary between the Pope 
 and the Emperor ; he negotiated the adhesions without much 
 success at first. To secure a sufficient number, it was neces- 
 sary to deprive the Greek fathers of their small pension. 2 This 
 sacrilegious step has more than once succeeded. 
 
 On the 6th July, in Santa Maria del Fiore, the closing 
 sitting took place. The Pope officiated. The fathers, num- 
 bering over five hundred, Greek and Latin, were robed in their 
 grand sacerdotal costumes. Cardinal Cesarini read aloud the 
 Latin text of the decree, and Bessarion the Greek. 3 Each 
 held the two texts in two columns upon a long parchment. 
 Then they embraced in token of established union. A long 
 procession ended the proceedings ; all the Greeks, with the 
 Emperor at their head, then all the Latins, knelt to the Pope. 
 After six centuries of separation the agreement was an event. 
 To preserve its memory, an inscription was engraven upon 
 marble beside the sacristy of the Duomo. This was wise, as 
 the solemn act was not lasting; later, the Greek Church 
 rejected the union, except a small congregation, which even 
 to-day is called in the East the United Greeks.* 
 
 1 Syropoulus, sect. viii. c. 5, in Vast, p. 84. 
 
 2 Vast, p. 104, 107. 
 
 3 Ammirato (xxi. 19) says, instead of naming Bessarion, "a Greek prelate 
 whose name he does not remember." However, Bessarion was well known and 
 well thought of. 
 
 4 Ann. EccL, 1439, § 1, vol. xxviii. p. 289 ; Labbe, xiii. 509 ; Boninsegni, p. 70 ; 
 Ammirato, xxi. 15-19 ; Gibbon, ch. 66, Penth. Litt i ed., vol. ii. p. 840-844 ; Vast, 
 p. 108. Copies of the union are to be found in the Laurentina and the Archivio di 
 Stato, with the signatures of the popes, the emperors, and the fathers (G. Cap- 
 poni, ii. 14, note). Cf. Cecconi, Studi storici sul Concilio di Firenze ; Paul 
 Calligas, Professor of the Faculty of Law at Athens, MeX/rcu koX X6701, four 
 studies, of which the first concerns the Council of Florence, Athens, 1882, vol. i. 
 8vo, 550 pages ; Warschauer, Uber die Quellen zur Geschichte der Florentiner 
 Concils, inaugural address, Breslau, 1881 ; Markos Rinieri, 'I<rropiKal /jLeXtrai. 
 
1439] RESULTS OF THE COUNCIL. 47 
 
 A little by chance, and much by the cleverness of Cosimo, 
 Florence resumed her secular role of the chief Guelph town. 
 The Council which bears her name in history was a Guelph 
 reaction against the spirit of religious revolt which was abroad 
 at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which menaced the 
 supremacy of the Pope in all that was absolute, and freed 
 France and Germany by the pragmatic sanctions of Frankfort and 
 Bruges. This Council of strife suppressed all the restrictions 
 touching the supremacy, and placed it even above the assembled 
 Church. This grave declaration was not in the least ineffectual ; 
 it even succeeded in rending the reform in pieces, and became 
 the law of the Church in modern times, still more so in our 
 own days. Meanwhile the Council of Bale was forsaken by its 
 most illustrious champions ; the pragmatic sanctions did not 
 last long ; the union restored the prestige of Eugene IV. and 
 the Holy See, not without augmenting that of Cosimo and 
 the brilliant city subjected to his rule. 1 Militant orthodoxy 
 encountered the genius of the Renaissance, revived by the 
 passing sojourn of so many Greeks. These Greeks also stayed 
 at Ferrara, and yet Ferrara was hardly influenced by them ; 
 as the Church says, there are vessels of election. 
 
 Of lesser advantage, but still of some consequence, were 
 the relations formed with the Byzantine Emperor. His de- 
 parture was fixed for the 26th April. 2 He visited the lords 
 on the ringhiera, and made the Gonfalonier, Filippo Carducci, 
 Count of the Palace, with the right of adding to his arms the 
 two-headed imperial eagle, of creating notaries and legitima- 
 tising his natural sons ; and this last prerogative, it appears, 
 
 T6 BvZ&vtiop ical i] kv BaaiXetq. ctivodos, Athens, 1882. See the bibliographical 
 notice before the works of M. Vast, and particularly the works of M. Von Goethe, 
 Studien und Forschungen iiber das Leben tend die Zeit des Cardinal Bessarion, 
 Tena, 1871, and of M. Fromman, Zur Kritik des Florentiner Unions Decret, 
 Leipzig, 1870. 
 
 1 See Vast, p. 112, 113. 
 
 2 Cambi {Del., xx. 220) says the 16th, but this must be a printer's error. 
 Morelli gives the 26th as the date {Del., xix. 170). . As Easter in 1439 fell on the 5th 
 April, Wednesday, as Cambi indicates, it was certainly the 26th, and not the 16th. 
 
48 GOVERNMENT OF COSIMO. [1440 
 
 was extended to eight priors. The Kepublic obtained exemp- 
 tion from taxes and favours throughout the Empire, which, it 
 is true, hardly extended beyond the walls of Constantinople. 
 In this capital the Pisan consul's house was given fo the 
 Florentines for their own consul, and the privileges accorded 
 to the Pisan Eepublic in all Eoumania were given to the 
 Florentines, who replaced it. 1 This was only an exchange of 
 services. Not being able to furnish the Greeks with the fleet 
 and the army he had promised them against the Turks, the 
 Pope induced Cosimo, banker to the Holy See, to advance 
 them 12,000 florins. Quitting Florence in turn, to continue 
 the Council at Home without the Greeks, he included in the 
 promotion of seventeen cardinals a Florentine, Alberto des 
 Alberti, a member of that family so long unfortunate, whose 
 exile had only ended with the downfall of the oligarchy. 2 
 
 Cosimo was henceforth strong enough to rid himself of fear, 
 but it is the fate of absolute power to live in terror. He could 
 tolerate nothing great around him. Before softening himself, 
 he must crumble everything to dust at his feet. This mer- 
 chant did not believe that he could become august through 
 mildness, and his severity was in no way ameliorated. Far from 
 it ; Cavalcanti " blushes for his bad government ; " 3 he states 
 that " all the pleasant ways of civil existence are transformed 
 into insults, robberies, adulteries, and other abominations that 
 are the negation of all political life." 4 In the beginning of 
 his indigestible but interesting work he called Cosimo " a divine 
 rather than a mortal man ; " 5 later he recalls this description 
 to retract it, for " where prosperity enters follow ingratitude 
 
 1 Cambi, Del., xx. 220; Ammirato, xxi. 19. The promises made were kept. 
 See Giuseppe Muller (p. 172, 144), the corrected diplomas in Greek, dated August 
 1439, conferring upon the Florentine priors, with the privileges of the Pisans, the 
 right of creating imperial notaries. 
 
 2 Ann. Eccl., 1442, § 1, vol. xxviii. p. 386. Eugene left Florence in December 
 1439, according to Morelli {Del, xix. 170) ; according to Cambi, in February 1440 
 {Del, xx. 226). 
 
 8 Cavalcanti, Seconda Storia, c. 28, vol. ii. p. 197. 
 4 Ibid., c. I, p. 156. 
 6 L. i. c. I, vol. i. p. 3. 
 
i44o] JEALOUSY OF NERI CAPPONI. 49 
 
 and pride." 1 Upon the master his friends modelled them- 
 selves. Puccio, who gave his name to the party, 2 amassed in 
 a short time a large fortune by discreditable means. " Would 
 to heaven," adds our author, " that there were no worse citi- 
 zens in the Kepublic ! " 3 But there were, and in such a 
 number that he supposes " the universality." 4 The apologists 
 of Cosimo call him an enemy come from the Stinche. Be it 
 so; but he entered it under the oligarchy in 1427, 6 and 
 recovered his liberty under the new regime. Nobody can 
 quote an offence, a subsequent wound, to set his judgment 
 astray. They call him an enemy because he is severe. Why 
 not say as much of G. B. Poggio, who, in turn, speaks of " the 
 shameful habits of the Kepublic, scarcely worthy at any time 
 of a free city ? " 6 Cosimo is sacred, so the legend wills it. It 
 was the reign of a preconceived idea, which lasted four hundred 
 years. 
 
 An end to generalities. The sight of the man in his 
 relations with the principal Florentines is worth them all. 
 Above all others, Neri Capponi had the right of being jealous 
 of him, and we may believe that in his heart he was ; but in 
 words he was ever courteous ; he resigned himself with good 
 grace to serve the master he could hope neither to overthrow 
 nor replace. 7 What matter? His wrongs were unpardon- 
 able. With more reputation, according to Cosimo himself, 
 and perhaps brains, than the most renowned of his fellow- 
 countrymen, 8 he was sober, temperate, adroit in business mat- 
 ters, helpful to the needy, just to the rich and powerful, far- 
 seeing in danger, patient in adversity, modest in success. 9 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, Seconda Storia, c. I, vol. ii. p. 156. 
 
 2 See our Hist., vol. vi. p. 383. 
 
 8 Seconda Storia, c. 23, vol. ii. p. 189. 
 
 4 Ibid., c. 1, vol. ii. p. 156. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 155, n. 1. 
 
 6 Vita di Nic. Piccinino, p. 147. 
 
 7 Passerini judges him as a man of legal opposition, not a conspirator {Arch. 
 Stor., 3rd ser., vol. iii. 2nd part, p. 144). 
 
 8 Guicciardini, Storia Fiorentina, c. 1, Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 7. 
 
 9 Cavalcanti, Seconda Storia, c. 25, vol. ii. p. 192. 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
5o COSIMO AND NERI. [H4& 
 
 Often ambassador and commissary in the camp, lie had 
 constant relations with courts, as with the condottieri and 
 the soldiers. To him was due, above all, the honour of the 
 brilliant success of Anghiari and the fortunate conquest of 
 the Casentino. Victory was hereditary in his family. Was 
 it not to his father that Florence owed the acquisition of 
 Pisa ? Cosimo had no equal glory to his account : compari- 
 son was not favourable to him. " The one is richer," wrote 
 Cavalcanti, "the other wiser." 1 They did not always agree 
 in the direction of public affairs. For example, Neri preferred 
 the alliance with powerful Venice to that with the adventurer 
 Sforza. Some day he might more prudently assume the role 
 of the defeated Rinaldo ; thus he fell under Cosimo's suspi- 
 cion, and made himself dreaded without obtaining any grati- 
 tude for the victory of Anghiari, which had definitely placed 
 him above his fellows. Would Cosimo take the bull by the 
 horns, and front in an attack this prospective rival, too clever 
 to offer his side ? No ; he was of opinion that government 
 cannot be carried on by paternosters, 2 but he had the crafty 
 ways of those who mutter them. Not to touch Neri, and yet 
 to lower him and teach him a lesson that would benefit others, 
 such was the design of this artist in subterfuges, this poli- 
 tical trickster. 
 
 There lived at this time in Florence a captain of infantry, 
 Baldaccio d' Anghiari, who was considered the right hand of 
 Neri Capponi. " If Neri wished to oppose Cosimo, it was 
 believed that, once Gonfalonier, he might, with the aid of Bal- 
 daccio, overthrow the Republic." 3 Reputed virtuous, he had 
 placed his faith in a man of the sack and rope type, to whom 
 virtue was the least consideration. Baldaccio was naturally 
 dreaded. Proofs of his bravery 4 are quoted, but certain 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, Seconda Storia, c. 16, vol. ii. p 1 59. 
 
 2 G. Capponi, Stor. di Fir., ii. 30. 
 
 8 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 16, vol. ii. p. 160. This assertion doubtless inspired 
 the first lines of Machiavelli's 6th book. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 75 ; Cavalcanti, 1. viii. c. 5, vol. i. p. 489. $ 
 
H4o] BALDACCIO D'ANGHIARI. .51 
 
 scarcely honourable adventures were whispered about. In the 
 year 1420 he had risked his life and fortune by putting to 
 death one of the chiefs of his country. In 1424, after the 
 battle of Zagonara, he retired to his castle of Ranco to live 
 like a brigand. He killed one of his enemies ; he attacked, 
 wounded, gagged, bound, and left in a wood a Florentine 
 driver in order to seize his merchandise and money. Obliged 
 to flee, he was condemned to the gallows for the robbery, and 
 also to pay five hundred pounds in reparation for the mur- 
 der. 1 This time he boldly cried out against injustice ; his 
 victim had injured him, and, after all, he had not died of 
 his wounds. As for the robbery, one must live ; and thus it 
 is that soldiers live. 
 
 Doubtless this noble defence left him whiter than snow, for 
 in 1430 and 1435 he was in the Florentine full pay, although 
 he did not support the number of men his condotta obliged 
 him to support. In 1437 he was made citizen, and allowed 
 to dispense with the construction of a house in the town, 
 according to the statutes ; instead, he was presented with one 
 valuing 400 florins. Upon his own request, he was exempted 
 of all catasto and all estimo ; 2 so that his privileges were not 
 less under Cosimo than in the time of the oligarchy. When, 
 on February 7, 1439, he married Annalena Malatesta — a 
 splendid marriage for 'an adventurer like him — his witnesses 
 were Neri Capponij, Piero Guicciardini, and Luca des Albizzi, 
 Rinaldo's brother, who had always held himself aloof from 
 his family, the three most important citizens. This captain 
 of infantry was raised in the ranks, for he was then called 
 eqititum peditumqice conductor. 3 
 
 Thus he continued his capricious existence of condottiere, 
 
 1 See Passerini's work on Baldaccio in the Arch. Stor. y 3rd ser., vol. iii. 2nd 
 part, p. 132. It was compiled from the archives, and is followed by two documents, 
 with a regesto of the others. 
 
 2 Passerini in the Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., vol. iii. 2nd part, p. 134, 136. 
 
 8 " Carte degli sponsali di Annalena Malatesta con Baldaccio d'Anghiari. Giorn. 
 degli Arch. Tosc. y \. 42. 
 
52 PLOT AGAINST BALDACCIO. [1441 
 
 now in the pay of Florence, now in that of her enemies, 
 unchanged only in his proceedings, sacking, robbing, cruelty, 
 and perfidy. 1 To the reproaches of the Ten he had a reply 
 quite ready : those whom he pillaged were carrying food to 
 the enemy. If a transient peace reduced him to inaction, 
 he plundered his friends, and the vicar of Firenzuola complains : 
 " These hordes are so undisciplined, that if they remain here 
 three or four days they will ruin the Alps for ten years ; they 
 chase the people from their homes." 2 But he protested ; his 
 men were monks, not soldiers. 3 From Firenzuola he went 
 towards Piombino, then to Arezzo, to appropriate these towns 
 and enrich himself; as well as others, he was made sleepless 
 by the principality of Sforza. At last the measure was full 
 and the vase overflowed ; upon the public places of Florence 
 murmurs were heard upon his misdeeds, and his punishment 
 was demanded. 4 They might have cried long for it in vain 
 if Cosimo had not hoped, in striking him, to reach Neri 
 Capponi. 
 
 An occasion was needed: Eugene IV. furnished it by 
 engaging Baldaccio at the tempting price of 8 000 florins 
 in gold (September 5, 1 441). This friend of yesterday was 
 possibly the enemy of to-morrow. 5 The alarm was wide- 
 spread. Cosimo took advantage of it to advise the finishing 
 of Baldaccio. He had already carefully prepared the stroke. 
 Neri Capponi was sent as ambassador to Venice, 6 and Barto- 
 lommeo Orlandini was installed in the office of Gonfalonier 
 of Justice, this stained title having been conferred upon him 
 
 1 Passerini, Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., vol. iii. part 2, p. 137- 139. 
 
 2 Letter to the Ten, August 20, 1439, Carteggio, vol. xi. No. 118. 
 8 Passerini, Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 140. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 142. This is the man of whom Machiavelli says that Neri Capponi 
 " per le sue virtu delle quali sempre era stato testimone l'amava" (vi. 86 b). It 
 was Machiavelli who induced Sismondi to regard Baldaccio as an honourable and 
 worthy man (vi. ill). 
 
 6 Vespasiano, Vita di Giannozzo Manetti, % 9, Spicil. Rom., i. 658; Naldo 
 Naldi, Vita di Giannozzo Manetti, R. I. S. xx. 544, after Vespasiano. 
 
 6 G. Capponi, Stor. di Fir., ii. 31. 
 
i44i] MURDER OF BALDACCIO. 53 
 
 by the jugglery of the ballot. 1 The creature of the Medici, 
 audacious, shameless, full of hatred for the exiles, 2 Orlandini 
 was the coward who abandoned the year before the passage 
 of Marradi to the invasion of Piccinino. 3 Baldaccio blamed 
 aloud and by letter this culpable weakness ; for this he had 
 become the bugbear of the new chief of the Signory. This 
 latter, furnished with instructions, eager for vengeance, hatched 
 the plot with the Priors, his colleagues. Only one, Cante 
 Compagni, kept out of it ; but he timorously respected the 
 secret of the deliberations. 
 
 On the 6th of September the captain's cavalier and eight of 
 his fanti were hidden in one of the lord's chambers. 4 Baldaccio, 
 walking on the square under the Pisan roofs, was summoned 
 before them. 5 For an hour, spent in seeking advice, 6 Baldaccio 
 hesitated to obey, but at last he decided, entered the palace, 
 met Orlandini, and crossed, chatting with him, the landing 
 outside the chambers of the Signory. At the end was one of 
 the Priors, Francesco de Tommaso. Upon the signal of the 
 Gonfalonier, which was passed without delay, the fanti came 
 out of their hiding-place and precipitated themselves upon the 
 victim, flung him down and bound him, wounded him des- 
 perately in the struggle, then threw him half dead out of the 
 window into the captain's courtyard. Upon the threshold the 
 wretch's head was cut off, and his corpse remained for the 
 day exposed to the jeers of the multitude, drunk with joy. 
 
 But this joy did not last. The next day, Florence, enlight- 
 
 1 G. Capponi seems to think as we do in this matter, for he writes the word 
 * ( accuser : " " Quasi che fosse scelto a quel fine " (ii. 28). 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, Sic. Stor.> c. 16, vol. ii. p. 161. Orlandini had already been 
 Gonfalonier of Justice in May 1438. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vi. 86 B ; Ammirato, xxi. 37. The latter by mistake writes 
 Anghiari for Marradi. 
 
 4 This Prior was Francesco de Tommaso Giovanni, who left the ricordi manu- 
 scripts, where are incompletely stated Baldaccio's misdeeds. 
 
 6 Naldo Naldi, xx. 545. The ordinary promenade was in face of the Pisan 
 roofs. See our Hist. y vol. v. p. 50, n. 2. 
 
 6 Arch. Stor., loc. cit., p. 143. Cavalcanti avers that he asked Cosimo for 
 advice {Sec. Stor., c. 16, vol. ii. p. 161). According to Machiavelli (vi. 87 a) he 
 obeys unsuspectingly. 
 
54 INDIGNATION THROUGHOUT ITALY. [1441 
 
 ened, qualified the murder as " abominable and brutal." * The 
 cry of indignation was echoed all over Italy, where Vis- 
 conti and Sforza were having their subjects rent by dogs and 
 buried alive. The Kepublic and " the iniquitous man " she had 
 chosen as leader were dishonoured by it. 2 Eugene IV., who 
 lost his condottiere, gave way to interested anger, and probably 
 looked forward to overthrowing Cosimo for Rinaldo. Giannozzo 
 Manetti, a man of letters, had much difficulty in appeasing his 
 rage. 3 What above all struck the imagination was not the 
 murder, an ordinary affair, but the mystery which overhung 
 the cause of the murder. Contemporary writers are of various 
 opinions. 4 Machiavelli alone was not mistaken. With his 
 clear insight into facts imperfectly known to him, he alleges 
 the sole motive to have been Baldaccio's friendship for 
 Neri. 5 
 
 Cosimo did not bend before the tempest thus imprudently 
 provoked. With cold-blooded decision, he declared the dead 
 Baldaccio a rebel and confiscated his property. 6 The Council 
 declared that there was no cause for disquietude in this 
 
 1 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 16, vol. ii. p. 160-162; Boninsegni, p. 75 ; Machia- 
 velli, vi. 87 A ; Ammirato, xxi. 37 ; Arch. Stor., loc. cit., p. 143. Cavalcanti is 
 horrified by the confiscation of the goods of a corpse, but this was an immemorial 
 custom in Florence. 
 
 2 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 16, vol. ii. p. 162. 
 
 8 Naldo Naldi, xx. 544. Passerini (p. 146) believes in the Pope's plots % 
 Ammirato also ; but being a priest, he does not dare accuse the Pope. 
 
 4 Boninsegni (p. 75) accuses some of the priors, and does not appear to suspect 
 Cosimo and Orlandini. Cambi {Del., xx. 234) believes it was punishment for the 
 sack of Suvereto. See Arch. Stor., loc. cit., p. 138. But Baldaccio had done 
 worse, and Passerini rejects the supposition of Cambi {ibid., p. 144). Bart, de 
 la Pugliola {Cron. Bo/., xviii. 665) believes that it was the wish to take Piombino 
 from the Appiani. Ammirato (xxi. 37) places Neri's friendship among the motives,, 
 without lending it more importance than others. 
 
 6 Machiavelli, vi. 86 b. 
 
 * The widow, having lost her only child, turned her house leading to the 
 Romana gate into a convent, where she lived with a few pious women, and which 
 was called the Annalena Monastery. It existed still in the beginning of this 
 century. It was the same house that the Republic had given to Baldaccio on j 
 making him a citizen. Did it escape confiscation because Baldaccio had given it 
 over to his wife ? See Arch. Stor., loc. cit., p. 147 ; Giorn. degli Arch. Tosc, i. 
 42 sq. ; G. Capponi. ii. 28, and authors quoted in preceding notes. 
 
i44i] SUBMISSION OF NERI CAPPONI. 55 
 
 treacherous action. Before such an imperturbable will anger 
 vanished like smoke ; there was not stuff in the fifteenth 
 century for indignation. The fruits of the murder realised its 
 perpetrator's expectation; Neri Capponi lost friends, power, 
 and reputation. 1 At Venice, where he still was his colleague 
 in embassy, Agnolo Acciajuoli alone signed the treaty of 
 peace with Milan (November 20, 1441). When he reaches 
 this crisis in his life, Neri in his commentaries ceases to place 
 himself foremost ; for two years he shows that he was sent on 
 no embassy or commission. But weary, no doubt, of obscurity, 
 he consented to accept a minor position. This time, complete 
 peace was made between him and Cosimo ; it was the abdica- 
 tion of the last rival that the new power had to fear. 2 
 
 One of Cosimo's means of action was shedding blood and 
 spreading terror ; the other, and surer, was manipulating the 
 public treasury. Guicciardini expressly says that Cosimo made 
 use of taxes as a dagger against his enemies and those whom 
 he suspected of enmity. 3 
 
 Like other millionaires, Florence was always in difficulties. 
 As the debts entered to the monte brought in heavy inte- 
 rest, 4 she beggared her people without profit. While war was 
 carried on by greedy adventurers, and peace was made by 
 money, 5 she was reduced to levy taxes ten and fifteen times a 
 year. 6 Cosimo would have appeared as a benefactor had he 
 chosen to remedy this evil ; but far from that, he aggravated 
 it. He remained narrowly faithful to the old and super- 
 annuated politics which crushed and ruined his adversaries. 
 Scarcely was he returned from exile when he seized hold of 
 the famous instrument of balie (1434). Instituting it without 
 limits, he nominated to the "bourses trustworthy men, who 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vi. 87 A. 
 
 a Ammirato, xxi. 38 ; G. Capponi, Stor. di Fir., ii. 31. 
 
 8 Del Reggim. di Fir., Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 68. 
 
 * This is seen on nearly every page of the Lettere di un notaro. 
 
 5 The acquisition alone of Borgo San Sepolcro, sold by the Pope, cost twenty- 
 five thousand ducats. See Cavalcanti, p. 221. 
 
 6 Guasti, Proemio alle Lettere di un notaro, p. lvii. ~. .. . 
 
56 THE TAXES. [1442 
 
 were charged to fix the taxes, and who all had injuries to 
 revenge or envies to feed. 
 
 The first significant act was the repeal of the catasto, or 
 survey of land ; the new masters, like the old, did not desire 
 equality in taxes. A tax defined by the law, permitting each 
 one to know the extent of his obligation, would have seemed 
 like deliverance. Cosimo and his abettors wished to guard the 
 right arbitrarily to overwhelm those whom they disliked. Thus, 
 to reach more surely the object of their hatred or mistrust, they 
 condemned one entire generation, nay, many, to live under the 
 sword of Damocles, the thread of which often broke. Though 
 immoral and impolitic, because wealth is exhaustible, this 
 system is comprehensible in short-sighted financiers, who look 
 for immediate interest. Some people there were attracted by 
 the bait of public offices. Others, too humble to aspire to 
 them, or too busy with their trades, were only influenced by 
 constant dipping into their purses, and by being obliged to 
 pay their share of the enormous expenses, of which all the 
 advantage and honour were for the Medici. 1 
 
 Cosimo, besides, knew the trade of despotic demagogue ; he 
 brought in a system of taxes, which the ciompi had proposed 
 in 1378, suited to the common people, as well as taxes ever 
 can suit them. What they demanded then in their famous 
 petition was, that all creditors inscribed in the book of the 
 monti should in twelve years recover their capital without 
 touching the interest, and that no further prestanza or loan 
 should be raised without repeating the distribution which was 
 called the estimo. 2 Thanks to their disaster, their petition, 
 become a provision, had no effect. The only concession that 
 the defeated obtained was in October 1378, the order to begin 
 the reform of the estimo. 3 Cosimo did more to meet their 
 
 1 See Guicciardini, Del Reggim. di Fir.., Op. ined., ii. 41. Canestrini (p. 207) 
 gives a summary of the three pages in which Guicciardini, outside these considera- 
 tions, recalls these, events as far as 1479. 
 
 3 Arts. 8 and 7. See our Hist., vol. v. p. 247. 
 
 3 See March, de Coppo, Rub. 809 ; Del., xv. 63. 
 
J443] THE SLIDING-SCALE. 57 
 
 wishes ; lie introduced a system which the Florentines named 
 the scala, the ladder, and which we call progressive taxation. 1 
 When the poor paid one per cent, upon their income, the 
 wealthy paid two, three, four, and even more, except, of course, 
 the " governors " that were always spared or spared themselves. 
 If by chance they happened to be taxed (1441), the credu- 
 lous people regarded it as an act of justice ; 2 but it was solely 
 because ready money was absolutely necessary. The need was 
 such, that shortly twenty-four taxes were levied, as many as 
 four or six together. The half of these taxes produced in the 
 year 1442 above 180,000 florins in gold. 3 
 
 This was not enough. In 1443 a new tax, the graziosa, 
 was levied. Its name was not appropriate, for never was tax 
 less pleasing to the payers. 4 Three degrees were estab- 
 lished. The lowest paid 4 per cent., the middle 16, the 
 highest 33-J-. The first was Worth fifty florins a year, and 
 the third at least 1500. The division was left to the judg- 
 ment, or, as the provision had it, " to the discretion and 
 conscience of the divisors." These divisors had the right to 
 grant diminutions and exemptions to those in whose families 
 there were the sick or the feeble, with two exceptions ; they 
 could not relieve those whose income exceeded 200 florins, 
 and all diminutions should be approved by the Signory and 
 the colleges, with a majority of twenty-eight voices. The 
 total revenue of Florence was valued at 550,000 florins, and 
 
 1 In Canestrini (p. 212, 217, n. 1) may be seen that the idea of progressive 
 taxation was suggested in the projects of the Ciompi. 
 
 2 " Che fu tenuto avessin posto giustamente " (Cambi, Del. xx. 231). 
 
 3 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 28, vol. ii. p. 198 ; Canestrini, p. 170. Cf. a message 
 from Nicodemo Tranchedini de Pontremoli, Francesco Sforza's ambassador at 
 Florence, to Sforza, March 23, 1454. Bibl. Nat. de jParis, Arch. Sfor.> Origin., 
 No. 1586, vol. iv. f. 246. 
 
 4 Canestrini (p. 219) seeks to explain this strange name. He imagines that it 
 is due to the fact that a favour was granted to the most numerous class. In the 
 documents we often find the word "grazie di gravezze" in the sense of exonera- 
 tion, total or partial. Nicodemo de Pontremoli in 1454 writes concerning a 
 gravezza : u Chiamasi dispiacente, cioe che piace al comuno et despiace a paganti " 
 (Bibl. Nat. de Paris, Arch. Sfor., Origin., No. 1586, vol. iv. f. 246. Message to 
 Sforza, March 23, 1454). 
 
58, ARBITRARY COLLECTION. [H43 
 
 this tax was exacted to bring in 8 0,0 00 ! It touched the 
 revenues of the wealthy, variable and steady, the interests 
 of the monte and of the people. Payments were made ten 
 and twelve times ; that is, each month, or very nearly so. 1 
 Pushing severity to the extreme, the law ordained that arrears 
 should be hunted up, and even exacted arrears from those 
 who had paid less than was due. 2 
 
 We must follow the tax from the beginning if we wish to 
 have a just idea of this golden age of so many historians. One 
 of Sforza's ambassadors to Cosimo, whose friend he became, 
 Nicodemo Tranchedini de Pontremoli, wrote to his master, 
 that the commune fixed and gathered in the taxes " arbi- 
 trarily." 3 It did not hesitate to fling into " the horrors of 
 the Stinche " those who did not pay ; above all, the poor. To 
 escape imprisonment, as well as intolerable burdens, many 
 families went to live out of the town, in the country, or 
 joined the exiles. These absentees were called morosi, that 
 is, those behind-hand, and they were condemned, under harsh 
 penalties, to remain outside. Many preferred to submit to 
 this law rather than enter Florence, and this called for a more 
 efficacious punishment. Twice a year messengers and berrovieri 
 scoured the contado, emptied the houses, carried off the har- 
 vests and provisions, or destroyed them, and whatever they 
 seized and destroyed was not deducted from the sum due ; it 
 was simply regarded as a punishment for non-payment. Those 
 who did not forsake the town, * were they mere ancient 
 shepherds who had got into office," called these malcontents 
 savages, who went to look abroad for justice, or at least 
 freedom. 4 
 
 1 Whence the expression "pagarein sei, dieci, dodici registri." See Canes- 
 trini, p. 214-218. 
 
 2 Naldo Naldi, xx. 548 ; Vespasiano, Vita di G. Manetti, § 13, in Spicil. Rom. y 
 i. 589 ; G. Capponi, ii. 32. 
 
 3 " E in albitrio del comuno reschoter da chi li pare il valsente et da chi li pare 
 le gravezze" {Arch. Sfor.> Origin., No. 1586, vol. iv. f. 246; Dep. of March 23, 
 
 1454). 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 28, vol. ii. p. 198. 
 
^443] DISASTROUS RESULTS. 
 
 59 
 
 There were citizens who were both debtors and creditors to 
 the commune ; from them was exacted payment of the tax. 
 Their credit, not being yet due, was not considered in the- 
 account. Credit was only allowed to the powerful ; con- 
 fiscated from the others, it was sold to second-rate friends 1 
 and insignificant but trustworthy persons, who bought it at 
 a fourth or fifth of its value, sure that later they would be 
 fully reimbursed. Thus it was, for example, that Puccio 
 Pucci made a large fortune ; poor at first, in spite of his silk 
 trade, in seven years he made from the public treasury 54,000 
 florins in gold, " by fleecing the hungry." J Such ruin, accord- 
 ing to Cavalcanti, caused sad moral perturbation. Widows, 
 young girls, on the amount of their dowry, were refused the 
 capital that was due to them, and had no other resource than 
 evil living. " Many sons," he writes, " were present at the 
 marriage of their mother without having known their father. 
 I could name many of these unfortunates, if the honour of 
 my country did not silence me." 3 
 
 The worst was that, thanks to this system and the abuse of 
 the prestanze and forced loans, few citizens were able to remain 
 independent. The state crushed everybody. Its operations 
 were reputed usurious even when usury was the habit of the 
 time, when even theologians did not condemn it, when usurers, 
 instead of being compared to brigands, as in the fourteenth 
 century, were granted burial in consecrated ground. 4 Our 
 contemporary, Gino Capponi, says that the Medici studied 
 to make the Kepublic poor and individuals rich. 5 This is 
 paying the Medici too much honour; amongst individuals 
 they only enriched their friends, or those who wanted to 
 become such. But, truth to say, this was the triumph of the 
 
 1 Del secondo pelo. s :i 
 
 3 Ibid., c. 23, p. 188. 
 
 8 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 29, p. 203. 
 
 4 Guasti {Proemio allt Letters di un notaro, p. xiii. ) quotes the texts of Passa- 
 vanti and St. Antonin. . - 8 
 
 8 Stor. di Fir., ii. 33. 
 
<3o THE UPPER CLASSES. [i443 
 
 Machiavellian art, which they alone could pursue, since the 
 triumph presupposed unequalled wealth. By this means they 
 were long upheld by the multitude, and constituting like the 
 Albizzi the kernel of an aristocratic oligarchy, they were thereby 
 able to establish themselves upon a solid basis, instead of 
 remaining, like them, ineffectual. 
 
 The upper classes stood aloof from them as yet, and without 
 their support no power is stable. This the Medici knew, and 
 at length succeeded in conciliating them. The thing was to 
 hold out, for everywhere men weary of turning their back 
 upon success. But at this time they were still sulking, and 
 their discontent was extreme. 1 Everything shocked them ; 
 the suppression of the catasto, the unparalleled severity in the 
 levying of taxes, 2 jobbery with offices and with the monti, 
 the enormity of burdens that they could neither support nor 
 reject, 3 " the adulteries, robberies, and innumerable injustices, 
 to which the arrogance of the old government was preferable." 4 
 Their opposition grew bold by deficiencies abroad that could 
 not be hidden. 6 To diminish it Cosimo spared nothing, but he 
 scarcely gave evidence of genius or invention ; he but walked 
 upon the beaten track of his predecessors. 
 
 In accordance with the arrangement of 1 4 34, it was the 
 custom to alter the bourses every five years. The second occasion 
 arrived in 1444. The general discontent broke out in this 
 operation. At the polls the relations of the exiled and a 
 number of suspects obtained a good many votes: "ballots 
 of lily flowers of graceful aspect and ugly odour," spitefully 
 
 1 Ammirato, courtier under the later Medici, pretends that only a few were 
 discontented (xxii. 44), but he proves that he extenuates designedly, since Cosimo 
 had to remedy this state of affairs, and, as Machiavelli says, after ten years of 
 power, crush his enemies, increasing and making themselves heard (vi. 87 a). 
 
 2 It is true that, under the Albizzi, those who paid neither taxes nor fines were 
 condemned to death ; but such a disproportionate sentence was less redoubtable 
 than a milder one that might be applied, that appealed less to the gallery. 
 
 3 " La cittadinesche discordie ebbero principio da non avere pazienza delle 
 misurate gravezze" (Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 29, vol. ii. p. 202). 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 24, 25, vol. ii. p. 190, 194. 
 6 Ammirato, xxii. 44. 
 
H44] SEVERITIES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 61 
 
 remarked the Government party. 1 Cosimo and his friends 
 compelled the Signory entering upon office on the 1st May 
 to see that the priors, their colleagues, and 250 other citi- 
 zens, not chosen by chance, had this ballot drawn over 
 again, and the assembly received as well the right to reform 
 the basis of the taxes, and everything else, according to its 
 will. Thus the outsiders found their troubles prolonged for 
 ten years — that is, doubled — and ten citizens condemned to the 
 Stinche for life commuted to banishment outside the town, to 
 make way for other enemies. Giovanni Vespucci, an im- 
 portant personage, no doubt, since the authors mention him, 
 was sent there. The Mancini, the Baroncelli, the Serragli, the 
 Gianni, one of the Kidolfi, the son of Ser Viviano of the 
 Biformagioniy Francesco de la Luna, who was supposed to 
 have invented the catasto, and all the accoppiatori of 1443, 2 
 were posti a seder e (planted on their feet), or even deprived 
 of their civic rights. One might quote other sentences whose 
 motives were not admissible, such as that of Bartolommeo 
 Fortini, officer of the monte. Somebody in power wanted his 
 place. He got it ; but later on the sentence was revoked, so 
 crying a shame was it, and so popular was Fortini. 3 Ser 
 Filippo Pieruzzi, notary of the Riformagioni, chancellor of the 
 Kepublic, another man of considerable renown, was dismissed 
 and exiled ten miles away, though forbidden to leave the terri- 
 tory, doubtless because he knew all the state secrets. 4 During 
 
 1 Seconda Storia, c. 24, 25, vol. ii. p. 192. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 79 ; Cambi, Del., xx. 246 : Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 25, vol. ii. 
 p. 192 ; Ammirato, xxii. 44. 
 
 3 Vespasiano, Vita di Bartolommeo Fortini, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. iv. 
 part 1, p. 376. This life is not in the Spicil. Rom. of Mai. 
 
 * Boninsegni, p. 79; Morelli, Del., xix. 172; Vespasiano, Vita di Ser Filippo 
 Pieruzzi, § 5, 6, in Spicil. Rom., i. 503, 5°4 > Ammirato, xxii. 44. Morelli and 
 Machiavelli (vi. 87 A) call him Peruzzi ; but Boninsegni and Cambi {Del., xx. 245) 
 say he was the son of Ser Ugolino Pieruzzi, the notary of whom mention has been 
 made. Vespasiano (§ 1) says elsewhere, " II padre fu poverissimo uomo da Vertine 
 di Chianti." Thus he was not a Peruzzi. Vespasiano adds he was allowed to 
 spend his exile at his estates of Vertine. 
 
62 THE EIGHT REFORMERS. [[H4S 
 
 the two months' power of this Signory 245 citizens were 
 struck down. 1 
 
 While the ground was thus being cleared, the balie created 
 for five years ten accoppiatori, whose duty it was to name 
 those who would be called to office before the public drawing 
 in the bourses. If Cosimo's weapon was always hypocrisy, that 
 of his instruments was effrontery. They were humble enough, 
 too, for they conceded the right to destroy their work to the 
 ten accoppiatori, named for such a long time, if we remember 
 Florentine traditions, and destined visibly in the only way 
 then possible to retain their power for a long period. Some of 
 these agents of secret, and one may say despotic, policy be- 
 longed to old families : Almanno Salviati, Diotesalvi Neroni, 
 one Soderini, and one Martelli, who, it seems, should have been 
 more careful of an honourable name ; the others were persons 
 of no importance, newly come to Florence, and at the service 
 of those by whom they lived. 2 Cavalcanti paints one of them, 
 Domenico de Matteo de Ser Michele de Castelfiorentino, mean 
 and proud, wicked and without faith, a prevaricator, with palm 
 stretched for gifts, and as hideous morally as physically. 3 The 
 following year (1445) Cosimo, having had himself for the 
 third time named Gonfalonier of Justice, instructed ten of his 
 creatures to look through the books of the ancient Biforma- 
 gioni, to modify all trammels that might be therein, and note 
 all reforms and innovations that it would be advisable to intro- 
 duce in the future by means of the balie. Neri Capponi was 
 one of these eight creatures ; he was reconciled and reinstated 
 in favour since he had renounced a first rank. 4 
 
 Thus little by little, but for centuries, was founded the 
 power of a family of bankers and merchants whose aim was 
 
 1 Leon. Morelli, Del., xix. 172. 
 
 2 Cambi, Del., xx. 246 ; Machiavelli, vi. 87 A. 
 
 8 Sec. Stor., c. 25, voL ii. p. 194. This text, as well as the personal portrait, 
 may be seen in G. Capponi, ii. 35, n. 2. 
 
 * Cambi, Del., xx. 246; Morelli, Del., xix. 172; Boninsegni, p. 79 ; Machia- 
 velli, vi. 87 A ; Ammirato, xxii. 48. The latter gives eight names. 
 
1445] i CHARACTER OF COSIMO. 63 
 
 principality. Cosimo's actions were often odious, he was 
 utterly unscrupulous, his cleverness was commonplace, and 
 far from deserving the word genius; but if, as Buffon says, 
 genius is long patience, this pitiless and crafty personage, 
 who broke through every possible obstacle and turned it aside 
 where he could not crush it, who could content himself with a 
 slow progress so that it continued, may surely claim some part 
 of it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 COSIMO'S DOMINATION WARS AND NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE 
 
 SUCCESSION OF THE VISCONTI. 
 I442-I450. 
 
 Policy of peace and equilibrium in Florence — Peace and equilibrium broken with the 
 kingdom of Naples— Sforza in the pay of Rene' (1442)— Piccinino sent to Alphonsus 
 by the Duke of Milan — Effacement of Cosimo — Double r61e of Eugene IV. — He 
 leaves Florence, January 7, 1443— He recognises Alphonsus and joins him (April 
 9, June 14) — League renewed between Sforza, Venice, Florence, and Milan 
 (October 18)— Sforza in the pay of Florence— Venice (October 30) —Jealousy and 
 death of Piccinino (September 8, 1444)— Jealousy and coalition of the other 
 Italian powers— Precarious situation of Sforza — The Venetian conquerors at Casal- 
 maggiore (September 28, 1446)— Sforza, upon the advice of Cosimo, makes over- 
 tures to the Duke of Milan (November 10)— Last intrigue and death of the Duke 
 (August 13, 1447)— His codicil in Alphonsus's favour— Precarious enfranchisement 
 of the Milanese — Opposition of Cosimo and Neri Capponi— Alphonsus's march 
 upon Tuscany (September) — He besieges Piornbino (May 1448) — Florence succours 
 the besieged — The siege is raised — Sforza in the pay of Milan — His victory at 
 Caravaggio (September 15) — He goes over to the service of the defeated Venetians 
 (October 18) — Florence turns a cold shoulder to him — Conquests of Sforza — Peace 
 of Venice with Milan (September 24, 1449)— Milan yields to Sforza (February 26, 
 145°). 
 
 Cosimo de' Medici loved war for war's sake as little as other 
 Florentines. Besides, his personal power depended entirely 
 upon peace. To keep down the beaten oligarchy, and sub- 
 stitute a new one which would regard him as chief, to free 
 himself from those hungry underlings ready to devour the few 
 chestnuts that they, as in the time of the ciompi, had seized 
 from the fire, was a task that claimed all his attention, and 
 was enough for his activity. On the day after Anghiari he 
 began it. The vanity of Florence was satisfied. For the 
 moment she enjoyed an unaccustomed security; she had her 
 recent conquests to assimilate, and seeing her florins disappear 
 
 in the pockets of the greedy condottieri, she felt as if she were 
 
 64 
 
1438] ITALIAN EQUILIBRIUM. 65 
 
 losing her life-blood. In her wish for repose, her ideas were in 
 perfect harmony with those of the creator of her policy, although 
 there was still much to conquer in his neighbourhood. 
 
 But the policy of peace became more and more difficult ; a 
 state cannot isolate itself like a parish. Situated in the heart 
 of a peninsula, the Florentine state could only live according 
 to her surroundings ; peace was only possible if Venice check- 
 mated Milan, and if either the house of Anjou or the Holy 
 See kept the King of Naples in his place. It was more 
 necessary to declare war against whichever of these powers 
 threatened to crush or suppress her natural adversary than to 
 economise or fill the public treasury or private purses. 
 
 Now Italian equilibrium, always unstable, was at this 
 moment threatened in the south. Rene* d'Anjou, prisoner in 
 France, as soon as he knew of the testament that made him 
 King of Naples, 1 since by this fortune he was once more 
 solvent, was released and hurried into Italy (April 12, 1438). 
 But unfortunate and mediocre, he soon lost to an adversary 
 as lucky as he was clever all his possessions in Campania. 
 Naples was even besieged and in need of food. 2 
 
 The question was, would Florence succour this Frenchman, 
 in her eyes preferable to the King of Aragon ? She did not 
 regard herself as compelled thereto ; she thought it would be 
 enough to give him to the care of Sforza, who claimed him. 3 
 This was not much. The famous condottiere was then engaged 
 in the war with Lombardy, and, besides, was bound to 
 Alphonsus by a truce of ten years. This obstacle was raised 
 by Alphonsus's imprudence in attacking Sforza's possessions 
 in Campania, 1 440-42. 4 Released from his engagements, 
 Count Francesco at once engaged himself in the pay of Rene* 
 
 ' 1 See same vol., c. i. p. 22, 23. 
 
 2 Simoneta, xxi. 311 ; Folieta, 1. x. p. 235 ; Fazio, 1. vi. in Thes. Antiq. Ital, 
 vol. ix. part 3, p. 92 ; Giorn. Napol., xxi. 1109-1125 ; Lecoy de la Marche, Le Roi 
 Rene, i. 112, 120, 136 ; H. Martin, v. 307-309, and 316, note ; Sismondi, vi. 8, 9. 
 
 3 Letter of Cardinal Capona to Sforza, November 30, 1441, in Osio, iii. No. 
 231, p. 240 ; Simoneta, xxi. 311. 
 
 4 See details in Ricotti, iii. 87 sq. t and Sismondi, vi. 97. 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
66 PICCININO GONFALONIER OF THE CHURCH. [1442 
 
 and the Pope. 1 Peace concluded north of the Po, he descended 
 to the kingdom to replace a parcel of feeble lieutenants by a 
 powerful army. 2 Personal troubles delayed him in the Marches, 
 but this could not have been anticipated by anybody. 
 
 By a truly political inspiration, which repaired his previous 
 error, Alphonsus claimed the help of Filippo Maria against 
 his son-in-law. He divined the bitter rancour and invincible 
 doubts the Duke must nourish against the adventurer he could 
 not, even by giving him his daughter, detach from his 
 enemies, Florence and Venice. If the Duke of Milan did not 
 dare to violate the peace he had just concluded, he persuaded 
 Piccinino to place himself at the head of the mercenaries 
 licensed by Venice, and with them to cross into Bologna. 
 Well furnished with Milanese gold, Piccinino offered Eugene 
 IV. to recover for him the Marches of Ancona, which the 
 Pontiff regretted so much to have given up to Sforza. 3 The 
 temptation was too strong ; Eugene forgot at once that the 
 Holy See had its best guarantee of independence in the reign 
 of the princes of Anjou at Naples. Prodigal of pacific protes- 
 tations, he named Piccinino Gonfalonier of the Church, and 
 authorised him to surprise Todi, to besiege Assisi, 4 while he 
 was conceded the privilege of taking the name and arms of the 
 house of Aragon. 5 Thus the Pope drew near his traditional 
 enemy, who, far from rushing into this alliance, was in treaty 
 with Sforza 6 and Piccinino at the same time, an excellent plan, 
 he thought, to gain the one or the other without paying too 
 dear for the privilege. 
 
 1 Osio, vol. iii. No. 246, p. 267. The stipulators were : for the Pope, Lodovico 
 Mezzarota or Scarampo, Patriarch of Aquilee, and for Sforza, Cosimo de Medici. 
 The act was passed at Florence, April 13, 1442. The condottiere was to support 
 the Pope with 6000 horse and 1000 infantry. Arch. Sfor., Bibl. Nat. de Paris, 
 MSS. No. 1583, f. 17. 
 
 8 Simoneta, xxi. 313; Sismondi, vi. 98; Cipolla, p. 409. 
 
 3 See M. Valeri in Arch. Stor. Lombardi, Ann. xii. 1884, on domination of 
 Sforza in the Marches. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 314; Machiavelli, vi. 86 a ; Ammirato, xxii. 39. 
 
 • Doc. of June 27, 1442, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., xvi. part 1, p. 485. 
 6 Doc. of July 26, 1442, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., xiii. 289. 
 
M42] SFORZA OPPOSED TO PICCININO. 67 
 
 We need not doubt that the touchy Florentines were vexed 
 by these treaties, made without and against them ; but Cosimo 
 taught them patience. Neither formal hostilities nor direct 
 injuries could disturb their phlegm. The agreement that they 
 had established between Sforza and the Pope was broken ; it 
 was an unpleasant prospect if the Pope hastened the rupture. 1 
 Piccinino might seize Citta di Castello, included in the league, 
 and banish the Florentine podestate ; he might refuse to give 
 back Modigliana to the Republic, and might enter Todi as con- 
 queror while Alphonsus was entering Naples (Jane 2, 1442). 2 
 Cosimo contented himself with secretly hiring Sforza, 3 and, with 
 the agreement of Venice, proposed his mediation. The mediator 
 was one of his family, Bernardetto de Medici, a keen business 
 man, always to be seen in his shop, where he sold wool, and 
 never upon the public places or in the palace, except when 
 summoned thither. 4 A clever negotiator, he twice forced the 
 Pope and Piccinino to treat with Sforza ; but scarcely was 
 Sforza on the road to the Kingdom, counting upon plighted 
 faith, than Eugene, in virtue of his pontifical right to break 
 oaths, relieved Piccinino of his, and by this act discovered the 
 field of hostilities to full daylight. 5 
 
 In this affair the great politician was neither Cosimo nor 
 Alphonsus, but Filippo Maria. In giving Piccinino to the 
 Pope, he rid himself of an exacting servant, and by him of a 
 son-in-law and enemy ; at one stroke he weakened Venice 
 and Florence, ever hostile to Milan. Vainly did these two 
 Republics impose a truce of eight months ; the two captains 
 kissed and made friends, swore to observe the friendship, and 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxii. 39. 
 
 2 Simoneta, xxi. 316 ; Giorn. Napol, xxi. 1125-1128 ; Bonincontri, xxi. 151 ; 
 Bracelli, 1. iv. f. M ; Folieta, 1. x. p. 226 ; Fazio, 1. 7 {Thes. Antiq. Hal., vol. 
 ix. part 2, p. 101-104) ; Ammirato, xxii. 40; Mariana, 1. xxi. c. 17, vol. ii. p. 
 447 ; Lecoy de la Marche, i. 214. 
 
 3 180,000 crowns in twelve taxes. Ammirato, xxii. 40. 
 
 4 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 34, vol. ii. p. 213. 
 
 5 Simoneta, xxi. 322; Eugene's Bull., Flor., August 3, 1442; Ann. Eccles., 
 1442, § 12, vol. xxviii. p. 396. 
 
68 KING RENE. ['442 
 
 then broke it off. More than ever was Italy divided into two 
 camps, and soon the two leagues tightened their bonds, the 
 better to fight ; on one side, the Pope, the Duke of Milan, and 
 the King of Naples ; on the other, Sforza, the Venetians, and 
 the Florentines (November 30, 1442). 1 
 
 The best of it was that Eugene, henceforth the enemy of 
 the Florentines, was liviug in their midst for the second time ; 
 he had been there since the Council, four years earlier. 2 
 Bene* d'Anjou saw him at Florence on his return from Pro- 
 vence, when, disgusted with Italian egoism and faithless cap- 
 tains who treated him like a bale of goods, 3 he forsook the 
 kingdom that he had not been able to defend (July 16, 1442 4 ). 
 He wanted to say his say to the Pope, the chief instrument of 
 his ruin, but he went back quietly enough. Could it be other- 
 wise ? Intimidated, he spoke humbly, and was content with 
 soft words and a fresh investiture, which, according to a con- 
 temporary, was not worth the smallest army. 5 Florence could 
 do nothing for him but cover him with honours. She gave 
 him the houses of the Bardi, and entertained him at the rate 
 of twenty-five golden crowns a day. Humouring his passion 
 for strange beasts, she presented him with a lioness. As he 
 had been robbed of the golden cross lent him by the canons of 
 San Lorenzo, she had a magnificent one made, and gave it 
 him for his own. 6 He left for Marseilles, September 2 2. 7 In 
 token of gratitude, he conceded the priors in office the right 
 henceforth to add to their arms his own fleur-de-lis. 8 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 318^. ; Ammirato, xxii. 40 ; Ricotti, Hi. 94. 
 
 2 In chap. i. it was shown that he left Florence for Bologna in 1436. He 
 lived there from June 23, 1434, and returned to the Council January 22, 1439. 
 
 3 " Disse che non voleva che il conte Francesco ne altri capitani italiani di 
 ventura facessero mercanzia di lui" (Giorn. Napol., xxi. 1 127). 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 323 ; Fazio, 1. vii. (7 hes. Ant. //a/., vol. ix. part 3, p. 107). 
 
 6 Giorn. Napol., xxi. 1 125 ; Boninsegni, p. 76 ; Ann. Eccles., 1442, § 12, 
 xxviii. p. 396 ; Machiavelli, vi. 86 A ; Ammirato, xxii. 40. 
 
 6 Lecoy de la Marche, i. 219 ; the document of September 7, 1442, is published 
 by this author in Appendix, No. 18, vol. ii. p. 252. 
 
 7 Boninsegni, p. 76. 
 
 8 " Unum lilii fiorem, prout domus nostra portare consuevit et portat" (charter 
 
1443] THE POPE AND THE FLORENTINES. 6y 
 
 Eugene himself shortly afterwards left Florence. Discon- 
 tented with his hosts like everybody else, he pardoned Cosimo 
 neither the maintenance of the proscription nor the murder — 
 under his own eyes — of the uninteresting Baldaccio, still less 
 his wish that Sforza should remain the lord of the Marches. 1 
 On his side, Cosimo as little relished the Pope's intention to 
 visit Sienna, a hostile town. Both the governors of Florence 
 and the orators of Venice represented to him that in doing so 
 he would be giving himself bound hand and foot into the power 
 of the King of Naples and the Duke of Milan, the neighbour- 
 hood of Rome being infested with untrustworthy soldiers. 2 
 Satirical verses were posted upon the walls of Santa Mari 
 Novella, where he resided, informing him that at Sienna he 
 would find war, ruin, blood, and fire ; that it was madness to mis- 
 trust a faithful friend, or to take Piccinino for master ; finally, 
 that a good tailor measures seven times before cutting his cloth. 3 
 These anonymous poets did not add their hidden thought, 
 that, politics aside, their country drew glory and profit from the 
 pontifical sojourn. Interest dictated their advice, as was soon 
 seen. Eugene persisting in his intention, the Council delibe- 
 rated an entire night — should they permit him to depart? 4 
 Eugene wisely feigned to ignore their deliberations against his 
 liberty ; he solemnly consecrated the churches of Santa Croce 
 and San Marco, and finally was able to leave, followed by his 
 fifteen cardinals, and accompanied as far as Sienna by tbe 
 Florentines amid great demonstrations of respect. Night had 
 brought good counsel. 5 
 
 taken from the Archives des Buondelmonti, recently given with others to the 
 Archivio di Stato of Florence, and published in the Arch. Stor., 1876, disp. 3, p. 
 
 532). 
 
 1 G. Capponi, ii. 37. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 77 ; Ammirato, xxii. 41. 
 
 3 Verses published in the Arch. Stor., 1st ser., xvi. part I, p. 526. 
 
 4 Night of the 6th and 7th January 1443. Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 18, ii. p. 
 169 ; Vespasiano, Vita di Agnolo Acciajuoli, c. 7, and Vita di Leonardo d'Arezzo, 
 c. 5, 6, in Spicil. Rom., i. 467, 562. Vespasiano asserts that the idea of retaining 
 the Pope came from Venice. 
 
 6 Ammirato, xxii. 41. 
 
70 EUGENE'S AGREEMENT WITH ALPHONSUS. [1443 
 
 Once at Sienna, he removed the mask. Under pretence of 
 a love of peace, he acknowledged what was done at Naples, and 
 recognised Alphonsus of Aragon (April 9, 1 44 3 J. 1 Later on, 
 in spite of Kene's protest, he legitimatised Don Fernando, 
 Alphonsus's natural son, to enable him to succeed. 2 It is easy 
 to guess the price Alphonsus paid for this pontifical right- 
 about-face : he expelled Sforza from the Marches, and estab- 
 lished everywhere the supremacy of the Holy See, (< to the 
 great prejudice and shame of the Church of God," 3 as the 
 Venetian Sanuto writes. 
 
 Venice condemned the agreement, and Florence was no- 
 less severe ; but it was really not worth more than the mili- 
 tary operations, and these were turning out badly for Sforza. 
 At the approach of Piccinino and Alphonsus, Sforza's lieutenants 
 in the Marches deserted, and the banners of the Church floated 
 in the towns. Gold was never plentiful enough for these lieu- 
 tenants. To appease them Sforza bled towns, wherein he had 
 never lived, where he was hardly known, and where he had 
 neither hereditary rights nor their equivalent, the right of long 
 possession. 4 The aid of the two Kepublics, which he demanded 
 from his retreat in Romagna, was long in coming, while eighty 
 thousand men, generalled by two able chiefs, were opposed to 
 him. He might well have been lost, but events and the caprice 
 of men saved him. 
 
 Suddenly, on June 6, 1443, the Bolognese repelled Pic- 
 cinino, and, under the tyrannical rule of Annibale Bentivoglio, 
 established their independence, which they called liberty. 
 Supported by Venice and Florence, on the 1 4th of the following 
 August they consolidated their work by the defeat of Alvise del 
 
 1 Bull dated from Sienna. Arch, of Naples, No. xxxiv. f. 8, in Lecoy de la 
 Marche, i. 266. 
 
 2 Bull of Rome, July 12, 1444. Arch, of Naples, No. xxxiv. f. 22, in Lecoy de 
 la Marche, i. 267. 
 
 3 Marin Sanuto, xxii. 1108; Simoneta, xxi. 324 ; Ann. EccL> 1443, § *> v °l- 
 xxviii. p. 400 ; Fazio, 1. viii. (Thes. Ant. Ital., vol. ix. part 3, p. in). 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxii. 43 ; Ricotti, iii. 9 . 
 
1444] SUCCESSES OF SFORZA. 71 
 
 Verme, a Milanese captain. 1 Piccinino was weakened thereby, 
 Alphonsus and Filippo Maria were disconcerted. It was more 
 than enough to force the latter into one of those changes of 
 front that suited his natural mobility. Hitherto his policy 
 had been to weaken Sforza without destroying him, that he 
 might thus strengthen the exacting Piccinino and assist the 
 increasing advancement of Alphonsus. The Count Francesco, 
 on the full tide of prosperity, was reconciled with him ; to- 
 gether they formed a secret league, into which the Venetians 
 and Florentines were compelled to enter. The gain was entirely 
 Sforza's. Living at Fano with his son-in-law, Sigismondo 
 Malatesta, he was ready to go wherever his presence was needed. 2 
 Chance had turned : henceforth it was for the King of Naples 
 to be on his guard ; of the two condottieri, his enemy was the 
 stronger, his friend the weaker. He dared not break with the 
 Duke of Milan; the siege of Fano was difficult, and winter 
 was approaching. 3 Sforza gained the victories of Montelauro 
 and Montolmo, 4 Piccinino was taken prisoner, 5 and peace was 
 made. Trembling in Perouse, Eugene IV. accepted the media- 
 tion of the two Republics, and Cosimo de Medici and Neri 
 Capponi were named arbitrators. Count Francesco had twelve 
 days to recover his lost towns; this delay expired,he would retain 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 325-327 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1200 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1108 ; Cron. 
 Bol, xviii. 667-672 ; Boninsegni, p. 78 ; Platina, xx. 840 ; Burselli, xxiii. 879 ; 
 Machiavelli, vi. 86 B ; Ammirato, xxii. 42. See on these events the story of 
 Galeazzo Marescotti or Marscotto, a great friend of Annibale Bentivoglio, Cronica 
 come Annibale Bentivogli fit preso e f?ienato de prigione et poi morto et vendicato, 
 published at Bologna in 1869. See more particularly p. 52. 
 
 2 G. B. Poggio, p. 171; Fr. Adami, De rebus in civitate Firmana gestis frag- 
 mentorum Libri duo, 1. ii. c. 87, p. 104, Rome, 1591 ; Ammirato, xxii. 43. See 
 work of M. Yriarte on Sigismondo Malatesti, published in the Revue des Deux 
 Monde s, December 1, 1881. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 331 ; Ann. Foroliv., xxii. 222 ; Fazio, 1. viii. (Thes. Ant. Ital., 
 1. ix. part 3, p. 117) ; Machiavelli, vi. 86 b ; Ammirato, xxii. 42-44. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 340-343 ; Ann. Foroliv., xxii. 222 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1112 ; G. B. 
 Poggio, p. 171 ; Fazio, 1. viii. p. 125 ; Fr. Adami, 1. ii. c. 97, p. 113 ; Machia- 
 velli, vi. 87 B ; Ammirato, xxii. 44 ; Ricotti, iii. 97. 
 
 5 The authors vary upon the date, from August 19, 1444, to the beginning of 
 September. Simoneta, xxi. 355-357; Ann. Foroliv., xxii. 222; Sanuto, xxii. 
 1 1 14 ; 1st. Bresc., xxi. 832 ; Ammirato, xxii. 45. 
 
72 DEATH OF PICCININO. tH44 
 
 his possessions and conquests, and the fief and title of marquis; 
 the rest of the Marches would return to the Church (Sep- 
 tember 30). 1 Only three towns held out after these twelve 
 days, but they only escaped Sforza upon the condition of pay- 
 ing him in future the tribute they had paid in the past to 
 the Apostolic Chamber. 2 The upstart peasant, the soldier of 
 fortune, was now a great lord, almost a prince; he did not 
 the less for that continue the trade of condottiere, nor cease 
 to appreciate its profits. The treaty was only acknowledged 
 on October 18 ; 3 on the 30th he was engaged for three years 
 in the pay of Florence and Venice, each of which allowed him 
 8500 florins in gold a month. 4 Despite his exactions from 
 his subjects, this was probably the best part of his income. 
 
 While he was a marquis and the possessor of vast estates, 
 Piccinino, his rival, the most illustrious of condottieri, had 
 not even a resting-place for his old age. What did it 
 matter to this brave soldier that his contemporaries declared 
 him superior to Agamemnon, to Cyrus, to Pyrrhus, to the 
 most renowned Greeks and Romans ! He might be praised 
 for fighting for the love of glory, but he was tired of being 
 paid in smoke. False modesty prompted him to call himself 
 to his followers a worm of the earth, not worthy to be com- 
 pared with the glorious heroes of antiquity. 5 The mortifica- 
 tion of blighted and broken ambition, added to the great and 
 prolonged fatigues of his career, told upon his weakly consti- 
 tution, and he soon died, September 8, I444, 6 leaving, in 
 
 1 Doc. in Osio, vol. iii. No. 290, p. 312. The negotiations were already old : 
 in the following month of March the Duke expressed a desire to be named corn- 
 missionary of the two Republics. Ibid., No. 272, p. 299. 
 
 ' J Simoneta, xxi. 361 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1115 ; Machiavelli, vi. 87 B; Amrnirato, 
 xxii. 45. 
 
 3 Osio, vol. iii. No. 268, p. 296, contains the Duke's letter ordering the publi- 
 cation of the league. 
 
 4 Archivio Sforzesco, Bibl. Nat., Orig., No. 1583, ff. 37-43. 
 
 5 Piccinino's letter to Giannozzo Manetti, in Life of latter, ed. Fanfani, p. 190, 
 in G. Capponi, ii. 38 n. 
 
 6 G. B. Poggio, p. 172 ; Amrnirato, xx. 45. Other authors give various dates 
 for Piccinino's death, from September 8 to October 6. 
 
1444] ENEMIES OF SFORZA. 73 
 
 spite of his sons, who inherited his traditions, the military 
 faction of the Braccaschi for ever eclipsed by that of the 
 Sforzeschi. Posterity judges him as Ricotti did: "No man of 
 fine feeling will envy Sforza or Piccinino ; but if I had to 
 choose, I should prefer the unlucky adventurer to his rival 
 turned lord." 1 
 
 But all was not plain sailing for this new-made lord. His 
 notorious cruelty alienated the people from him, as his greedi- 
 ness did the princes. The Duke of Milan was vexed to see 
 him invested so close to his own door with stable and effective 
 power. Pretexts were not wanting to excite enemies against 
 him, as well as against his constant allies, the Florentines. 
 He had put to death his lieutenant, Zarpellione, the real 
 conqueror of Montelauro, Piccinino's worthy successor. 2 He 
 meant to swoop down, " like the hawk upon quail," upon 
 all that he did not yet possess in the Marches, with the aid 
 of Florence, Venice, and the French. He would end by ex- 
 pelling Alphonsus of Aragon from Calabria. It was thought 
 better to obey a real king than to be exposed to the rule of 
 " made " lords, who could not tell who their father was, or of 
 communities led by shoemakers and tailors. 3 Sforza and 
 Florence, so openly described, were objects of the same distrust 
 and hatred on the part of the Duke of Milan, 4 and soon these 
 
 1 Ricotti, iii. 104. 
 
 2 Simoneta, xxi. 362; Cron. Rim., xv. 950; Ricotti, iii. 105. The details 
 of the war may be had in Sismondi, vi. 120-130, in Ricotti, and the other 
 chroniclers. 
 
 3 " Meglo ne pare stare ad obedientia de une signore e Re naturale che sia 
 con nuy quello che e questo par respecto de' beneficii et de le altre cosse, che stare 
 a periculo de venire ad obedientia de comunitate o signorie in le quale siano calzo- 
 lari, sertori et ogni altra sorte e specie de homini o vero de capitanei quali non 
 sapiano ancora che sia stato suo padre " (Instructions of Ottino de Marliano, sent 
 to the King of Aragon, November 9, 1445. Arch. Sforzesco, Orig., No. 1583, f. 51. 
 The last lines of this document were printed in the Appendix of Buser, Die Bezie- 
 hungender Mediceer zu Frankreicht, &c, p. 352). 
 
 4 January II, 1445, the Duke wrote that he knew of Florence's designs upon 
 Piombino, and that if Cosimo would enter into relations with him, he would pro- 
 mise never to interfere in Tuscan affairs, except to aid them publicly and privately 
 with his power and his wealth, offering desirable securities. See text in Osio, iii. 
 No. 313, p. 358. 
 
74 DANGER OF SFORZA. [M45 
 
 sentiments were shared by the Pope, the King of Naples, and 
 even Sigismondo Malatesta, Sforza's son-in-law. 
 
 But Sforza cared not : he was upheld by Cosimo, his 
 treasurer and adviser, 1 whom he overwhelmed with gross 
 flattery. 2 Cosimo exhorted him to march upon Kome, where, 
 he said, the barons, cardinals, and people awaited him as a 
 liberator, and he boastfully promised to reduce the Pope to 
 peace by fire and to work miracles. 3 As a matter of fact, he 
 did so little that his army of heavy cavalry was reduced for 
 three days to live upon wild strawberries, and compelled to 
 retreat without having gone beyond Montefiascone. 4 The 
 Florentine exchequer was behind-hand ; the parsimony of the 
 Council often impeded the fulfilment of its promises at the 
 proper time, and the Pope, in order to detach this race of 
 merchants from Sforza, had their mules seized laden with 
 merchandise, only returning them upon payment ; he also 
 imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo the ambassador, 
 Bernardetto de Medici (August 1446), under the pretext of 
 credit upon the monte, and would not release him without 
 the sum of 5000 florins. 5 This was the game of open war: 
 if Florence could find gold to bribe the Pope's enemies, she 
 ought to have first paid her debts to the Holy See. 
 
 These trials Cosimo endured philosophically; he dreaded 
 a worse disaster, the downfall of Sforza, whose power seemed 
 necessary to the equilibrium. He had risked all upon this 
 card. Now Count Francesco, if he were lord in the centre of 
 
 1 January 15, 1446, Sforza wrote to Antonio de Trivulcio that he had only to 
 appear for the Council within three days to give him the money he needed [Arch. 
 Sforzesco, cop. No. 1597, f. 66). 
 
 2 " Ingenium perspicacissimum, intellectum magnifici viri Cosme Johannis de 
 Medicis de Florentia qui summa rectitudine et diligentia accuratissime et pruden- 
 tissme omnia que vult perficit ad effectum" (April 8, 1446, Arch. Sforzesco, Orig., 
 No. 1583, f. 61). 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1201. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 376 ; Cron. cPAgobbio, xxi. 985. We repeat that the infinite 
 and uninteresting details of this war are not to be found here. 
 
 5 Message of August 16, 1446, to the Florentine orator Donato in Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 170; Boninsegni, p. 81 ; Cavalcanti, Sec. Storia, c. 34, vol. ii. p. 212. 
 
1446] SUCCESSES OF THE VENETIANS. 75 
 
 the peninsula, had lost everything in the kingdom of Naples 
 and in the dominions of the Church. Filippo Maria had his 
 eye upon Cremona and Pontremoli, pretending that these two 
 places were not part of the dowry, and were only a provi- 
 sional guarantee. 1 Venice held aloof, in spite of Florentine 
 eloquence,'^ fearing beforehand this heir presumptive of the old 
 Duke ; the Council of Ten with difficulty granted 4000 horse 
 for the army in Lombardy, 3 while Cosimo was doing all in his 
 power to engage in war. 4 They, however, with this feeble con- 
 tingent, and thanks to Michele Attendolo, their general, reaped 
 all the glory of this campaign. They relieved Cremona ; they 
 seized the country between the Adda and the Oglio by an 
 almost bloodless victory (September 28, 1446) ; they devastated 
 the country nearly as far as Monza, while Count Francesco in 
 Romagna had enough to do to hold his own before his enemies. 5 
 Before this failure the Duke was simply insolent. Puccio 
 Pucci, coming as messenger of peace, was refused an audience 
 until an hour declared favourable by the astrologers. The 
 ambassador did not wait for his country's victory to avenge 
 this affront. When he was sent for, in turn he replied that 
 he was not ready, and that the Duke's hour was not his 
 (September i). 6 The Visconti's miseries were exposed by the 
 turn of affairs ; he was nearly blind, weakened, sick unto death. 7 
 Hated by his subjects, preoccupied by the thought of his snc- 
 
 1 Sanuto, xxii. 1121 ; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 834. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, in October 1445 ; Neri Capponi and Bernardo Giugni, from 
 May to July 1446. 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1201 ; G. Capponi, ii. 40 and n. 2 ; Ricotti, iii. 187 ; 
 Sismondi, vi. 133. 
 
 4 April 27, 1446, Cosimo exhorted Sforza to begin the campaign immediately : 
 " Reusciendo vi da et la Marcha et la Romagnia, et anchora rompe la intelligenza 
 del Re et del Ducha. Chredo la signoria vostra fara piu al presente con cinque 
 che de qui a uno mese con died." Text in Osio, iii. No. 342, p. 401. 
 
 5 Osio, iii. No. 365, p. 440 ; Simoneta, xxi. 382-385 ; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 836-838 ; 
 Sanuto, xxii. 1121; Cron. (TAgobbio, xxi. 986; Ammirato, xxii. 51 ; Sismondi, 
 vi. 135 ; Ricotti, iii. 108 ; Cipolla, p. 422. 
 
 6 Ammirato, xxii. 51. 
 
 7 One of Sforza's ambassadors, Angelo Simoneta, writes to him from Vienna, 
 September 30, 1446, " Dubito de la morte de lo duca de Milano, la quale pre- 
 dicono tutti li indicii" {Arch. Sforz., orig., No. 1583, f. 91). 
 
76 PERPLEXITIES OF SFORZA. [1446 
 
 cessors, abandoned by Charles VII. of France and Alphonsus 
 of Naples, who made no reply to his prayer for help, he 
 had nothing else to do but grasp his son-in-law's hand and 
 promise not to disinherit him. 1 But was it possible to rely 
 on such a turncoat ? He persuaded the Pope and Alphonsus 
 to plead with Sforza for him, and the latter humoured the 
 dying man to the extent of advancing his old enemy 40,000 
 ducats. 2 
 
 Still Sforza hesitated. His perplexities were great. To 
 break with his father-in-law meant the loss of his chances of 
 inheritance ; to unite with him was to renounce the support 
 of Florence and Venice, and consequently to be at their mercy. 
 On the other hand, to second the Venetians involved the risk 
 of losing Lombardy ; and could he hope to win it back from 
 them afterwards ? One of his confidants urged him to join 
 them if he did not wish to be despoiled ; and Parma already 
 was at his disposal. 3 We are told that in his difficulties he 
 applied to Cosimo for advice. Cosimo is painted as false even 
 in friendship, and so cautious that he shrank from saying what 
 he wanted others to know of his thoughts or objects, but 
 delivered it by a third person. He usually employed Nico- 
 demo Tranchedini de Pontremoli, Sforza's orator in his own 
 house. 4 The advice of his old ally to Sforza was to follow 
 his own interest, and not trouble himself about two Republics 
 which had only helped him because it suited themselves. By 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 385; Machiavelli, vi. 88 B; Sismondi, vi. 137; G. Capponi, 
 ii. 40. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1202. 
 
 3 " Essendo la S. V. lontana, ve poresti lavare le mani et tutto quello stato 
 capitaria in altre mani . . . certificando la S. V. che venendo haveriti Parma. 
 Perche da uno de li principali de quela citta io fui richiesto che sollicitasse la S. V. 
 al venire cola" (Angelo Simoneta, Venice, September 30, 1446; Arch. S/orz., 
 Orig., No. 1583, f. 91). 
 
 4 " Cosmus explicare quid in animo haberet aperte non ausus, sententiamque 
 ambiguis verbis involvens, ita per Nicodemum Pontremulensem referri jubet" 
 (Giov. Simoneta, xxi. 388). Sforza had three secretaries of the name and family 
 of Simoneta: Angiolo in 1426, and in 1433 n ^ s two nephews, Cecco, secretarius 
 a secretis, and Giovanni, secretaries ab epistolts, that is, chancellor. See Mura- 
 tori's preface to Giovanni Simoneta, xxi. 168. 
 
1446] POLICY OF COSIMO. 77 
 
 this he directly incited him to disregard Venice, whose ambi- 
 tion was irreconcilable with his. When we add that he recom- 
 mended him to satisfy the soldiers by giving up Pesaro, the 
 only town that remained faithful, to pillage, the remark of 
 Giovanni Simoneta, Sforza's secretary, is easily intelligible : 
 "Wicked counsel, rejected by Count Francesco, astonished to 
 find such execrable inhumanity in such a man." l Sforza and 
 his people treating Cosimo as a savage ! What a light thrown 
 upon this pretended father of his country ! 
 
 At bottom his desire was not Sforza's good, but the ruin 
 of Venice, now the object of his personal rancour and his 
 political apprehension. More than once wounded in his self- 
 love, since Venice had usurped a first rank in the league, 
 Florentine greed having left her two-thirds of the expenses, he 
 feared, like the other Italian powers, this increasing ambi- 
 tion, fostered by cold energy and mysterious silence. For the 
 moment she only aspired to Lombardy, but later would she 
 not want all Italy ? The political conception of Cosimo was 
 to restrain Venice within her limits by the establishment of 
 a strong power at Milan. He perhaps forgot that Sforza's 
 fidelity claimed an increasing salary ; that this upstart was 
 insatiable in his thirst and need of money ; 2 that the day 
 might come when the Florentines would close their purses to 
 him, and that in any case his successor, if not himself, could 
 very well find other friends. But politics are not fashioned 
 for eternity. 3 
 
 The politics of that time were purely speculative. Sforza 
 was yet weighing the pros and cons. He doubted the sincerity 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 388. 
 
 2 Complaints of not receiving enough money, and demands for more, are con- 
 stant in the numerous volumes of the Archivio Sforzesco, and are terribly mono- 
 tonous. In one of these begging letters are these curious words : " Bixogna faciate 
 a la mercadantescha, che rare volte famo gran guadagno senza el gran pericolo " 
 (Nicodemo, Boccaccino et Contuzo to Sforza, November 25, 1446, Orig., No. 1583, 
 p. 127). 
 
 * Guicciardini {Slor. di Fir., Op. hied., iii. p. 8, 9) believes that an alliance 
 between Sforza and Cosimo meant the salvation of Italy, whose worst enemy was 
 the Venetians. Machiavelli also holds this opinion ; see his letters on affairs. 
 
78 POLICY OF COSIMO. lW* 
 
 of Cosimo's friendly demonstrations, and still more the stability 
 of his occult power. He learnt that many intrigues were 
 necessary another year to place the chief of the Medici among 
 those officers of the monte who manipulated without control 
 the public funds. 1 Cosimo explained to Nicodemo that he only 
 desired to retain this office that he might supply the pecuniary 
 needs of his ally as well as his own ; 2 but he also said that he 
 dared not " force the people," not wishing to lose his head. 3 
 This was his invariable excuse when he was not in a mood to 
 advance money, and for the moment he was indisposed to com- 
 promise himself. He recommended Sforza to proclaim aloud 
 that the Duke's enormous cake could not be eaten unless a 
 good slice were given to the Venetians. 4 We can see that 
 " he wished to diminish the expenditure of his country, feeling 
 certain that his condottiere was inalterably his." 5 
 
 Suspicion was thus legitimate and hesitation explicable. An 
 error on the part of Venice brought it to an end. Until then, 
 Venice had defended Cremona against the Duke of Milan, it 
 being a sort of boulevard for her states upon terra firma ; 
 but hearing of the pending negotiations between father and 
 son-in-law, she mistook fear for reality, and believed the still 
 
 1 "Et e stato dificilissimo a vencerla" (Boccaccino and Nicodemo to Sforza, 
 October 22, 1446, Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1583, f. 104; and Buser, Append., p. 
 
 352). 
 
 2 " Et pur Cosimo quando ce fece durare tanta fatica a farlo refermar al monte, 
 ce dicia farlo solamente perche ritrovandosse in quel offitio potia sempre soccor- 
 rervi ad omne vostro bixogno et assicurarsi de assignamenti luy estesso" (Nico- 
 demo to Sforza, November 25, 1446, in cipher, Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 15 S3, 
 
 t 133). 
 
 8 " Fariavi omne bene, ma pur non vene voria sforzare questo populo. Et dice 
 che seriano tute cose da farli mazare el cappo" {ibid.). In the Copies, No. 1597, 
 f. 150, the passages in cipher in the original were written out. 
 
 4 "Etha voluto Cosimo che de verun altra cosa se participi el vero con per- 
 sona . . . et ad chi ce strengesse un poco piu, dichiamo che serate de parere, poy 
 che la torta del duca e grande, che la non se devesse mangiare che costoro non ne 
 havessero una bona parte et nuy qualche particella per ristoro" (Copies, ibid., 
 
 f. 150). 
 
 5 " Et forsi quando potesse liberare questo populo de la spesa vostra, gli pareria 
 fare un bel facto, et maxime che gli pare essere certo habiate sempre ad essere 
 mo" {ibid.). 
 
1446] ABJECTION OF SFORZA. 79 
 
 doubtful agreement concluded ; and in order that what she 
 regarded as her own rampart should not become her neighbour's 
 safeguard, she endeavoured to seize it by treason. 1 Without 
 further waiting, Sforza accepted from Filippo Maria the same 
 pay that he received from the league — 204,000 florins in 
 gold a year — with supreme authority over all the soldiers and 
 fortified positions of the duchy. These positions were stated in 
 the treaty ; Milan was not among them (November 10, 1446). 2 
 Thus assured of the present and the future, Sforza did not 
 cease therefor to hold out to Cosimo the hand of an armed 
 beggar ; " he could not," he said, " go to sea without biscuits." 3 
 He had devoted himself to the league with more faith and 
 love than Christ or St. John the Baptist. He had mortified 
 the flesh, yet he made no complaint. He had lost his fine 
 states, impoverished his company and himself until there was 
 nothing left, and even the possessions of his wife, Madonna 
 Bianca, were pledged, while she and her children were in a 
 state of shameful poverty. 4 He flattered Cosimo by saying 
 that he expected from him more than the advice and assist- 
 ance his father would have given him were he alive. 5 He 
 wished to be the son and servant of the commons of Florence ; 
 he and his friends were both soul and body, so long as they 
 lived, and more in the future than in the past. Dying, he 
 would lay his curse upon his children if such were not their 
 pleasure also. 6 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 389; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 839; Ricotti, iii. no; Sismondi, vi. 141. 
 
 2 Simoneta, xxi. 391. See the instrument in Du Mont, Corp Diplom., vol. iii. 
 part 1, p. 155. 
 
 3 " Non faria per vui intrare in nave senza biscotto." It was said : " Che saria 
 impossibile havessino omne cosa cossi ad votum, che ad quel modo luy et ognuno 
 saperia vincere " (Boccaccino and Nicodemo to Sforza, November 25, 1446. 
 Copies, No. 1597, f. 148). In the following December, in one of his letters, 
 Sforza repeats the metaphor of going to sea without biscuits {ibid., f. 158). 
 
 4 Sforza to Boccaccino and Nicodemo, Pesaro, December 7, 1446 (Copies, 
 No. 1597, f. 164). 
 
 6 Another letter from the same to the same, and same date (ibid., f. 166). 
 These two letters are very curious. 
 
 6 From the same to the same, March 12, 1447. (Copies, No. 1598, f. 42, and 
 in Buser, Append., p. 355.) 
 
8o INQUIETUDE AT FLORENCE. [1446 
 
 What meanness underlies these eternal demands for money ! 
 Worse still, Sforza was an unconscionable liar, and actually 
 defended himself against the charge before Cosimo and his 
 own ambassadors : " I have not been untrue to you. If you 
 find that I have not spoken the truth, never trust me more. 
 To convince yourself, send Diotesalvi." * A child or a school- 
 boy taken to task and punished would perhaps have preserved 
 his dignity better. 
 
 But in this century of lies and perjury, when none could 
 trust his fellow, it would have been unreasonable to hope 
 to inspire others with confidence. Men wrote of the pro- 
 mises of yesterday as if no promises had been made. At 
 Florence they produced " a great Florentine busbu." No one 
 knew what to think of the movements of the troops ; they 
 felt their way, doubting the ambition of this condottiere who 
 would not be satisfied with being king of Italy. 2 Twenty 
 days after the treaty concluded between father and son-in-law, 
 the latter deliberated again with his allies whether he should 
 make peace with Venice or war with the Duke in Parma, 
 relying upon the two Republics, or yet if he would pay off 
 the old man in case he should have the means of doing so. 
 This was Cosimo's advice, but only his advice, 3 and under any 
 circumstances, to avoid mistrust, it was urgent to decide at 
 once. 4 
 
 However, the rascal Filippo Maria had no right to com- 
 plain; on his side, he was privately scheming the inter- 
 vention of the Dauphin of France, to whom he was ready to 
 
 1 " Et non credate che io usci queste parole in arte alcuna con voi. Et quando 
 trovate che io ve dica bosia, io son contento che non mi crediate mai piu cosa 
 alchuna. . . . Et perche cognoschati che se io ve dico il vero o non, io ve prego 
 che voi mandiate per mia compare Diotesalvi" (April 27, 1453, to Cosimo. 
 Copies, No. 1602, f. 64). " Io ve ho dicto come le cose sonno passate et passano 
 de qua, et dictove el vero" (December 7, 1446, to Nicodemo, ibid., No. 1597, 
 f. 164). 
 
 2 Nicodemo to Sforza, November 28, 1446. Orig., No. 1583, p. 135. 
 
 3 "Cosimo solo e in opinione de lassar andare el conte a la via del duca " 
 (Nicodemo to Sforza, November 30, 1446., ibid., f. 143). 
 
 4 Nicod. and Bocc. to Sforza, November 29, 1446, Orig., No. 1583, f. 130. 
 
1447] DEATH OF THE DUKE OF MILAN. 81 
 
 resign Genoa, 1 and soon this was no better than the secret 
 of the comedy. On the 9th February 1447 ^ ne Florentine 
 Signory even warned the Council of Ten at Venice that a 
 squire of Charles VII., passing through Florence on his way to 
 Rome, had confessed to " a few important citizens " — that is, 
 to Cosimo — that the Dauphin had entered into a league and 
 convention with the Duke, who had promised him the inheri- 
 tance of his duchy, had already given up to him Asti, Novi, 
 Gavi, and all the castles of Genoa, and had agreed to assist in 
 the conquest of this town — a conquest already in view, for 
 2000 horse had crossed the Alps, and were on their way to 
 Asti. In return, the Dauphin promised to defend his ally 
 against everybody but Florence and Sforza, and to bring him 
 5000 horse 2 in the spring. It is true these propositions were 
 not trustworthy ; they were even contradictory. How could the 
 Dauphin engage himself not to fight Sforza if he despoiled 
 him ? We miss the keenness of the Visconti ; he gave all and 
 obtained nothing. Was it hatred of his son-in-law or the 
 spirit of vengeance ? Perhaps the latter ; but the vengeance 
 of a sick and dying man. 
 
 On the 13th August 1447 fever and dysentery carried off 
 this hideous giant, as obese in age as he had been spare 
 in youth, filthy, sombre, taciturn, and false, distrusting him- 
 self as much as others, profitlessly clever and quarrelsome, a 
 traitor to everybody, and, in spite of this, not himself betrayed 
 by his condottieri. By his irreligion he belonged to his own 
 time, by his absurd superstition to the Middle Ages. He 
 was only praised by Filelfo, who sold his eulogy, 3 and the 
 sole feeling expressed by his subjects at his modest funeral 
 
 1 " Li Francesi cercano con ogni via de havere Zenoa et siamo quasi cerit che 
 stando le cose come le stano, la gli capitara in le mane " (The Duke to Sforza, 
 December 31, 1446, ibid., f. 159). 
 
 2 Letter of the Signory, published by Fabroni, Doc, p. 178, and reproduced 
 by Desjardins because of its importance, i. 59. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 395-397 ; Cram. Bol., xviii. 684; Sanuto, xxii. 1126; 
 Ammirato, xxii. 54. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
82 RESULTS OF DEATH OF ALPHONSUS. [i447 
 
 was joy. 1 A few courtiers had forced him in the throes of 
 agony to sign a codicil leaving his states to the King of 
 Aragon, without any mention of Bianca or Sforza or the 
 Dauphin, and charging three trustees to give up the fortresses 
 to him. 2 
 
 This codicil in extremis was believed fictitious by those who 
 did not see it. Others regarded it as valueless, and quoted 
 the saying attributed to Filippo Maria when implored to name 
 his successor, that he was quite satisfied that his death should 
 cause confusion. 3 He had done his best to bring about these 
 fine results, but circumstances were against him ; they simpli- 
 fied the situation he wished to complicate. The death of 
 Eugene IV. had deprived Alphonsus of a friend, rid Sforza 
 and Cosimo, whose alliance he upset, of an enemy. For a 
 moment the two allies dreaded that the new Pope might be 
 worse, but they were soon enough reassured. 4 
 
 In fact, the choice of the conclave had fallen (March 6) on 
 Tommaso Parentucelli, a citizen of Sarzana, but a Florentine 
 at heart. 5 The son of a poor doctor of Pisa, he had to earn 
 his bread in Florence before finishing his studies at Bologna 
 by giving lessons to the sons of Kinaldo des Albizzi and of 
 Palla Strozzi. 6 Later, he returned to this town in the train 
 
 1 Niccola Guarno a Sforza, August 14, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 239. Many 
 messages to this ambassador show us the progress of disease, and the events that 
 marked it. Ibid., f. 228-237. 
 
 2 Guarna to Sforza, 13th and 14th August 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 237, 239. 
 The more recent writers, amongst others, M. Cipolla (p. 427) only speak hypo- 
 thetically of the Duke's decision to name Alphonsus as his successor. Guarna's 
 letter fully confirms the testimony of Candido Decembrio(R. I. S., xx. 1020), and 
 of Fazio (p. 142). M. Cipolla gives other texts besides, which seem trustworthy. 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 397. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxii. 53. " Ha pur voluto (Eugene IV.) fare coma diceva la S. V., 
 cioe morire per farve male, non solamente vivendo, ma etiamdio morendo " (Mar- 
 lino des Barbavari to Sforza, February 27, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 48). 
 
 5 See Oratio ALnea Sylvii de Creatione Nicolai V., R. I. S., iii. part 2, p. 894 ; 
 Sismondi (vi. 268) from this author reports the circumstances of the election, per- 
 fectly honourable for the elected. 
 
 6 Commentario della vita di papa Niccola, composto da Vcspasiano, R. I. S. , 
 xxv. 270 ; Sforza, La Patria, lafamiglia e la giovinezza di Niccolb V. in Rivista 
 Slorica Italiana, Ann. 1, fasc. 2, April-June 1884. 
 
I447I # POPE NICOLAS V. 83 
 
 of Cardinal Niccola Albergati, whom he served twenty years as 
 steward, secretary, and doctor, 1 and whose name he took in 
 gratitude with the tiara. During this second stay, Tommaso 
 de Sarzana, as he was called, always mixed with learned 
 men, 2 and recognisable in his blue robe and priest's cap, 
 discussed each morning the gravest questions in a corner of 
 the palace. Cosimo profited by his advice in establishing the 
 libraries which he gave to Florence. 3 He became pope when 
 he had been cardinal hardly a year, and made Cosimo cor- 
 respondent and banker, an office Cosimo's father, Giovanni 
 de Bicci, had discharged under Martin V., 4 but with less inti- 
 mate sympathy than his son. The friend of peace, he was repre- 
 sented at the conference of Ferrara by a member of the Sacred 
 College, where Neri Capponi and Bernardo Giugni represented 
 their country, 5 when everything was interrupted by the death of 
 the Duke of Milan, and the position again rendered debateable. 
 In spite of his testaments, or rather because of them, since 
 they were contradictory, his succession was undecided. If the 
 Salic law were ignored, the pretensions of Charles of Orleans, 
 son of Valentine Visconti, and consequently nephew of the 
 deceased, were plausible. 6 Sforza urged the rights of his 
 
 1 Commentario, 6°<r., p. 271, and Vita di Nic. V. ajanotto Manetto, R. I. S., 
 iii. part 2, p. 915. 
 
 2 See their names in Vespasiano, "efoV/. , and in Sismondi, vi. 265. 
 
 3 Vespasiano, ibid., p. 271, 274. 
 
 4 Scarcely elected, Nicholas said to Vespasiano : " Tu sai quanti benefizi m'ha 
 fatto Cosimo de' Medici ne' mia bisogni, e per6 ne lo voglio remunerare ; domat- 
 tina lo faro mio despositario " (Vespasiano, Vita di Nicola V., c. 19, in Spicil. 
 Ro?n., i. 42). "II papa ama cordialissimamente Cosimo. Sono cierto tucot 
 remetterebbe in lui, perche da ora dice non essere huomo al mondo di chui tanto 
 si fidasse quanto di lui " (Roberto des Martelli to Sforza, Rome, March 8, 1447, 
 in Osio, iii. 488, No. 393). See G. Amati on Giovanni de Bicci, Martin V.'s 
 banker, Notizie di alcuni manoscritti delP Archivio secreto Vaticano, in Arch. 
 Stor., 3rd ser., iii. part I, p. 199. 
 
 6 G. Capponi (ii. 42) quotes their instructions, dated July 28, 1447. 
 
 6 Philip of Burgundy's letter, dated from Brussels, September 28, 1447, and 
 addressed to Sforza, aims at ruining these pretensions. A phrase from it is quoted 
 by M. Fr. Bartolini from the Archives of Milan, Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, 
 p. 31, n. 1. M. Desjardins (i. 62) shows a letter from the same (January 7, 1448), 
 claiming the services of Florence with the people of Milan in favour of Duke 
 Charles of Orleans. It is deceitful enough, if this is no error. 
 
84 DISCORDS OF THE MILANESE. [*447 
 
 wife, recalling the fact that many bastards had succeeded 
 their fathers. 1 The Duke of Savoy, Filippo Maria's brother- 
 in-law, held himself to be an acceptable candidate, and one of 
 Sforza's servants wrote to him that Venice would have liked 
 to enrich herself by Milan, "the first state of Italy." 2 
 Finally, the Milanese claimed their right to a voice in 
 the matter; already they had taken their stand, shouted 
 "Liberty," elected four citizens to the government, occupied 
 gates and fortresses, enrolled captains, written to Venice and 
 Florence to inform them of their intention to live in freedom. 3 
 It was everywhere said that nearly three centuries before, at 
 the Peace of Constance, Milan had obtained the right of self- 
 government; that she had delegated it to the Visconti, but 
 that, now that the Visconti were extinct, she recovered it, 
 the government of women, above all, of bastards, being null. 
 Their learned lawyer, Bartolommeo Morone, was of this opinion : 
 the dynasty extinct, it was the hour for the Republic. 4 
 
 The misfortune was that the Milanese were not unanimous. 
 The nobles who occupied the castle deemed " the pie large 
 enough " for Alphonsus and Sforza each to have a good slice. 
 The greater number were for the King exclusively, while a few 
 regarded the condottiere as the defender of freedom, 5 or even 
 as vicar with a slice of the pie. 6 Division soon reached the 
 partisans of liberty : the Trivulzi were Guelphs, and for war ; 
 the Lampugnani and the Bossi were Ghibelines, and for peace ; 
 the former leaning to Sforza, the latter to Piccinini. 7 It was, 
 
 1 Sismondi, vi. 150. 
 
 2 " Questo e lo primo stato de Italia " (Antonio Guidoboni to Sforza, September 
 8, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 298). 
 
 8 Nic. Guarna to Sforza, August 14, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 239. 
 4 Leo, 1. vi. c. 3, vol. ii. p. 704. 
 
 6 Nic. Guarna to Sforza, loc. cit., and August 19, ff. 244, 247; Ant. Guido- 
 boni to Sforza, September 12, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 305 ; Sismondi, vi. 153. 
 
 6 "Chiamare la S. V. par loro defensore et alcuni dicono per vicario, con dire 
 che ve feranno tale parte de questa torta che meritamente vene potrete contentare " 
 
 Nic. Guarna, August 13, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 237). See number of letters and 
 notes on the towns and fortresses ready to be delivered to Sforza, ibid., f. 255-298. 
 
 7 Ricotti, ii. 126. 
 
1447] CLAIM OF SFORZA. 85 
 
 in fact, late in the day to speak of freedom after so many 
 years of slavery. An aristocratic republic, the only one pos- 
 sible to a town that had known no other, was hardly feasible 
 with an upper class leaning to court life ; in any case it 
 could only have been a municipality, as the loss of the 
 Milanese towns had greatly diminished the value of free 
 institutions. "All was disorder, rapine, and murder," 1 wrote 
 the secretary Simoneta. His master, Sforza, contributed a 
 large share. In coming down upon Pavia for his sureties, 2 he 
 doubled the adherents of the King of Naples, 3 who brought 
 Sigismond of Austria from the north, with all his available 
 troops, and advancing southward, feigned friendship and pre- 
 tended to desire an understanding with his rival, whom he 
 treated like a son. 4 
 
 But the Milanese treated him as an enemy. They threat- 
 ened him, if he refused to give up Pavia, to ally themselves 
 with Genoa, Florence, and Venice. 5 This alliance was, in fact, 
 their trump card. An aristocratic republic would find sup- 
 port in the Genoese, the Venetians, and even the Florentines, 
 who, under Cosimo, as under the Albizzi, were in no way a 
 democracy. Eeunited, these four states could extend their 
 common ideas to the north, relegate Alphonsus to the south, 
 and reduce Sforza to helplessness. 6 But Venice was wanting 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 399. 
 
 2 " II conseglio e molto desdignato cum voi perche avete tolto Pavia" (Ant. 
 Guidoboni to Sforza, September 12, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 305). 
 
 3 "E Desiderato e chiamato qui da una gran parte" {ibid.). Pavia acknow- 
 ledged Sforza as Count, October 17. See Cipolla, p. 429. 
 
 4 "E ligere cossa che siati Re de Lombardia, perche lo dito Re di Ragona 
 havera caro intendersi cum la S. V. et haverla per fiolo " (Guidoboni to Sforza, 
 loc. cit.). Even before being sure of the Duke's death, August 21, Alphonsus 
 wrote Sforza to continue his march upon Milan (Orig., No. 1584, f. 254). 
 
 5 Ant. Guidoboni to Sforza, September 12, 1447, ibid. t f. 305. 
 
 6 In all the documents upon Sforza's conquest of Milan published in the Archiv 
 fur Kunde osterreischischer Geschichts-Quellen^ September 1855, there is only one 
 letter addressed to him (by Fiesco, Rapallo, July 10, 1448), in the first year in 
 which he was called "princeps et excellentissimus Dominus Dux mediolanensis." 
 See in the Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 31, n. 2, M. Fr. Bertolini's work 
 entitled, // conquisto di Milano per Fr. Sforza dietro i documenti raccolti dal 
 Sickel. 
 
86 POLICIES OF CAPPONI AND COSIMO. Uw 
 
 in her usual foresight. She persisted in seeing in Milan, 
 even free, an enemy, an obstacle to her ambition, a pernicious 
 example for her people ; and desiring her enslavement, she 
 inspired her anew with the wish for a monarch clever enough 
 not to make his yoke felt at first. 1 
 
 At Florence two policies were in view : that of Neri 
 Capponi and that of Cosimo. Neri Capponi was of the old 
 school; he believed it possible to uphold the free institutions 
 of Milan, and he did not share the general distrust of ambi- 
 tious Venice. Two republican rivals in Lombardy, obliged 
 to claim the support of Florence, appeared to him, and not 
 unreasonably, a guarantee of his country's power. And if 
 Milan could not be maintained in freedom, he preferred to see 
 Venice share the spoils than furnish Sforza with means for its 
 conquest, convinced as he was that Milan at bay would yield 
 to the redoubtable queen of the Lagunes, who would then 
 possess, not a share, but all. His prophecy here was quite 
 wrong, as we shall shortly see. 
 
 Cosimo was much more clear-sighted. He hoped to see all 
 the states of Italy equal in power. 2 His personal rancour 
 towards Venice agreed with the feeling of the majority, who 
 dreaded the territorial invasions of this maritime power. His 
 old friendship for Sforza, if he succeeded in placing the ducal 
 crown upon his head, would present the strongest rampart to 
 Venice, behind which Florence could breathe at ease, and 
 Cosimo establish himself firmly. 3 Between Sforza and Venice, 
 it was Venice he feared, for already upon land she balanced 
 Florence, and greatly surpassed her on sea by her large and 
 wealthy traffic. On the contrary, Sforza, separated from his 
 possessions by a narrow thread of water, and the eternal enemy 
 
 1 Ricotti, iii. 118; Sismondi, vi. 156. 
 
 2 " Riducere le potenze d'ltalia a quella equalita che le ridusse" (Vespasiano, 
 Vita di Cosimo », c. 30, in Spicil. Rom., i. 354). 
 
 3 Michele Bruto, Cosimo's enemy, shows the object of his policy which was 
 to establish a strong power at Milan, able to keep up with Venice. See 1. i. p. 
 62, 65. 
 
1447] JEALOUSY OF VENICE. 87 
 
 of this eternal conqueror, would always be too well checked to 
 round upon his old ally, and sure to seek his support. It 
 was necessary, therefore, that Sforza should direct all his forces 
 against Venice, and make peace with the other states. These 
 were Cosimo's orders delivered by Nicodemo Tranchedini. 1 
 
 Objections were not wanting. Some of them were feeble. 
 Milan, it was said, was a traditional enemy. This was true 
 when the Visconti reigned, and when Venice neither had the 
 strength nor the appetite to gobble up her neighbours ; but 
 yesterday's truth is often to-morrow's error. There were some 
 strong arguments too. From the sentimental point of view, 
 should a living republic prevent a dead republic from rising 
 again to life ? And from the point of view of interest, why 
 so desperately fear a state irresistibly turned seaward ? Once 
 an understanding were possible, it would be wise to abstain 
 from a rivalry with Venice in ships and colonies. But if this 
 were the opinion of the greater number, Cosimo's influence, 
 each day more marked and more despotic, 2 soon brought them 
 round to his way of thinking. 3 
 
 For the moment there were but idle discussions. Cosimo 
 could only help Sforza with advice, for Florence had to defend 
 herself against Alphonsus. With this object she even sent 
 Antonio Pazzi to King Kene* to invite him to revive his pre- 
 tensions to the kingdom. 4 While Filippo Maria yet lived, 
 perhaps in agreement with him, 5 Alphonsus of Aragon was 
 
 1 " Nicodemo, io voria ch'el conte attendesse bene ad fare una sola cosa, et 
 questa e l'impresa che piglia in Lombardia, et lassassi stare omne altra particu- 
 larity, imperhoche Venetiani serano subito in ordine et hanno gente assayssimo, et 
 sono apti ad fare male al duca, non andando presto el conte, et pur la via e longha " 
 (Cosimo's words to Nicodemo, reported by the latter, dep. of April 22, 1447, in 
 Osio, iii. 537, No. 424). 
 
 2 " Cognosco la natura de Cosimo che vole che tutti li cappigratii siano soy, et 
 vole mostrar finalmente venire da se et non essere tirato " (Nicodemo to Sforza, 
 May 26, 1453, Orig., No. 1586, f. 209). 
 
 3 The proof lies in the joy the Florentines exhibited after Sforza's success. See 
 Ammirato, xxii. 63. 
 
 4 Letter of November 12, 1447, indicated by Desjardins, i. 61. 
 
 5 Machiavelli says this (vi. 89 b) and the codicil in extremis makes it very 
 probable. 
 
88 ALPHONSUS OF ARAGON. [i447 
 
 gaining solid possessions in the centre of the peninsula. He 
 wanted to assure communication with the north, and he 
 yielded to the necessity — always the weakness of the Nea- 
 politan state — of defending it nowhere else than beyond the 
 frontier. Deprived of his precious ally, Eugene IV., by the 
 vacancy of the pontifical throne, he had come to stay at 
 Tivoli, to profit by the movements he anticipated in Rome. 1 
 Deceived in his hope, while the negotiations for peace were 
 going on at Ferrara, he seized the little fortress of Cen- 
 nina (August 9), which opened to him the entrance to Tuscany 
 by the valley of the Upper Arno. Having lost it fifteen days 
 later, in the beginning of September he went with 1 5,000 men 
 towards Montepulciano. He solicited the alliance of Sienna, 
 which only gave him provisions, 2 and he continued to make 
 pacific protestations. To the questions of the disquieted 
 Florentines regarding his forward march, he replied that his 
 sole motive was their league with Venice. Was not Venice 
 continuing the war in spite of the five years' truce concluded 
 at Ferrara, and was the truce of Ferrara not valid because the 
 ratification of the late Duke of Milan was wanting ? 3 Put an 
 end to this league, and the Florentines would find a friend in 
 the King of Naples. But either through distrust of his sin- 
 cerity or the difficulty of breaking with Venice, 4 the reply was 
 slow in coming, and he occupied several of the castles of 
 Volterra, 6 and then took up his winter quarters in the Sien- 
 nese territories, near the ancient Populonia (January 1448). 
 
 1 Written instructions to Neri Capponi and Bernardo Giugni. Letters of the 7th 
 and 9th August 1447, indicated by G. Capponi, ii. 42. Cf. Machiavelli, vi. 89 B. 
 
 2 Machiavelli, vi. 89 B. On November 4, 1447, the commons of Florence 
 thanked that of Sienna for their resistance to the forces of Alphonsus. Doc. at 
 the end of the Vita del Re Alf. (TAragona, by Vespasiano ; Arch. Stor., 1st ser. 
 iv. part 1, p. 417. These official thanks did not prevent Boninsegni (p. 83) from 
 complaining strongly of the Siennese on the subject of this affair. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vi. 89 B. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxii. 55. 
 
 8 Letter of the Signory to Alessandro des Alessandri, captain of Pisa, November 
 II, 1447. Doc. at the end of the Vita del Re Alf. d'Arogona, by Vespasiano ; 
 Arch. Stor.y 1st ser. iv. part I, p. 418. Letter addressed to Florence by Sforza, 
 November 3, 1447, Grig;., No. 1584, f. 377. 
 
1448] PIOMBINO. 89 
 
 There, upon the seaside, he was only three miles from 
 Piombino, a little village of which the Appiani, in a desert 
 land, had made a stronghold, always envied by the Florentines. 1 
 To escape their too neighbourly clutch, Manuello d'Appiano, 
 who regarded himself as the legitimate heir of the lords 
 of his name, 2 pressed Alphonsus to seize Piombino, convinced 
 he would continue to reign as heretofore under a distant 
 master. This for the king would have been a valuable 
 halting-place on the road to Lombardy. 3 But the actual 
 heiress was Caterina, Manuello's niece, who was advised by 
 her husband, Rinaldo Orsini. These two at first begged 
 help from Sienna, which had taken charge of their town. The 
 result was only two or three hundred soldiers ; 4 so they looked 
 solely to Florence for support. If previously they had had 
 difficulties with her, the example of the Counts of Poppi was 
 useful to them. As a token of goodwill they refused pro- 
 visions to the Neapolitans, whence the siege of Piombino 
 (May 1448). 5 
 
 Keady to uphold these willing subjects, and seeing her own 
 territory invaded, Florence named the Ten of balie, and, hav- 
 ing raised an army, took into her pay the lesser nobles, 
 Federigo de Montefeltro, Count of Urbino, and Sigismondo 
 Malatesta, formerly enemies, now reconciled. Towards the end 
 of June she granted Rinaldo Orsini 1 500 florins a month, 400 
 
 1 See above, p. 73, note 4. 
 
 2 Since the death of his brother Gherardi, like him, son of Jacopo I. d'Appiano, 
 but who had left the principality to his widow, Donna Pavola or Paola Colonna, 
 from whom it passed in 1445, upon the advice of her Council, to her daughter 
 Caterina, married to Rinaldo Orsini. See Cesaretti, Istoria del Principato di 
 Piombino, i. 154, 166, c. 8 and 10, and ii. I sq. c. I, Flor., 1789. The genealo- 
 gical tree is at the end of the volume. 
 
 3 G. Capponi (ii. 42) believes that the possession of Piombino was at the bottom 
 of all the war. It was only a means, as Cennina had been. 
 
 4 Malavolti, part ii. 1. 2, f. 35 r°. 
 
 5 Boninsegni, p. 86; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1204 ; Poggio, xx. 422 ; Fazio, 1. ix. 
 p. 146 ; Machiavelli, vi. 90 a ; Istoria del? Assedio di Piombino, poem by 
 Antonio des Agostini, R. I. S., xxv. 321-324. Born at San Miniato, this poet 
 was at Rinaldo's court during the siege, a sort of troubador courtier, who would be 
 more useful if he had not drowned curious details in a deluge of invocations, 
 speeches, and comparisons after the ancient fashion. 
 
90 SIEGE OF PIOMBINO. [1448 
 
 foot-soldiers, ten galleys, and six smaller vessels. 1 Her chief 
 concern was the defence of her own cause, included in his. It 
 was a miserable affair, as usual in those times. If fighting 
 took place on sea, it was not through a wish to fight. Four 
 Florentine galleys, bringing men, powder, and lead to Piombino 
 (July 8), were taken or dispersed by the Neapolitan galleys, 
 already mistress of the island of Giglio (July 1 5). 2 The inhabi- 
 tants of Piombino looked on at this battle of chance from the 
 top of their walls, and both armies were gathered upon the hills 
 that encircle the town and overlook the sea like an amphitheatre. 
 But the spirit of war was not excited ; Alphonsus only thought 
 of hunting, and asked passports for his falconers. Neri Cap- 
 poni, chief of the Florentines, refused, because, as he said, it was 
 not a question of shooting partridges ; 3 then, after this proud 
 retort, he cleared the space, and went off upon the pretext of 
 winning back the castles lost the previous year. He did not 
 fear pursuit, and he was not pursued ; the Neapolitan troops 
 had no wine. This people of the south, to-day so sober, in 
 those days believed a tonic necessary in the hot season. In 
 order to fight they had to feel comfortable. One would have 
 said they were English. 
 
 Between men so little inclined for arms negotiations are 
 swiftly concluded, unless they are deliberately delayed. Ber- 
 nardetto de Medici brought from the royal camp Alphonsus' 
 conditions, the first of which was the concession of Piombino. 
 Many Florentines yielded. Neri rushed from the army to 
 point out the dangers of this resolution, and in fact of any 
 resolution. According to him, it was a lighted brand, sure to 
 burn the hand, however grasped. War would bring about 
 famine and confusion ; peace, giving the King a footing in 
 Tuscany by the possession of Piombino, would permit him to 
 attack Pisa, ever hostile, by land as well as by sea. Doubt- 
 
 1 Cesaretti, vol. ii. p. 8, c. 1 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1206. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1205 ; Boninsegni, p. 86 ; Fazio, 1. ix. p. 148 ; Ant. des 
 Agostini, part 3, c. 3, xxv. 339 ; Machiavelli, vi. 90 A ; Ammirato, xxii. 58. 
 
 3 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1205. 
 
1448] HOSTILITIES IN LOMBARD Y. 91 
 
 * 
 less the Florentines found the brand less fiery on one side 
 
 than the other, since twenty-eight out of thirty-seven decided 
 
 that peace should not be concluded if the lord of Piombino 
 
 had to pay for it. 
 
 The siege continued, 1 but in this torrid weather fever 
 carried off the besiegers, and the approach was announced of 
 Taddeo des Manfredi of Faenza, whom the Kepublic had 
 taken into its pay. A few squadrons were mistaken by the 
 Neapolitan for an entire army ; Taddeo retired to his kingdom, 
 threatening to reappear in the spring. The spring came, but 
 he did not show himself, and the year 1449 was without any 
 war in Tuscany. 2 
 
 In Lombardy, on the contrary, hostilities were carried 
 on. Alphonsus feared no malaria there, whither grave inte- 
 rests called him. The Venetians confessed to the Floren- 
 tines their wish to possess these rich plains, 3 and, if compelled 
 to renounce them, were ready to support the claims of the 
 Duke of Orleans. Sforza was lost, 4 if the Milanese, to uphold 
 their compromised cause, did not place him beyond com- 
 petition. Having no other army than his, forsaken by nearly 
 all their towns, they offered to maintain with fresh advan- 
 tages his treaty with the late Duke, under the supreme 
 authority of the communal council of Milan. It was hard 
 for Sforza to obey when he aspired to command, but to yield 
 to the service of these people seemed to him a means of 
 becoming their masters. 5 
 
 < r Nothing was more probable than that he should gain the 
 mastery, since the Milanese, making a virtue of necessity, for- 
 
 1 The details may be seen in Antonio des Agostini, part 4, c. 5, xxv. 362 ; 
 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1206 ; Poggio, xx. 423 ; Fazio, 1. ix. p. 151 ; Malavolti, part 
 3, 1. 2, p. 36 ; Ammirato, xxii. 60. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1207 ; Poggio, xx. 422 ; Fazio, 1. ix. p. 151 ; Agostini, 
 part 4, c. 6, xxv. 365 ; Boninsegni, p. 87 ; Machiavelli, vi. 90 b. 
 
 3 December 27, 1447. Letter indicated by Desjardins, i. 61. 
 
 4 Letter of January 6, 1448, indicated by Desjardins, i. 61, 62. 
 
 5 Simoneta, xxi. 401 ; Machiavelli, vi. 89 A ; Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, 
 p. 32. 
 
92 SFORZA AND THE MILANESE. [1448 
 
 gave him all his violences and usurpations — the occupation of 
 Pavia, that once so bitterly irritated them ; 1 of Tortona, aggra- 
 vated by the relapse ; 2 of Piacenza, delivered up by him to 
 such a horrible pillage that, wrote a soldier, a chronicler of 
 Brescia, it would require a ream of paper to note all the 
 cruelties. 8 One of his lieutenants, Colleoni of Bergamo, hav- 
 ing defeated Renaud du Dresnay, one of the Duke of Orleans' 
 lieutenants at Asti, 4 he had only to cope with Venice and the 
 King of Naples, an agreement between whom he was bound 
 at any cost to prevent. Cosimo helped him totis viribus ; 
 but he could do little because Alphonsus was furious that 
 they should wish to rob him of his slice of the cake, 5 and 
 because the Pope, ready to oppose Venice, desired to humour 
 the King, his dangerous enemy. 
 
 Thus all the efforts of Cosimo and Nicholas V., so closely 
 united, 6 were perforce directed against Venice, and the arrival 
 of two Florentine orators upon the lagunes to negotiate an 
 attempt against King Alphonsus in favour of Sforza and King 
 Ren£ 7 was pure comedy. The answer and its consequences 
 
 1 Ant. Guidoboni to Sforza, September 12, 1447, Orig., No. 1584, f. 305. It 
 is true that they had soon to smother their anger ; on the 18th of the same month 
 the Milanese submitted to Sforza : " Capitula que supplicant sibi concedi et con- 
 firmari ac inviolabiliter observari per illustrem D. Fr. Sfortiam, vice comitem " 
 (Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1584, f. 318-325). 
 
 2 September 1447. Simoneta, xxi. 407 ; Machiavelli, vi. 90 B ; Arch. Stor., 
 n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 32; Ricotti, iii. 119: Sismondi, vi. 161. 
 
 3 Cristoforo da Soldo, R. I. S., xxi. 845. Cf. Ann. Placent., xx. 896; the 
 writer, Ant. de Ripalta, was one of the victims of this plunder ; Simoneta, xxi. 
 408; Cron. Bo/., xviii. 688; Ricotti, iii. 120; Sismondi, vi. 170. These dark 
 stories are not exaggerated, since Piacenza never rose again. 
 
 4 October II, 1447. Simoneta, xxi. 429; Sanuto, xxii. 1127 ; Sabellico, 
 dec. iii. 1. 6, f. 670 ; Sismondi, vi. 165. 
 
 5 Nicodemo to Sforza, 22nd and 29th February 1448, Orig., No. 1585, f. 34. 
 
 6 " El papa se mostra male contento ch'el Re de Raghona gli manchi de questo 
 accordo, ma mostra non ne potere fare altro al presente, et cum Cosimo mostra 
 intendersi benissimo, maxime a la oppressione de Venetiani et redurli ad humelta " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, February 22, 1448, ibid., f. 49). The same Nicodemo says 
 of Cosimo, "Al tutto e scoperto contra li Venetiani" (February 29, 1448, ibid., 
 f. 34). 
 
 7 March 9, 1448. Letter indicated by Desjardins, i. 61. According to this 
 letter, the ambassadors were Neri Capponi and Dietisalvi Neroni. Nicodemo 
 
1448] SFORZA AND THE VENETIANS. 93 
 
 were known beforehand. Soon Sforza received from the 
 Milanese the order to attack Caravaggio for the seizure of 
 Lodi, and on September 15, 1448, he gained one of the 
 most important victories of the century. If it be true, as 
 Sanuto asserts, that only one Venetian perished in the fray, 
 none the less did the entire Venetian army fall into the hands 
 of the conqueror. 1 
 
 The danger was great for the poor Milanese, striving des- 
 perately to hold him in check. Before Sforza's triumph they 
 could hardly agree about him, afterwards they well nigh suc- 
 ceeded : they secretly implored Alphonsus to put a spoke in 
 his wheel, and pressed Brescia to resist him in downright 
 earnest. 2 Thus threatened, Sforza did not hesitate; having 
 thrashed the Venetians through the Milanese, he would now 
 thrash the Milanese through the Venetians. All depended upon 
 their acceptance of his services, and they did accept. Disgusted 
 with their captain, Attendolo, who was just beaten, they re- 
 placed him by his conqueror. They felt certain that their new 
 instrument, now in their pay, could only rule as a subordinate 
 in Milan, if even the Milanese did not revolt against his 
 treason, and give themselves to Venice. 3 In this time of 
 cynical turncoats, Sforza's game seemed utterly shameless, 
 since the officious Simoneta thought himself bound to justify 
 it ; he quoted extenuating circumstances, and the ingratitude of 
 the people, who in the beginning of the year had taken the 
 initiative in the negotiations with the Council of Ten. 4 The 
 agreement was drawn up at Eivoltella on October 18. The 
 
 (February 28, 1448, f. 34) says that Alessandro des Alessandri and Domenico 
 Martelli were elected on the eve for this embassy. 
 
 1 Sanuto, xxii. 11 29; Simoneta, xxi. 444, 476; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 847, 85 1 ; 
 Sabellico, Dec. iii. 1. 6, f. 674 ; Platina, xx. 846 ; Boninsegni, p. 87 ; Machiavelli, 
 vi. 91 A; Ricotti, iii. 130-136; Sismondi, vi. 171-183. 
 
 2 "Senza dubio infra uno mese ad tardius Milano e per fare grande novita ; 
 li Ghibelini tuti se accordano a volere V. S. par Signore, et li Guelfi . . . prima 
 vogliono darsi a Venetiani che havervi per signore " (Nicod. to Sforza, June 24, 
 1448, Orig., No. 1585, f. 38). 
 
 3 Giorn. NapoL, xvi. 1130; Machiavelli, vi. 91 B. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 442. Cf. 1st. Bresc. , xxi. 846. 
 
94 INDIFFERENCE OF FLORENCE. [1449 
 
 serene Republic engaged to aid Sforza in the conquest of 
 Milan and the Milanese, on condition of sharing with him, 
 the Adda serving as a frontier, 1 and from that day she recog- 
 nised him as the Duke of Milan. 2 
 
 We need not be surprised that a point was put upon the 
 unfortunate town's indignation, and that an edict at once 
 suppressed all communication with Sforza, his adherents, and 
 the towns subjected to him. 3 What does surprise us is, that 
 Florence should have been so indifferent to a bargain that 
 made a short ladder for her ally. Having at this period no 
 affairs of her own, she lived, so to speak, by those of others, 
 and her history is made up of her sentiments towards others. 
 Cosimo was certainly faithful to Sforza, from whom he could 
 only hope for reimbursement of his advances by the effective 
 possession of wealthy Milan. In his policy he even acquired 
 the support of Neri Capponi, who, for a long while too jealous 
 not to be hostile to his right hand, 4 had refused an embassy 
 to the condottiere, 5 and desired a union with Venice and the 
 division of Lombardy ; 6 but his argument was upset by the 
 treaty of Ri volt el la, which cut Lombardy in two, and relieved 
 Florence from fighting against Venice to support Sforza. But 
 although believing with their countrymen that the Republic 
 was not likely to thrive in Milan, 7 their support of the 
 usurper met with a firm resistance : it was felt that money 
 and subsidies would be required, hence new taxes were 
 levied at the rate of twenty-four at a stroke. Cosimo had 
 often tried to conceal his succour by passing it from hand 
 
 1 See the treaty in Du Mont, vol. iii. part I, p. 169, and in Arch. Sforz., Orig., 
 No. 1585, f. 45. Cf. Simoneta, xxi. 485 ; Navagero, xxiii. 1112 ; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 
 855 ; Sabellico, Dec. iii. 1. 6, f. 675 ; Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 33. 
 
 2 Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 31. 
 
 3 Arch. Civico de Milan, reg. C. fol. 52, in Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 33. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, vi. 94 A. 
 
 5 Cavalcanti, Sec. Storia, c. 55, ii. 253. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti, Append., ii. 517 ; Machiavelli, vi. 94 A. 
 
 7 Machiavelli, vi. 91 a. Cf. Giacomo de Camerino to Sforza, 1449; Arch, de 
 San Fidele, in Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 35, n. 17. G. Capponi (ii. 49, 
 n. 4) has reproduced the text. 
 
1449] SFORZA'S RELATION TO FLORENCE. 95 
 
 to hand ; unfortunately he was not always ready to do so ; 
 besides, every one knew that, as officer of the monte, as 
 principal citizen and banker of the Kepublic, he could shield 
 himself by drawing upon the public treasury, by keeping back 
 the door-tax, by extorting a law to recover arrears ; * he could 
 even get himself openly repaid, swearing by all the gods that he 
 would never return to it, though, as a matter of fact, he was 
 sure to do so. 2 
 
 Wheels were working within wheels. Cosimo could not 
 shake off Sforza, and Sforza was always begging. What did 
 it matter to that ambitious soldier that an epidemic, freely 
 given the name of pest, banished from Florence five-sevenths 
 of her inhabitants, and that the town-bells summoning them 
 to the council did not gather the necessary quorum for valid 
 deliberation ? 3 To refuse him gold was to seek his ruin. 4 He 
 complained of not receiving a shabby quatrino, and of having 
 nobody but Cosimo on his side. His orators exhorted him to 
 write one of those letters he could write so well. " To obtain 
 something besides words, the Florentines must be warmed 
 with something besides sunshine." 5 But how to warm people in 
 fear of a Neapolitan invasion, who saw Venice, in spite of her 
 engagements at Eivoltella, refraining from pleading Sforza's 
 cause with them, and who might think, in consequence, that 
 it would be folly to bleed themselves for an adventurer who 
 had alienated Milan from him, and whom Venice only sup- 
 
 1 " Aggiungevano come le casse delle porte s'andavano a votare a casa di 
 Cosimo" (Cavalcanti, Sec. Storia, c. 33, ii. 21 1). Cf. Machiavelli, vi. 93 b. 
 
 2 Cambi, Ann. 1449, Del., xx. 265 ; Cavalcanti, Sec. Storia, c. 69, 70, ii. 269. 
 
 3 Letter from Sforza's orator, June 30, 1449, in Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, 
 p. 35, and G. Capponi, ii. 49, n. 4. 
 
 4 Arch, de San Fedele, ducal correspondence, without date, in Arch. Stor., 
 ibid., p. 35, and G. Capponi, ii. 49, n. 4. 
 
 5 "Non se po obtenere de fare un quatrino. . . . Da Cosimo in fora non ce 
 havete homo al mondo qui che la piglia a denti ; or poto piu uno tristo ad guastare 
 una simile facenda che due boni ad aconzarla . . . con una vostra lettera como 
 sapete fare, mostrarvi animoso et non volere esser balocato e tenuto in tempo, ve 
 habia grandemente a giovare, et che per altra via recoglieremo parole et non 
 danari, se gia non havessero qualche calda d'altri che de sole " (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 June 18, 1449, Orig., No. 1585, f. 68). 
 
96 TREATY OF BRESCIA. [1449 
 
 ported with half a heart. 1 If he complained through letters and 
 ambassadors, if he persisted in holding out his hand, it was 
 through cupidity and not through poverty, since he had con- 
 quered in turn the Lombard towns, Piacenza, Abbiategrasso, 
 Eomagnoso, Tortona, Alexandria (1448), and, after a long 
 siege, Vigevano (June 4, 1449). 2 
 
 Milan, discouraged, did not wait for this last disaster to 
 treat with the Council of Ten. On the 8th January 1449 
 she sent them one of her merchants, Enrico Panigarola, then 
 settled at Venice. Venice felt some diffidence in so soon 
 breaking the treaty of Rivoltella, 3 but she well understood that 
 it was a gross error not to protect the difficult growth of the 
 Milanese Republic, which could not be other than anaemic. An 
 armistice and the preliminaries of peace were followed at 
 Brescia (September 24) by the signing of the treaty. 4 Sforza 
 was allowed twenty days to accede and submit to the scarcely 
 tempting conditions offered him ; 6 but two days hardly passed 
 when " Enrico Panigarola and the other ruffians who governed 
 Milan," 6 launched a proclamation ordering every one to arm in 
 readiness to march against him. 7 
 
 As for him, he dragged along with eyes turned towards 
 Florence, where he hoped the faithful Cosimo would triumph 
 over the general ill-will, 8 " if he had not the gout, and if he 
 
 1 Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 36. 
 
 2 See Sismondi, vi. 190, 203, and Cipolla, p. 435 sq. 
 
 8 Arch. Civico of Milan, Reg. C, f. 52, Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, 34. 
 
 4 Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 37, and n. 22. See text in Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 
 1585, f. 112-114. 
 
 6 Restitution against the indemnity of the Milanese towns Coma, Lodi, pre- 
 servation of Cremona, Parma, Pa via (Letter of Sforza to the Signory of Florence, 
 Arch, de S. Fedele, Corresp. Due, Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 41). 
 
 6 " Quello Henrighino Panigarola et alcuni altri ribaldi che regeno adesso Milano 
 hanno promesso alia signoria di tenere modo che Milano gli venera in le mane " 
 (Letter from Sforza, October 23, 1449, Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1585, f. 93, and 
 Buser, App., p. 367.) 
 
 7 "Omnes sint in puncto contra Sfortiam" (Proclamation of September 26, 
 Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 39, and n. 28). 
 
 8 "Molti seguano questa erronea oppinione, ma per la Dio gracia el ce il bon 
 patrono e defensore Cosmo, il quale arditamente et cum summa astutia ha sbrig- 
 liato et refrenato la brigata contraria, in modo che se in tuto non si rimove il loro 
 
x 45o] USELESS INTRIGUES. 
 
 97 
 
 could surmount his natural dilatoriness." * But at the foot of 
 the walls of Venice, summoned to yield to the treaty senza 
 replicatione alcuna, 2 he threw down the mask ; but Venice 
 would not accept his refusal ; Florence pleaded in vain in his 
 favour; 3 and on the 24th December, the day he wrote to his 
 Tuscan allies that the peace had been made in spite of him, 4 
 Venice and Milan concluded an offensive league against the 
 illegitimate usurpers of a part of the territories that the one 
 guaranteed the other on paper, instead of daring, as a more 
 efficacious guarantee, to cross the path of Sforza. 5 
 
 Vain agreement ! the hour had come for the unfortunate 
 Milan to make a choice : — submit to the captain in her pay, 
 and impose a moderate government upon him as the Ghibeline 
 nobles wished, or choose the devil — still worse, the Grand Turk, 
 and put to death him, the Venetian ambassador, and those who 
 proposed to yield. In their passion the Guelphs demanded 
 this. 6 But necessity makes our laws ; want of provisions and 
 a horrible famine induced the most energetic to compound. 7 
 As what was in the mind could not be known, we may recog- 
 nise the courage of a citizen, one of Sforza's ancient soldiers, 
 Gaspare de Vimercate, in asserting in the General Assembly 
 (February 26, 1450) that the kings of France and Naples 
 being too distant, and the Duke of Savoy too weak to protect 
 
 pensero, saltern non la possono mandar ad effecto " (Francesco des Butichelli to 
 Sforza, Florence, December 7, 1449, Orig., No. 1585, f. 102). 
 
 1 " Non bisogniava za fusse stato absente al Trebio cum le gotte " {ibid.). "A 
 un poco de tardita laquale molte fiate e in Cosimo de soa natura" (Nicod. to 
 Sforza, June 3, 1451, Orig., No. 1585, f. 195). 
 
 a Sforza's letter to the Florentines, Arch. Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 42, 
 n. 36. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 43. 
 
 4 "La pace estata facta senza alcuna saputa de mi" (ibid., p. 40, n. 29). 
 
 8 Arch. Stor., ibid., p. 43, 44. The Pope also refused him help (Giov. des 
 Baldirombi, of the Minor Brothers, to Sforza, Venice, 1449, Corres. Due, Arch. 
 Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 37, n. 21). 
 
 6 Simoneta, xxi. 597 ; Machiavelli, vi. 94 b; Arch, Stor., n. ser., xv. part 2, 
 p. 45. A letter of the 22nd August 1450 speaks also of the offers made to Venice 
 to kill Sforza during the year (Arch. Ven. Cons. X., mista 13, in Buser, App., 
 
 P- 367). 
 
 7 Simoneta, xxi. 594. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 SFORZA MASTER OF MILAN. [1450 
 
 Milan from Venice, salvation lay in throwing themselves upon 
 the powerful and merciful Count Francesco. The orator would 
 perhaps have been rent the day before, but this day the name 
 of the man none dared to pronounce was received enthusias- 
 tically as that of their sole saviour. 1 
 
 The first step taken, the rest cost little. Milan only re- 
 ceived Sforza under reserve and unprejudiced by his rights ; 2 
 but hardly had he made his entrance (March 2 5), 3 than the 
 arrogant conditions were simply humble prayers. Thus a 
 peasant succeeded to the Visconti at the precise moment 
 when his mercenaries, instruments of his fortune, fell into 
 decadence, thanks to the permanent armies of Alphonsus 
 established in Italy, as Charles VII.'s were in France, thanks to 
 the progress of firearms and infantry. The new Duke should 
 have followed his example, and created armies by means of big 
 taxes, and forbidden his soldiers to leave his states to serve 
 others. In default of an intelligent and opportune imitation, 
 his dynasty melted away like sand, not reaching the sixth suc- 
 cessor, and all of his heirs shared a tragic fate. 4 
 
 But at first this new power seemed stable enough, as they 
 all do at the dawn, and, after all, a duration of six generations 
 is a relative solidity in the course of ordinary affairs. 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 600 ; Boninsegni, p. 89 ; 1st. Bresc. , xxi. 863 ; Machiavelli, 
 vi. 94 B ; Ammirato, xxii. 63. 
 
 2 " Cum reservatione et sine prejudicio cujus libet juris." 
 
 3 The writers say the 26th or 28th February ; M. Bertolini, who has seen the 
 documents, gives the date 25th March, and even adds that on the nth March the 
 arrangements for the solemn entrance had been made. Cf. Simoneta, xxi. 602 ; 
 Ann. Placenta xx. 901 ; Sanuto, xxii. n 37 ; Navagero, xxiii. n 14. The Capi- 
 tula inter Civitatem Mediolani et Fr. Sfortiam y are of the 26th February. See 
 Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1585, f. 136-147. 
 
 4 See Ricotti, iii. 150-158; Sismondi, vi. 215. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COSIMO'S RULE WARS AND NEGOTIATIONS WITH VENICE AND 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 I450-I454. 
 
 To keep the ..Venetians aloof, Cosimo treats with Naples— Alphonsus prefers Venice — 
 Venetian and Neapolitan embassy at Florence (March 6, 1451) — Proscription of 
 the Florentine merchants (May) — Florentine alliance' with Sforza — Embassy in 
 France (September 10) — Letters patent of Charles VII. and treaty (February 21, 
 1452) — The Emperor Frederick III. passes through Florence (January 30, May 5) 
 — War declared against the Florentines by Alphonsus (June 11)— Useless cam- 
 paign of his son— Fresh negotiations in France (September 28)— Campaign of 
 Alessandro Sforza (August 1453)— Acquisition of the Count of Bagno (August 12) 
 — Treaty with France (April 11) — King Rene" in Lombardy (September) — Hatred 
 of the French in Italy — Rent's return to France— Consequence of the taking of 
 Constantinople upon Italian quarrels — Peace of Lodi (April 9, 1454) imposed by 
 Venice and Sforza— The Powers refuse to join the crusade against the Turks. 
 
 Florence might rest content with the complete and definite 
 success of her ancient ally. In the face of this achievement 
 all dissensions vanished. Even the least enthusiastic could 
 not regret their inveterate enemy, the late Duke. A few of 
 the chief citizens were sent to congratulate his successor — 
 Piero de Cosimo, Neri Capponi, Luca Pitti, Dietisalvi de 
 Nerone. 1 Following circumstances, the crowned peasant was 
 to be the buckler or the sword of Florence against Venice. 
 
 Not that there was any rupture between the two Republics, 
 but Giannozzo Manetti, the Florentine spokesman upon the 
 Lagoons, appearing too favourable to the Council of Ten, Piero 
 and Neri were sent thither as a counterbalance. Neri, how- 
 ever, fell in with his ideas, which had been formerly his own, 
 and which were shared by many others in the councils of his 
 country, even in the palace. Individual policy was disturbed 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 608 ; Boninsegni, p. 89 ; Ammirato, xxii. 63. 
 99 
 
ioo COSIMO IN QUEST OF ALLIANCES. [1450 
 
 by it. Having no official orders to give the ambassadors,. 
 Cosimo advised his son Piero to return without delay, con- 
 fessedly to decide the others to do likewise. 1 This was a safo 
 calculation, and the collective departure presaged rupture. 
 
 From that time, before its accomplishment, the two Repub- 
 lics had the alliance of the powerful Alphonsus to dispute, 
 hating in him the foreigner and fearing the conqueror. 2 To 
 avoid this ugly yoke, Cosimo made frequent appeals to King 
 Rene\ Seeing that he kept aloof, it was necessary to renew 
 the advances made to the Aragonese, and as yet unaccepted. 
 To this the pride of the Ten of War refused to lend itself. 3 
 They even recalled the orators sent to this prince ; but one of 
 them, Giovannozzo Pitti, having exposed the actions of the 
 embassy, his colleague, Bernardo Giugni, openly wept and 
 groaned over the recall that prevented them from signing the 
 peace, and accentuating his words with his meridional exag- 
 geration, so touched and persuaded the others, that the Ten 
 were obliged to deny that the negotiations were compromised, 4 
 and to send other ambassadors. 5 The treaty was signed on 
 June 21, 1450. 6 This was only a truce, for which Florence 
 
 1 " Piero, all'avuta di questa, te ne verrai, perch e venendone tu, non vi rimarra, 
 ignuno degli altri " (Letter quoted by Vespasiano, Vila di Giannozzo Manetti, p. 
 35, Turin, 1862, quoted by G. Capponi, ii. 54, n. 1. This different reading is not 
 found in Spicil. Rom., see vol. i. p. 594-598, c. 17, 20). 
 
 " a Witness a curious passage, in which appears the Italian chauvinisme of the day,. 
 in Arch, of San Fedele, Corres. Ducale, Arch. Slor., n. ser., xv. part 2, p. 36, 
 n. 19. 
 
 8 On November 21, 1447, one of the Pazzi, a great friend of Rene', was sent 
 to him as an ambassador (Lecoy de la Marche, i. 219). On April 16, 1448 he 
 received this hyperbolical message : " Omnis nostra spes in vestris potentissimis 
 armis et auxiliis posita est" (Letter of the Signory, Reg. xxxvi. f. 99, in Lecoy, i. 270). 
 
 4 Vespasiano, Vita di Bernardo Giugni) in Arch. Slor., 1st ser., iv. part 1, p. 
 326-328. 
 
 5 Ammirato, xxii. 64. The two ambassadors were Giannozzo Pandolfini and 
 Franco Sacchetti, the eloquent nephew of the novelliere, whom Sismondi confuses 
 with his uncle, who died in 1402 (vi. 236). 
 
 6 See the text in Du Mont, vol. iii. part 1, p. 175. He was sent to the Signory 
 by the ambassadors on the 24th. Doc. at the end of the Vita del Re Alf. cPArag. 
 by Vespasiano, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., iv. part 1, p. 419. The letters came with the 
 ulivo, June 29 ; see Boninsegni, p. 99. . Hence the errors of several authors, who 
 give the date of the signing of the treaty as the 29th. 
 
i45o] ALLIANCES OF VENICE. 101 
 
 paid dearly. Alphonsus retained Castiglione della Pescaia, 
 otherwise the means of landing in Tuscany by sea ; the lord 
 of Piombino, recommended to the Republic, became the King's 
 vassal, sworn to present him every year, as an act of homage, 
 with a golden cup worth 500 florins. 1 
 
 A good deal of unnecessary humiliation. Ten days later 
 Venice obtained another treaty from Alphonsus, which an- 
 nulled the Florentine one, and was more lasting. 2 But at 
 the time this could not be known, and, thanks to his two 
 treaties, the wily King was free to choose between the two 
 rivals at an opportune moment. This Venice so well under- 
 stood, although she had the advantage of the more recent 
 signature, that she sought other allies far and wide — the 
 Duke of Savoy, the Marquis of Montferrat, the commons of 
 Sienna, who, in treating, had reserved the right of preventing 
 the passage across their territory of any troops with inimical 
 designs upon Florence, 3 and finally Bologna, that VeaffiS^oSuld 
 only gain by overthrowing Santi Bentivoglio.ca *$is-tard born 
 in exile in Florence, where one of his^HtjSes^nad established, 
 him in the woollen trade with a cswSjml^i ^Qf^'florinsKxrrcbm- 
 mending him to Neri Capponi, ana whoA* a sudden turn of 
 fortune had placed at the head of the^sj^fc^nese. 4 Venice 
 went still farther ; she sought to anticipate a foreseen struggle 
 by suppressing Sforza through assassination, an ordinary expe- 
 dient in her abominable tactics, only recently brought to light. 5 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxii. 64. Written legations of Neri Capponi (Arch, di Stato at 
 Florence). A curious detail relating to this peace : tips were given to the ministers 
 and royal servants, and the Italian word was then French : " Sa la V. S. quello 
 si costuma in tali acti et di pagare il rogo per la vostra parta, et per beveraggi a 
 vari ministri" (Letter of Pandolfini and Saccheti announcing the treaty to the 
 Signory, Doc. at the end of the Vita del Re Alf. d'Arag., by Vespasiano, Arch. 
 Stor., 1st ser., iv. part I, p. 420). 
 
 2 July 2, 1450. Text in Du Mont, iii. part I, p. 178. Boninsegni (p. 91) 
 places this treaty in the month of November. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vi. 96 A. 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1207; Boninsegni, p. 80; Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor., c. 48, 
 ii. 242; Ammirato, xxii. 67. G. Capponi (ii. 51) gives long details upon this 
 subject, copied from his ancestor, Neri. 
 
 5 In the Revue Historique (vol. xx. p. 108 sq., Sept. 1882) M. Vladimir 
 
102 ATTITUDE OF FLORENCE. [14*1 
 
 Threatened by these intrigues, by this complication of alli- 
 ances outside, around, and against her, should Florence take 
 the initiative of an outbreak ? Hardly ; for if the Venetians 
 did not receive her ambassadors, under pretext that they were 
 obliged to consult their southern ally, 1 they themselves sent 
 to Florence Matteo Vettori, while Alphonsus sent his secretary, 
 the celebrated Antonio of Palermo. On the 6th March 1 4 5 I , 
 they communicated officially to the Signory the alliance of their 
 masters, already known, they said, for eight months, concluded 
 for the observance of peace, and open to all parties. But 
 to these words, in a courteous speech, they added bitter 
 reproaches for having the previous year sent for Alessandro 
 Sforza, brother of the Duke, furnished the Duke himself with 
 money, and procured an understanding between him and the 
 Marquis of Mantua. 2 According to custom, the chancellor re- 
 plied to the compliments as a man of letters, and time was taken 
 to answer the reproaches. This duty Cosimo took upon himself 
 on March 17. Although a poor speaker, if we may believe 
 contemporaries, he spoke " marvellously, and so truthfully, in 
 language so decorated, that the ambassadors, far from contra- 
 dicting him, appeared soothed, contented, and enlightened." 3 
 Probably he recited the fine phrases some secretary had manu- 
 factured and written out by his order in the silence of the 
 cabinet. 
 
 On both sides they plentifully besprinkled each other with 
 court holy-water, without either being deceived as to the 
 
 Lamansky has published the analyses of the documents extracted from divers 
 Venetian depositories, which show the Republic accepting, and even provoking, 
 projects of assassination, promising both pecuniary reward and positions to the 
 assassins. From September 5, 1448, to November 25, 1453, there were no less 
 than eight negotiations of this nature against Sforza. See p. 109-111. And 
 doubtless M. Lamansky was not exact ; he does not mention a letter of April 22, 
 1450, making an offer to Venice to kill Sforza (Arch. Ven. Cons. x. mista 13, 
 in Buser, App., p. 367). 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vi. 95 B. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 92. 
 
 8 Ibid. Ammirato (xxii. 65) reports lengthily Cosimo's speech, and Sismondi 
 curtails it from him (vi. 237). 
 
1450 PRESSURE OF VENICE UPON FLORENCE. I03 
 
 other's intentions, which were not even secret. Already, 
 towards the end of 1450, Venice had heavily taxed the foreign 
 merchants who traded in her dominions, taxed also their 
 imported stuffs. 1 At the end of May 145 1 she seized all 
 Florentine merchandise, ordering all the Florentines to eva- 
 cuate the territory before the 20th June. At the same time 
 Alphonsus issued a similar decree. Venetian galleys were to 
 be furnished him for its execution, and for the conquest of 
 Genoa. 2 
 
 Pressing offers were made to unite in a league against 
 Florence several princes and states, notably the Emperor 
 Constantino Paleologos, and even the little Eepublic of Kagusa, 
 in vain, it is true. 3 Those who repulsed these overtures had 
 no reason to hide the fact from the light, and thus Florence 
 knew that Venice and Naples were working for her ruin, 4 
 though nothing appeared to have changed since the peace 
 of the previous year, neither rupture nor declaration of war, 
 and the latest diplomatic relations might even be described as 
 friendly. 
 
 The rigour with which inoffensive merchants were treated 
 came upon the people like a bolt from the blue. The shock 
 was all the greater because this violence was accompanied by 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxii. 65. 
 
 2 " Hogi sono stato cum N. Signore quale me dice havere lettere da Vinesia da 
 particulare cittadini, como Venetiani al tuto intendono cacciare Fiorentini de omne 
 loro paese, et attendere, chel Re facia quel medesimo et dargli aiuto de galee per 
 farlo fare contra Fiorentini. Ceterum che soa Santita ha aviso de uno de li prin- 
 cipali cortesani del Re como el Re intende fare in cio la volunta de Venetiani. . . 
 Crede che una de le principale casone per le quale el Re attende a fare contra li 
 Fiorentini et adherirse a le voglie de Venetiani e per havere quelle 15 galee et cum 
 le soe vedere de insignorirse de Zenoa" (Nicod. to Sforza, Rome, June 3, 1451, 
 Orig., No. 1585, f. 195 ; Buser, App., p. 370). 
 
 * Boninsegni, p. 94 ; Machiavelli, vi. 95 b. The Bolognese, stimulated by the 
 Ten of War (Letter of December 19, 1451, Arch. Sforz., Copies, No. 1599, f. 
 369), answer the orators of Venice and Naples that they intend to keep neutral ; 
 that they will offer neither food, passage, nor asylum to any one upon their side 
 (without date, ibid., p. 379). 
 
 4 "Per alcuni altri tractati astricti infra lo Imperatore e lo Re d'Aragona in 
 quibus inter cetera dicitur contineri expressa destructio Florentinorum per Regem 
 ragonum et papam consentendosi fieri potent" (Doc. in Buser, App., p. 370). 
 
104 ALLIANCE OF FLORENCE WITH MILAN. [MSI 
 
 perfidy, and even ingratitude. Sacchini, the historian of 
 Mantua, better known under the name of Platina, 1 who was 
 impartial upon the question, declares that the decree of Venice 
 appeared inhuman to everybody, above all after the friendly 
 services of Florence, to whom she notably owed the preserva- 
 tion of Brescia and Bergamo. 2 
 
 For all reply, Florence indignantly named the Ten of War, 
 and their names proved sufficiently the gravity of the struggle : 
 Cosimo at the head, then Neri Capponi, Agnolo Acciajuoli, 
 Luca des Albizzi, Domenico Boninsegni (the second historian 
 of this name), and amongst the five others, according to cus- 
 tom, two artisans, an innkeeper, and an armourer. 8 A close 
 alliance with the new Duke of Milan was also concluded, the 
 contracting parties guaranteeing mutual protection of their 
 states. The Ten lured the famous condottiere, Simoneta, " of 
 the camp of St. Peter," from the King's side, and attached him 
 to the service of the Kepublic. 4 Foreseeing that the Neapoli- 
 tans would attack Tuscany and the Venetians Milan, they sent 
 to Charles VII. of France one of their party, Agnolo Accia- 
 juoli, who had broken with the embassy since 141 5, was the 
 confident and ally of Cosimo, 5 had shared his exile, and had 
 returned with him. 6 
 
 After the customary servile protestations and compliments 
 to France upon her brilliant victories over the English, the 
 orator was ordered to expose the situation in Italy and excuse 
 the Republic for not having helped King Rene' in his Neapoli- 
 tan expedition ; but in gliding lightly over this delicate point, 7 
 
 1 Sacchini was born at Platina, a village of Cremona. 
 
 2 Platina, xx. 849. 
 
 3 Other Balie of the Ten, in 1452 and 1453, contained also two artisans. See 
 Ammirato, xxii. 74 and 78. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 94 ; Ammirato, Xxii. 68. 
 
 6 His sister Laudomia had married Pier Francesco de' Medicis. 
 
 6 See biographical notice in Desjardins, i. 55, subject to the frequent errors of 
 this writer. 
 
 7 "E di questa parte uscirete aptamente, perche non e tale che vi si voglia 
 dimorare" (Instructions to Ang. Acciajuoli, September 10, 1451, in Desjardins, 
 i. 65). 
 
i45i] OVERTURES TO THE KING OF FRANCE. 105 
 
 lie was to show the contradictory complication of negotiations 
 in Italy against Florence, and even against France, and to 
 solicit the alliance of Charles VII., leaving him the choice of 
 means of action. And if the Most Christian King should ask 
 in what way the Kepublic meant to co-operate in the enter- 
 prise, with men or money, the orator was to reply that upon 
 his departure this question had not been anticipated, and in 
 consequence not considered, 1 but that the King could count 
 upon the Florentine people body and soul. Still, as Florence 
 desired no acquisition, and would only incur expense, she 
 could solely pledge herself, upon sharp necessity, for 3000 
 horse at the most, and this by private and particular treaty. 2 
 And lastly, Charles VII. was to be urged to expel the Venetian 
 merchants from his kingdom, and to attack the King of Aragon 
 in Navarre. 3 
 
 These overtures, lengthily discussed, were soon known of, 
 and their effect upon all interested was striking. No one 
 doubted that the King of France would start the campaign, 
 if only to rid himself of a band of soldiers he no longer 
 needed. He was considered already the master of Lombardy 
 and Genoa, of all Italy, where allies would not fail him, and 
 which he imagined inexhaustibly rich. Here was an oppor- 
 tunity to seize the imperial crown, transfer again the Holy 
 See to Avignon, and avenge himself at his pleasure upon the 
 Dukes of Burgundy and Savoy, and all the other friends of 
 England. 4 In fact, before the end of the year he had agreed 
 with Acciajuoli upon the basis of the treaty ; but always in 
 dread of a fresh British invasion, and detained by the Duke 
 of Orleans, who regarded Sforza as an usurper and a personal 
 enemy, he resisted the eagerness of his army. 5 It was only on 
 
 1 "Qui non s'imagino la S. M. avere tale pensiero" (Desjardins, i. 68, and 
 Supplement to the Instructions, p. 70, 71). 
 
 2 Ibid., Supplement, p. 71. 
 8 /did., p. 69. 
 
 4 September 12, 145 1. Memoriale iiber die Verhaltnisse Frankreichs zu 
 Italien, geschrieben in Mailand. Italian text in Buser, App., p. 372, 
 
 6 Acciajuoli's letter to Sforza, Tours, December 21, 145 1, Arch. Sforz., Orig., 
 
106 ALLIANCE WITH THE KING OF FRANCE. [1452 
 
 February 21, 1452, that he undertook, by letters patent, 
 from that day till the Feast of St. John in the following year, 
 to defend the Florentines and the Duke of Milan against 
 everybody except the Pope and the Emperor, to send them 
 an army, the fixing of whose number he reserved, under the 
 command of a prince of the blood or another captain ; but he 
 hoped that meanwhile the difficulties would be smoothed, not 
 excluding those that interested his own family, a very trans- 
 parent allusion to the pretensions of the Duke of Orleans to 
 Genoa and Milan. 1 
 
 An incident that once would have precipitated war post- 
 poned it. Even before the conclusion of the treaty between 
 France, Sforza, and Florence, the Emperor Frederick III. left 
 for Italy. This son of the Duke of Austria and Styrie Ernest 
 had been reigning for twelve years by usurpation. He had 
 had himself shabbily substituted for his nephew and pupil, 
 Ladislas the posthumous, a lad of fourteen, the son of Albert 
 II., King of Hungary and Bohemia, 2 and half in prudence, 
 half in distrust, brought him about everywhere he went. Hated 
 in Germany for his treachery, 3 this despised prince came to 
 Rome, like many another, in search of the imperial crown ; 
 
 No. 1585, f. 234. Though sent from Florence, Acciajuoli corresponded with 
 Sforza, as well as with his chiefs. Nothing better shows the close intimacy 
 between Florence and Milan at this time. 
 
 1 Letters patent in Desjardins, i. 72 ; Acciajuoli's letter, February 27, 1452 ; 
 Lettere alia Signoria, vol. viii. No. 221 ; Lecoy de la Marche, i. 271. The letter 
 quoted from the same, dated December 21, 145 1, indicates the principal basis of 
 the treaty, notably the administration of the conquests. All the conquests in 
 Tuscany were to belong to Florence, even though she had no right to them, pay- 
 ing a pecuniary indemnity to France. The conquests in Lombardy were for 
 Sforza ; upon the Church Estates, for the Pope, with the duty of lending aid to 
 the King or any of his blood in the Italian invasions {Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 
 1585, f. 234). 
 
 8 Elizabeth, daughter of Sigismond and mother of Ladislas, confided him to the 
 care of Frederick, and the Hungarians never saw him again. (See Sismondi, vi. 
 240, and Ammirato, xxii. 71). 
 
 3 " El Imperatore non ha quello favore da Alemania qual se credeva in questa 
 sua venuta. . . . Tuti li baroni di Hungaria, Boemia, Moravia et de la principale 
 parte de Austria sono mal disposti contra di lui," &c. (Leodrysius de Ghellis to. 
 Sforza, January 15, 1452, Orig., No. 1586, f. 18). 
 
1452] FREDERICK III. IN ITALY. 107 
 
 but he came as a traveller, not as a sovereign, for 1 500 horse 
 was hardly an escort for a Caesar, a King of the Romans. 1 
 
 Fearing Sforza, and hurt that he should have taken the 
 title of Duke of Milan without his permission, he refused to 
 recognise him, 2 and in consequence abstained from taking the 
 iron crown at Monza, a customary preliminary of the ceremony 
 awaiting him at Rome. 3 This was his start in Italy. He 
 passed through Venice and Ferrara preceded by a solemn em- 
 bassy to proclaim his peaceful intentions and demand pass- 
 ports at Florence, as well as to look after his well-being and 
 that of his escort throughout these dominions. 4 On the 29th 
 January, when he crossed the frontier, a number of the 
 "Florentine nobility," as Ammirato calls them, hastened to 
 meet him at Scarperia in "marvellous" pomp and order. 
 Cosimo and Bernardetto offered him the hospitality of their 
 country-houses, and next day the Archbishop, St. Antonine, 5 
 went to meet him beyond the town with his canons and 
 twenty-two knights. There, in the convent of San Gallo, 
 under a richly decorated loggia, Frederick received the homage 
 of the Ten, who prostrated themselves at his feet, and he 
 assisted at the procession of the clergy with their crosses. 
 Processions were in those days like our reviews. Carlo Mar- 
 suppini d'Arezzo, secretary of the Republic, harangued him 
 in the name of the priors and all the town, whose resources 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vi. 96 A. 
 
 2 " Havesse V. S. facto male ad haverse intitullato del ducato senza concessione 
 imperiale" (Nic. des Arcimboldi to Sforza, Florence, May 7, 1452. Orig., No. 
 1586, f. 113). 
 
 3 " Essendo mostro a lo Imp. la via di tornare in Lombardia . . . lo Imp. 
 rispose et si steti : Comes Franciscus capet (sic) nos, et tornando quelli tali ad 
 replicare : come puo credere la M. V. el conte Francesco vi facessi injuria, 
 rispuose anchora : et si capet nos ; et tertio itterando queli che questo seria troppo 
 grande infamia, tertio disse : et si capet nos, pare essemus capti " (Nicodemo 
 and four others to Sforza, March 16, 1452, Orig., No. 1586, f. 55, and in Buser, 
 App., p. 374). 
 
 4 Neri Capponi, xviii. 121 X. 
 
 6 Antonio de Ser Niccolo Pierozzo, Florentine. He was Archbishop of Florence 
 since 1446, a preaching friar, and a man of wide and great renown for his teaching 
 and his example (Boninsegni, p. 81). 
 
io8 RECEPTION OF FREDERICK AT FLORENCE. [1452 
 
 lie placed at his disposal. His chancellor, Silvio Piccolomini 
 of Sienna, the iEneas Sylvius of the Renaissance and the 
 future Pius II. of the Church, replied in his name. When 
 the Kaiser mounted his horse to ride to Santa Maria Novella, 
 where he was to occupy the rooms of the Popes, the Ten held 
 his bridle as far as the gate of San Gallo, where the priors 
 received him and placed him under a dais, his bridle being 
 held on the right hand by the Gonfalonier of Justice, and on 
 the left by the proposto. From the windows the women, and 
 in the streets the men, greeted their host with loud vivas. 
 During the four days it pleased him to remain and rest, his 
 expenses were defrayed to the sum of 13,000 florins. 1 
 
 On the 8 th March he was in Rome, and left it on the 25 th 
 for Naples, where he only remained until the 20th April, and 
 on the 1 9th June he returned to his states. 2 Passing in May 
 a second time through Florence, he was received with the 
 same demonstrations, and with greater delight and enthusiasm 
 than in any other city. The people did not know, and the 
 magistrates feigned to ignore, that in Rome, upon stepping 
 from his galley on shore, the orator of Venice fared as well 
 at his hand as the orator of Florence ; 3 that at Naples he was 
 accused of having secretly concluded an understanding against 
 Florence and Sforza with its magnificent monarch, who spent 
 50,000 ducats upon him, 14,000 of which went in presents 
 to the Empress. 4 The Florentine Government, modelled upon 
 that of Venice, was perfectly able to master its feelings, but 
 it could not master the events which shortened the Emperor's 
 stay in the town. Frederick found awaiting him the dis- 
 
 1 Boninsegni, p. 95 ; Ammirato, xxii. 70. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 121 1 ; Cron. Bol., xviii. 698; Malavolti, part 3, 1. 2, p. 
 38 v° ; Machiavelli, vi. 96 A ; Ammirato, xxii. 70. 
 
 8 Nicodemo and Nic. des Arcimboldi to Sforza. Rome, April 24, 1452, Orig., 
 No. 1586, f. 104. 
 
 4 Ibid., and letters of 6th and 7th May, f. in and 113. Nic. des Arcimboldi 
 adds, supposing Frederick to have conferred upon Alphonsus the title of Duke of 
 Milan, which would be disgraceful : "Queli titoli serano derisorii, pero che altro 
 ce bisognara ad havar la possessione che pur haver le carte" (Florence, May 6, 
 1452, ibid., f. III). 
 
1452] RETURN OF FREDERICK TO GERMANY. 109 
 
 agreeable surprise of a Hungarian embassy come to claim 
 Ladislas from him. He refused to receive it in spite of the 
 prayers of the Gonfalonier of Justice, and said drily that he 
 would think the matter over upon his return home. 1 In vain 
 did Ladislas solicit a fresh decision at the instigation of his 
 tutor. The Ten refused either to countenance his flight or to 
 feign ignorance of it. The unworthy guardian was doubtless 
 grateful 2 to them, but, lest they should change their mind, he 
 hurried off two days after his arrival so precipitously that he 
 did not wait for the priors on horseback, who had left the 
 palace to form his escort. These magistrates, little recking of 
 their own or their country's dignity, ran after him and joined 
 him outside to offer their trivial homage. 3 Upon his return, 
 still more than upon his coming, through the exigencies of an 
 empty purse, did this wretched emperor sell to the highest 
 bidder, under the euphonious name of reward, titles, preroga- 
 tives, patents of nobility, and imperial functions, the right of 
 legitimatising natural children and of pardoning forgers. 4 And 
 yet we complain that the worship of royalty has diminished ! 
 
 He was still in Italy when the gravest resolutions were 
 adopted and published without his permission. On the 9th 
 April, Florence promulgated the league formed with the King 
 of France and the Duke of Milan. 5 On the 1 6th May, at the 
 moment that Frederick, returning to Germany, crossed into 
 Venetian territory, Venice declared war with Sforza, 6 and 
 on the 2nd June Alphonsus did likewise with Florence by a 
 curt letter, in which he vaguely reproached her with having 
 assisted his enemies. 7 The priors at once retorted with counter- 
 
 1 Nic. des Arcimboldi to Sforza, Florence, May 6, 1452, Orig., No. 1586, f. 
 Ill ; Boninsegni, p. 98 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 71. 
 
 2 Neri Capponi, xviii. 121 1. 
 
 3 Boninsegni, p. 99; Ammirato, xxii. 71. 
 
 4 See details in Boninsegni, p. 99; Machiavelli, vi. 96 A; Ammirato, xxii. 71 ; 
 Sismondi, vi. 243 ; Du Mont, iii. part 1, p. 185. 
 
 6 Boninsegni, p. 98. 
 
 8 Ammirato, xxii. 71. 
 
 7 Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1586, f. 127. Doc. published in the Arch. Stor., 1st 
 ser., iv. part 1, p. 422. 
 
no DECLARATION OF HOSTILITIES. [1452 
 
 accusations and reproaches (June 1 6), that, without declaration 
 of war, the royal troops had invaded the dominions of the 
 Republic and of her dependencies ; that Venice, in contempt 
 of honesty and the Emperor, had invaded, pillaged the frontiers 
 of Milan, and taken several places — two equally unmerited 
 insults. One sentence in this reply goes beyond the ordinary 
 tone, and proves a profound vexation : " We ask you to judge 
 impartially whose cause is the most honest, yours or ours." x 
 
 This was no time for judgment or arbitration. Already 
 on the 1 ith June a single trumpeter had left Naples to chal- 
 lenge Florence. 2 Alphonsus's natural son and future successor, 
 Don Fernando, hardly twenty, but under the guidance of his 
 mentor, the famous Count of Urbino, followed with an army of 
 ten or twelve thousand men. Entering the Florentine territory 
 by Cortona, on the 12th July he was before Forano, outside 
 whose ill-protected walls he was kept a month and a half (till 
 September 2), to his everlasting shame. Boninsegni calls this 
 siege "the martyrdom of Don Fernando." 3 His patience was 
 exhausted in other smaller and more fortunate places, and the 
 desertion of his soldiers, the obstinacy of Rosso Ridolfi, com- 
 missary of the Republic, and the autumn rains, forced him to 
 retreat without other glory than that of having devastated the 
 open country within six miles of Florence. 4 
 
 While he was thus squandering the time, forces, and gold 
 of his father, Florence had brought vigorous pressure to bear 
 upon the semi-indifferent King of France. On the 28th Sep- 
 tember, the orator Acciajuoli received a brother ambassador, 
 Francesco Venturi, and fresh instructions. 5 There were abun- 
 
 1 Arch. Stor. t 1st ser., iv. part 1, p. 422. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 99. 
 
 3 Cron. d 'Agobbio, xxi. 989 ; Boninsegni, p. 100. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 10 1 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 1212 ; Bonincontri, xxi. 156 ; Fazio, 
 1. x. p. 164 ; Poggio, xx. 428 ; Machiavelli, vi. 96 ; Ammirato, xxii. 72. Among 
 the castles that arrested and rebuffed D, Fernando were Castellina, at the entrance 
 of the valley of the Chianti, which kept him fourteen days, and Brolio, still the 
 property of the feudal family Ricasoli. 
 
 5 Doc. in Fabroni, p. 200. Cf. Ammirato, xxii. 73. 
 
1452] INDUCEMENTS TO FRANCE. in 
 
 dant reasons for the speedy action of the " sacred crown." 
 The King of Aragon only hated the Kepublic because of its 
 devotion to the King of France ; Charles was powerful, and 
 his victories augured well ; in divided Italy he would have 
 on his side Florence, Milan, and Genoa ; the cause was just ; 
 the kingdoms iniquitously acquired should return to their 
 rightful owners ; inevitably the lords and barons of Naples 
 would rise up. From this flood of insincere arguments the 
 capital insinuation emerges : since the king hesitated to come 
 to the aid of Florence and Sforza, Florence and Sforza intended 
 to assist him in order to return Naples to Kene. The Republic 
 would contribute 4000 horse on the condition that the Duke 
 of Milan furnished the same number, and the " sacred crown " 
 11,000 more, that is, " 15,000 paid." The French troops 
 were to arrive in March, or even winter in Lombardy, so as to 
 start the campaign at the first sign of fine weather. 
 
 As for the acquisitions, these would be left to the discretion 
 of his " most divine wisdom," recalling in their regard the 
 propositions of the previous year, namely, that the conquests 
 in Tuscany should belong to Florence. 1 The financial question, 
 upon which the Florentine Government had maintained a 
 prudent, say rather an imprudent reserve, 2 was this time 
 resolutely broached. Florence would furnish 10,000 florins 
 a month for the war in Lombardy or Tuscany, and two months' 
 pay to the royal troops upon their dismissal : if she engaged 
 herself in reconquering the kingdom, she would entertain at 
 her own expense 4000 horse and 1000 infantry. This was 
 clearly stating matters, and the offer was tempting ; yet, such 
 was the eagerness to obtain the King's active concurrence, that 
 the ambassadors were secretly authorised to exceed their in- 
 structions upon this point. 3 Unfortunately, their efforts had 
 
 1 See above, p. 106, n. 1. 
 
 2 See above, p. 105. 
 
 3 Doc. in Fabroni, p. 200-211. G. Capponi (ii. 57, n.) quotes a passage from 
 these instructions, of which he possessed a written copy, which differs from the 
 text published by Fabroni ; but there is nothing new or interesting in it except the 
 
ii2 INEFFECTUAL OPERATIONS. [1452 
 
 no result, for Bordeaux just then opened her gates to the 
 English. 1 Charles was prodigal of words, but of little else of 
 value, as was seen in the spring. Already he had alienated 
 the Duke of Savoy from the Venetians, 2 and now he was 
 trying to reconcile Sforza with the Marquis of Montferrat and 
 his brother. 3 Without deciding what he would do in Italy, 
 he was willing enough to do something when he had leisure. 
 This indefinite postponement was hardly encouraging, and the 
 hostilities began without waiting for him ; but they were not 
 very effectual. To a people exhausted, weakened, and un- 
 willing to fight, an indifferent warrior even is an object of 
 admiration : the Neapolitan, Porcelli, compares Piccinino to 
 Scipio, and Sforza to Hannibal, 4 although Sforza only took up 
 arms through a selfish desire for enjoyment. In Florence the 
 party for peace was headed by Nerone Nigi Dietisalvi, and 
 more than once were they on the point of carrying the day 
 when an attack of gout nailed Cosimo to his bed. Then it 
 was that the people thundered against the taxes, and declared 
 that war could not be prolonged beyond the summer. 5 Sforza's 
 ambassadors were demanding subsidies and threatening to leave 
 within twenty-four hours, and, before yielding, the Ten wished 
 to consult the all-powerful invalid, but Cosimo was invisible 
 
 request that the king would send Rene if he did not come himself. Desjardins 
 (p. 76, 77, n.) speaks of this document, but he probably never saw it, since he 
 refers it to p. 308 in Fabroni, and there is no p. 308 in the edition he used. 
 Moreover, he states that they are erroneously dated in Fabroni as 26th January 
 1453, whereas they are dated 28th September 1452, as in the document of the 
 archives. 
 
 1 See H. Martin, vi. 479-482. 
 
 a November 7, 1452. The instructions of the Florentine ambassadors are the 
 last days of September ; but they did not leave at once, and it took some time to 
 go from Florence to Tours or to Paris. 
 
 3 December 1452. Documents mentioned in Desjardins, i. TJ. 
 
 4 Comment. , 1st ser. R. I. S., xx. 65-154, and 2nd ser., xxv. 1-66. 
 
 5 "Cosimo sta in lecto in mano del nostro maestro Benedecto da Norsa che e 
 qui in casa soa, et questo male de Cosimo da animo a li nimici soy, et questa 
 graveza de l'altro canto ha desperati molti et de li principali in modo che vedo 
 questa citta in mala conditione. ... El facto loro sta in excessiva discensione et 
 discordia, in modo che non credono potere tirare questa guerra piu la che questa 
 estate " (Nicod. to Sforza, May 2, 1453, Orig., No. 1586, vol. iv. f. 202). 
 
1453] SFORZA ENTERS THE FIELD. 113 
 
 for all but his intimate friend, the Milanese ambassador, 
 Nicodemo Tranchedini. 1 This was clear enough. He was 
 willing that the matter should be settled, provided that the 
 commons 2 advanced the money ; but the commons urged the 
 necessity of reserving the subsidy for King Rene\ 3 and the 
 malcontents complained that each fresh sacrifice would only 
 serve as advances to increase the credit of the Medici's bank. 4 
 
 These miserable negotiations lasted the entire winter. 
 Finally, assured an annual grant of 80,000 florins, Sforza in 
 the spring sent his brother Alessandro to join Sigismondo Mala- 
 testa, who was besieging Foiano for the Florentines. 5 Foiano 
 was taken, sacked, and burnt (August 1 1 ), 6 and submission 
 speedily followed terror. 7 They might have extended their 
 march upon Sienna, and punished her for her friendly rela- 
 tions with Naples ; but Cosimo resisted the temptation, and 
 he was seconded by Neri Capponi, then captain at Pistoia. 
 There was little security for Florence in any case, whether 
 Sienna weut to Alphonsus or Alphonsus came to her. 8 
 
 Less perilous was the acquisition of the county of Bagno, 
 which circumstances offered to the Florentines. This is the 
 most striking fact of this pointless war. The county of Bagno 
 lay in a little valley near the source of the stream of Savio, 
 
 1 " Volsono essere cum M c0 Cosimo per respondermi et non possetero, perche 
 hogi ha preso medicina et non ha voluto altri che me " (Nicod. to Sforza, May 3, 
 1453, Orig., No. 1586, f. 202). 
 
 2 "So stato cum Cosimo mo mo a solo a solo, e confortatolo che facia siate 
 aiutato dal comune et che non facendolo del comune bixogna facia del suo. Assay 
 se torse, pur non me taglia al tuto la speranza, et comprehendo voria farvi dare 
 dal comune parechie migliara de fiorini, et che se remetesse a V. S. che mandasse 
 quale e quante gente ve piacesse " (Nicod. to Sforza, May 2, 1453, Orig., No. 
 1586, f. 202). 
 
 3 Ibid., May 8, 1453, f. 204. 
 
 4 "Ce sono molti che dicono damo che queste provisione se fano a nostra 
 instantia et per assicurar Cosimo de quel ve ha prestato e intende prestare. La 
 impossibilita et disordine loro ve nocene " (Ibid., May 26, 1453, f. 209). 
 
 6 Simoneta, xxi. 633. 
 
 6 Cambi, Del., xx. 314; Boninsegni, p. 106. 
 
 7 P°ggi°j xx - 43 * J Fazio, 1. x. p. 1)57 ; Ammirato, xxii. 73. 
 
 8 G. Capponi, ii. 56. 
 
 VOL. T. H 
 
ii4 THE COUNTY OF BAGNO. [i453 
 
 that may almost be called a river, since it flows into the sea. 1 
 Situated between the Casentino and the States of the Church, 
 this miniature state belonged to Gherardo Gambacorti, a son of 
 the last chief of the Pisan Republic, who had sold his country 
 to the Florentines in 1406, and had received this compensa- 
 tion and reward. The discords and hatreds of the Albizzi 
 and the Medici, found sympathy here, for Gherardo was 
 Rinaldo's brother-in-law, and, in consequence, not particularly 
 attached to Cosimo and the new masters, who had exiled all 
 the illustrious families of the defeated party. Taking ad- 
 vantage of this fact, Alphonsus offered Gherardo a much 
 larger fief in his own kingdom than the county of Bagno-, 
 one of the objects of his policy being to obtain a footing in 
 Tuscany. 
 
 The Florentines having got wind of the negotiation, Gherardo 
 handed them up his son of fourteen as a hostage to soothe 
 them ; but his paternal treachery 2 did not prevent him from 
 continuing the secret understanding, and on August 12, 1 45 3, 
 Fra Puccio, Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and the King's 
 lieutenant, appeared with an army before Corzano, the prin- 
 cipal fortress of the county. The drawbridge was lowered 
 already, when a Pisan, forgetting the past, and, like many 
 others, preferring the protection of Florence to foreign rule, 
 thrust out the vile Gambacorti, raised the bridge, and waved 
 aloft the Florentine flag. Thus was the stroke parried, and 
 the partisans of the Republic became its subjects ; the county 
 was turned into a viceregency, and the disgraced Gambacorti 
 withdrew with the Neapolitan army, lucky enough that the 
 victors, in their clemency, sent him back his son, who was 
 imprisoned in the Stinche* 
 
 This, however, was only an accident of fortune, a brilliant 
 episode. The chief interest was the events in Lombardy, 
 
 1 In the neighbourhood of Cesena, between Cervia and Ravenne. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 105. 
 
 3 Cambi, Del, xx. 313; Boninsegni, p. 104; Bonincontri, xxi. 157; Machia- 
 velli, vi. 97 B ; Ammirato, xxii. 76. 
 
1453] INTERVENTION OF FRANCE. 115 
 
 and the part that France would play if she decided to play 
 any. Venice had in her pay nearly all the condottieri ; and 
 the question was, seeing the facility with which the condottieri 
 yielded to higher pay, whether Charles VII. would outbid 
 her. But Charles was in no hurry, and counselled patience. 
 He informed the Florentines that he had " delib^re" et conclud 
 envoyer pr^sentement aucuns de nos chiefs, nos parens et 
 autres, bien accompaignez de gens de guerre en bon nombre, 
 es marches et lieux ou nostre dit cousin (le Comte Francisque) 
 nous a fait savoir." x A month later he told this same cousin 
 that he would come himself and " join his army, already upon 
 the banks of the Saone and the Rhone, and help to fight the 
 Duke of Savoy in case he attacked Milan or Florence, which 
 it was to be hoped he would not do, neither he nor the 
 people drawn into his alliance," who had been deterred from 
 any engagement by this military demonstration. 2 However, 
 he found the engagement sufficient, and afterwards refused to 
 have anything more to do with the matter, contenting himself 
 with supporting the cause by putting forward Rene' ' ' King of 
 Sicily " and the Dauphin, in whose hands he left everything. 3 
 Thus any advantage to be gained from France depended 
 upon Rene\ On April II, 1453, Acciajuoli concluded an 
 understanding with him at Tours by which he engaged himself 
 in the following June in the service of Milan and Florence, 
 with at least 2400 horse, to take command of the entire army. 
 Florence was to allow him 10, COO florins in gold a month, 
 and a month's pay in advance for his travelling expenses, as 
 soon as he should reach Asti or Alexandria. If he wished to 
 break this engagement, he was to give two months' notice, and 
 if he recrossed the Alps he was to leave his son, the Duke of 
 Calabria, in his place upon the same conditions. As for the 
 
 1 July 17, 1452. Mehun-sur-Yevre. Text published by Desjardins, i. 72- The 
 passage quoted is on page 74. 
 
 2 August 31, 1452, Bourges. Text in Desjardins, i. 75. Cf. Lecoy de la 
 Marche, i. 271. 
 
 3 Ang. Acciajuoli to Sforza, April 21, 1453, Orig., No. 1586, f. 79. 
 
n6 AGREEMENT WITH RENE OF ANJOU. [U53 
 
 seat of war, it was to be decided by the three allies by a 
 majority of two against one. 1 
 
 If this were sharp practice, the guilty parties were not 
 Rene* and Charles VII. , for, according to the terms of the 
 treaty, Cosimo and Sforza, constituting a majority, could 
 refuse to co-operate in the conquest of the kingdom. It 
 needed the absurd naivete" of Rene* to imagine that, as chief of 
 the army, he would have the right to lead it whither he willed. 
 The wily Florence, understanding this, broke out upon the news 
 of the treaty 2 into wild enthusiasm, which was soon changed 
 into feverish impatience. Rene* was to arrive on the 5th of 
 May, 3 and on the 10th he was still expected, whereupon urgent 
 messages were sent to him to hurry. 4 An ambassador went 
 to meet him at Milan, and Sforza was warned that if before 
 November there was no decisive result, the exhausted Republic 
 would be compelled to seek other means of salvation. 6 
 
 Cosimo, like the rest of the world, was beginning to doubt 
 the reality of this French intervention, which upset the political 
 situation, and placed France with Milan, Genoa and Venice 
 with Alphonsus. 6 Nevertheless, there was no reason to 
 doubt. Rene* had already crossed the Alps, where, upon the 
 other side, the Duke of Savoy and the Marquis of Montferrat 
 refused to let him pass. From Sisteron he wrote to Sforza 
 that he was ashamed of the rebuff, and hoped soon to speak 
 with him nearer. 7 
 
 Machiavelli attributes to the Florentine ambassador, who 
 
 1 Capitula cum Rege Renato, Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1586, f. 80. This docu- 
 ment was published by M. Lecoy de la Marche, App., No. 28, ii. 265, from the 
 archives of the Bouches-du-Rhone, B. 673. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 102. 
 
 3 Doc. shown in Desjardins, i. 77. 
 
 4 Lett ere della Sign. Reg. xxxvii. f. 77, in Lecoy de la Marche, App., No. 30, 
 ii. 271. Evidently the letters of 5th and 10th May crossed. 
 
 6 July 6, 1453. Doc. shown in Desjardins, i. 77. 
 
 6 " El qual Re fece quello che mai nessuno poteva credere che mai venisse da 
 Francia in Lombardia con gente " {1st. Bresc, xxl 883). 
 
 7 July 4, 1453. Text in bad Italian, published by Lecoy de la Marche, App. 
 No. 31, ii. 272, from the archives of Milan, Carteggio de* principi. 
 
H53] DISSATISFACTION OF RENE. 117 
 
 was then at Milan, the stratagem of Bend's return to Provence 
 that he might enter Lombardy from the sea. 1 Certain it is 
 that this crownless King selected the more practicable if longer 
 route, 2 with the intention of helping the Dauphin Louis as he 
 passed through Genoa. The latter, anxious to get back to 
 France to continue his shady intrigues, would not, however, 
 turn a deaf ear to the cry of the Genoese exiles, who offered 
 to become his subjects ; he counted on helping them through 
 his uncle Rene\ to whom he made over his troops, 3 or through 
 Venice, who kept aloof in the matter. 4 On the one side the 
 Venetians were accused of ill-will, and on the other excused 
 for want of resources ; Kene" for his part was dissatisfied, and 
 regarded himself as tricked by the Dauphin. 5 
 
 Perhaps he was, but he had lost the ardour of youth, and 
 no longer hoped to reign in Naples. Through weak good- 
 nature he wasted precious time in the Alps in the endeavour 
 to reconcile the Marquis of Montferrat and the Duke of Milan. 6 
 
 The successes of this war were rather fatal than useful, 7 
 partly through the cruel and brutal massacres of the French 
 in the towns they captured, 8 and their numberless depredations 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vi. 98 A. 
 
 2 " Messer Benedetto Doria . . . dice come le gente dal Re Renato sono tucte 
 passate" (Nic. Soderini to the Ten of War, August 22, 1453 ; Arch. Fir., cl. x., 
 Dist. 2, filza 22, in Buser, App., p. 384). 
 
 3 " Et con esse circa dua mila cavagli et tre mila fanti delle genti del Dalfino 
 et sono venuti in Asti" {Ibid. Cf. Doc. of August 23, 1453, analysed by Des- 
 jardins, i. 77). 
 
 4 Lettere alia Sign. , xxii. f. 294, 306 ; Lettere della Sign. , xlvii. f. 70, 97 ; 
 Arch, of the Bouches-du-Rhone, B. 14, f. 126 v° ; Arch, of Venice, Libri partium 
 Secretamm, xix. f. 21 1, deliberation of August 31, 1453 ; Lecoy de la Marche, i. 277. 
 
 8 " II re Renato e stato e sta molto disperato et di mala voglia, et pargli che 
 insino ad qui el abbia ingannato, et che questa sua passata debba turbare et guas- 
 tare tucti i disegni suoi et della vostra lega . . . et dolsesi della mala conditione 
 et cattiva dispositione et animo del Dalfino. ... In verita universalmente a ognuno 
 dispiace piu per la natura et conditione et poverta del Dalfino " (Nic. Soderini to 
 the Ten, loc. cit. ). 
 
 6 His sentence was on the 15th September 1453. See Simoneta, xxi. 649; 
 1st. Bresc, xxi. 883 ; Benvenuto de San Giorgio, Hist. Monti sfer rati, xxiii. 731. 
 
 7 They can be seen in Sismondi, vi. 252 sq. , and Lecoy de la Marche, i. 278 sq. 
 
 8 Simoneta (xxi. 656), 1st. Bresc. (xxi. 884), Sanuto (xxii. 1147), Fazio (1. x. 
 p. 173), give the results of the taking of Pontevico by the French, and the retalia- 
 tion of Sforza's soldiers. 
 
n8 DEPARTURE OF RENE. [HS3 
 
 in the enforced idleness of an exceptionally prolonged and 
 harsh winter. Sforza, whose soldiers disseminated hatred in 
 retaliation, was reduced from policy to defend Rene, " who had 
 come so far at considerable expense, too late, no doubt, but 
 that by no fault of his own, and who greatly benefited the 
 league." s Each one had his private thoughts and accounts to 
 reckon. Florence, who spent 70,000 florins a month, 2 held to 
 her resolve to know the reason if everything were not settled by 
 November ; 8 she begged the Pope to open negotiations, 4 then 
 warned Rene, 5 and refused him both the money he claimed, 
 like a second Sforza, and winter quarters in Tuscany, remind- 
 ing him that for him as well as for the Republic the seat of 
 war was Lombardy. 6 The peaceful monarch readily under- 
 stood ; it seemed a wise precaution to him to give up his allies 
 before they gave him up. But this was too soon for them. 
 Sforza endeavoured to retain him, and Florence repented of 
 her inflexibility. Her ambassadors in Lombardy offered him 
 36,000 ducats to be paid in three years; but he was deaf 
 to all parties. He consented to leave them his son according 
 to his engagement, 7 but that was all. Bitten by love at the 
 age of forty-five upon the simple sight of a portrait, he was 
 dying to get back to France to marry Jeanne de Laval, 8 and 
 
 1 Instrnctio spectabilium militum et juris utrhisque doctorum dominorum Seve de 
 Curte et Jacobi de Trivulcio oratorum iturorum pro tractatu pads Italie ad ex. 
 comunitatem Florentinam, October 21, 1453 {Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1586, f. 
 232). This text is printed in Buser, App., p. 385. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 103. 
 
 3 See above, p. 116. 
 
 4 Lecoy de la Marche, i. 281. 
 
 5 Desjardins, i. 79. 
 
 6 " Perche vi e dentro la riputazione maggiore della sua M. insieme col nostro 
 bisogno" (Lettere della Sign., xlvii. 207 ; in Lecoy de la Marche, i. 283). 
 
 7 Boninsegni, p. 108 ; Simoneta, xxi. 662 ; Machiavelli, vi. 98 B ; Lecoy de la 
 Marche, i. 283. According to Boninsegni, the Duke of Calabria was promised 
 1600 ducats a month more than his father. According to Machiavelli, Florence 
 was delighted to get rid of Rene instead of anxious to retain him, seeing she had 
 recovered her lands and lost castles, and she had no wish that Sforza should 
 acquire further possessions out of Lombardy. 
 
 8 Simoneta, xxi. 662. He married her on September 10, 1454. See Lecoy de 
 la Marche, i. 301. 
 
H53] CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 119 
 
 he hurried off, burning with resentment against the faithless 
 Duke of Milan, who had tricked him in his efforts to bring 
 about a reconciliation between him and Venice. 1 
 
 Angelo Acciajuoli wrote from France that Charles VII. 
 deplored the cowardice of his brother-in-law, 2 but the natural 
 vexation of the Florentines renders this assertion extremely 
 doubtful. However, the incident was soon forgotten. A 
 graver event, the taking of Constantinople, whose consequences 
 could not yet be measured, shook all minds. The Emperor 
 Constantine Paleologos massacred with 40,000 Christians, and 
 innumerable merchants of every country flung into prison, 
 were cause enough for fear lest the unexhausted ambition of 
 the Turks should lead them to carry out their threat of march- 
 ing westward. So Charles VII. naturally shrunk from binding 
 himself to Italy, upon whose shores the first waves of this new 
 invasion would break. There was wisdom in the advice of 
 Pope Nicholas V. and King John III. of Cyprus, that Chris- 
 tians should forget their miserable quarrels and unite against 
 the Crescent. 3 But whether from a feeling of the impotence 
 of recent efforts, or from a consciousness that the talk of union 
 upon the lips did not come from the heart, each state exacted 
 exorbitant and unacceptable conditions. Sforza demanded that 
 the Venetians should restore what they had taken, and that 
 Alphonsus, who had attacked the Florentines nullo jure, should 
 put down his arms ; Alphonsus, that the Florentines should 
 reimburse him the expenses of war ; the Florentines, that he 
 should return them Castiglione della Pescaia in Maremma. 4 
 
 1 Giorn. Napol., xxi. 1131. Lecoy de la Marche (i. 285) says that the docu- 
 ments confirm the assertion of the Giornali, and he refuses to take love so seriously 
 in a light and vain nature like Rene's. Perhaps he is right in disputing Simoneta 
 that this was the sole reason : "Sola muliebri causa in tanta rerum mole move- 
 batur" (Simoneta, xxi. 662). 
 
 2 Vilita (Letter of June 17, 1454, published in Lecoy de la Marche, App., No. 
 38, ii. 279). 
 
 3 Epistoli Card. Tusculani, in Porcelli, De Gestis Scipionis Piccinini, xxv. 35, 
 Bologna, July 13, 1453 ; Letter of the Signory to Nicholas V., Septem. 19, 1453, 
 in Mas Latrie, Hist, de Chypre, vol. iii. p. 72, Paris, 1855, and G. Miiller, 
 Doaim. suite Relazioni, &c. , p. 1 78. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 645, 666 ; Machiavelli, vi. 98 B. 
 
i2o VENICE AND SFORZA MAKE PEACE. [H54 
 
 The Florentines indeed promised Frederick III. to send an am- 
 bassador to the Diet of Katisbon " to consider the question of 
 an enterprise against the Turks," 1 that is, to talk, but not to act. 
 We may believe that even outside the walls Florence would be 
 able to get out of the affair when we remember how easily she 
 already had done so fifty years before ; then she excused her- 
 self from helping Manuel Paleologos against Bajazet under the 
 pretext that she herself was threatened by an Italian Bajazet, 
 Gian Galeaz, a friend of the other. 2 But the Pope himself 
 was not behind in crying "off." He wanted to build; so 
 peace was necessary to him, and peace with him meant war 
 in Italy : this was why he showed no great zeal in reconciling 
 the contradictory pretensions of the congress he had estab- 
 lished in Rome, and kept the negotiations hanging. 3 
 
 The Venetians alone saw matters clearly. Anticipating 
 nothing from this futile congress, they concluded a peace with 
 Sforza at Lodi (April 9, 1454), to which they invited all Italy. 4 
 A scandal ensued. Two of the disputants forced their will 
 upon the others. The Pope was annoyed ; the King of Naples 
 refused to listen to anybody for six days ; he reviled the 
 Venetians above all for the scant courtesy they had shown 
 him, causing him at the same time an expense of 150,000 
 ducats. 6 Cosimo shared his feelings ; Sforza had forsaken 
 him without helping him to reconquer Lucca, according to his 
 promise ; but on this occasion he was at variance with his 
 countrymen, who wanted peace at any price, to balance their 
 budget. Hurt by their joy, he suggested objections that gave 
 
 1 Letter of the 27th February 1454, in G. M tiller, p. 179. 
 
 2 "Imminet nobis italicus Baisettus, illius vestri persecutoris amicus " (Letter 
 of August 29, 1401, in G. Muller, p. 148). 
 
 3 Simoneta, xxi. 666; Giannozzo Manetti, R. I. S., iii. part 2, p. 943. This 
 last author is a eulogist of Nicholas V. 
 
 4 Simoneta, xxi. 669 ; Sabellico, Dec. iii. 1. vii. p. 707 ; 1st. Bresc. , xxi. 887 ; 
 Neri Capponi, xviii. 1215 ; Boninsegni, p. 109 ; Machiavelli, vi. 98 B ; Ammirato, 
 xxii. 78. The treaty is in Du Mont, iii. part I, p. 202 ; and there are a number 
 of copies in the Arch. Sforz., Orig., No. 1586, f. 250-270. 
 
 6 Nicodemo to Sforza, May 6, 1454, Orig., No. 1586, f. 277, and Buser, App., 
 p. 288. 
 
H55] ADHESIONS TO THE PEACE. 121 
 
 rise to long and numerous debates, but the impulse was 
 irresistible, and on the 23 rd April the Eepublic acceded to 
 the treaty. 1 John of Calabria, whom Florence had received 
 with open arms, 2 and from whom much was expected, should 
 have left for France, but he remained a whole year in 
 Tuscany to conceal his vexation, and above all, to recover the 
 promised pay. He received it to the last penny, as well as 
 a present of 20,000 florins and 97 pounds of silver plate. 3 
 After all, it might be necessary to turn to the lords of the 
 fleur-de-lis later. 
 
 Other allies were not long wanting. 4 Only Alphonsus 
 raised some difficulties, 5 but he gave his adhesion on the 26th 
 January 1455.° On February 1 o, a few days later, he solicited 
 of Florence the pardon of some exiles, amongst whom were 
 the traitor Gherardo Gambacorti and Ormanno de Einaldo 
 des Albizzi. 7 Thus we behold the head of the eldest son of 
 the proud and fiery Rinaldo bent before him who had pro- 
 scribed his family, and bowed in vain, for Cosimo refused to 
 revoke his sentence of exile. 8 
 
 With a crusade against the Turks in prospect, this treaty of 
 peace was concluded. Its importance was immense, since all 
 
 1 Du Mont, vol. iii. part I, p. 206 ; Neri Capponi, xviii. 12 15. This clear and 
 accurate writer stops here. He died at Florence, November 23, 1457, aged 
 seventy-nine, of a tumour in the arm. Platina, Vita di Neri Capponi, R. I. S., 
 xx. 516. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxii. 78. 
 
 3 He returned to France in May 1455. Cambi, Del., xx. 333 ; Ammirato, 
 xxii. 81. 
 
 4 The allies and friends of Florence joined on May 14, 1454 ; the allies of 
 Venice on June 4. See Du Mont, vol. iii. part 1, p. 207, 209. Genoa joined in 
 May. See Boninsegni, p. 109. Details of the rest in Du Mont, loc. cit., and 
 Cipolla, p 445. 
 
 5 " El Re dicea voler ratificare, ma che volia piu termine per poter meglio inten- 
 dere el facto suo" (Nicod. to Sforza, May 6, 1454, Orig., No. 1586, f. 277, and 
 Buser, App., p. 388). 
 
 6 Cron. d'Agobbio, xxi. 989 ; Platina, xx. 857 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1 152; Navagero, 
 xxiii. 1 1 1 7 ; Poggio, xx. 434. 
 
 7 Doc. in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., iv. part 1, p. 426. In this collection the docu- 
 ment is dated 1454, but this is evidently an error, referable to the old style. 
 
 8 This refusal is the result of what has been already said upon the subject of the 
 destiny of this family. See chap. i. p. 36, 37. 
 
122 ITALY AND THE TURKS. [i455 
 
 the Italian powers subscribed to it and were jointly responsible 
 for it. But when it came to a question of starting the crusade, 
 each one backed out. Nine days after this engagement Venice 
 bound herself to Mahomet II., in virtue of the Venetian adage, 
 " Siamo Veneziano, poi Cristiani." Florence only thought 
 of her finances. She promised Frederick III. to send a dele- 
 gate to the Diet that would be held towards Michaelmas, not 
 at Ratisbon, but at Frankfort or at Nuremberg ; * she pro- 
 mised support to Thomas Paleologos, the despot of the Morea, 
 but on condition that the principal potentates of Europe should 
 take up arms. 2 When the Turks were beaten without her 
 assistance, she testified her joy by bonfires, processions, and 
 " sacrifices ; " she offered up vows for the expulsion of the 
 entire infidel and impious race. 3 If the King of Naples 
 would undertake the war, she would receive and revictual his 
 navy ; if necessary, she would even join in the expedition, 
 upon condition that the Pope would only fix her responsibilities 
 according to her forces. 4 If we would measure the meaning 
 of mere talk, we have but to examine another document pre- 
 ceding these big protestations by a few months. On the 
 3rd December 1455, the Republic thanked Mahomet II. for 
 his friendly treatment of the Florentine merchants, begged 
 him to grant them free access to his dominions, and called 
 him, without haggling, " serenissime atque invidissime princeps 
 et excellentissime domine." 5 Venice had gone still further, but 
 
 1 August 29, 1454. Doc. in G. Miiller, p. 180. See above, same chapter, p. 120. 
 
 2 ' ' Nos semper paratos fore pro posse nostro ad fidelium christianorum defen- 
 sionem, cum videbimus eos qui in hac re principes esse debent et ad quos hoc opus 
 precipue spectare videtur, separare et arma capere ad refrenandam et opprimendam 
 potentiam Theucrorum (sic)." Doc. in G. Miiller, p. 182. In A rch. Sforz., Orig., 
 No. 1587, f. 18, a copy may be seen of the league concluded at Venice, August 
 30, 1454, against the Turks. 
 
 3 September^, 1456. Doc. in G. Miiller, p. 184. 
 
 4 " In animohabemus huic pie expeditioni profacultate nostra et viribus subsidia 
 ministrare. Verumtamen que et qualia ilia futura sint, et quid comparatione 
 aliarum potentiarum italicarum suppeditare valeamus, discretioni summi pontificis 
 relinquimus, cui vires nostre notissime sunt " (September 12, 1456. Doc. in G. 
 Miiller, p. 183). 
 
 6 Doc. in G. Miiller, p. 182. 
 
1456] EUROPE AND THE CRUSADE. 123 
 
 her jealous rival only sought to imitate her in the interests of 
 her trade. 
 
 Nobody could justly throw the first stone at her. Selfish 
 interest was the general law, and Christian fervour was a 
 thing of the past. Mediaeval heroism and faith were dead. 
 Charles VII. did not even allow the Bull for the crusade to 
 be published in his kingdom. Kather than pay the tithe for 
 its support, the French clergy called a new Council. The 
 chivalrous Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, after having 
 sworn by God and the Virgin Mary, by woman and the 
 pheasant, that he would march against the infidel, 1 left his 
 vow, which he had published throughout Europe, unfulfilled. 
 The King of Portugal acted no better. Spain held aloof, 
 engaged with her Moors. Germany and England had each 
 their separate reasons or pretexts for remaining inactive, and 
 so we see the end of one world and the birth of another, 
 which will have its own greatness and glory, but whose 
 beginning is as repulsive as it was laborious. 
 
 1 Olivier de la Marche, Memoires, chap, xxx., in the collection Michaud and 
 Poujoulat, vol. iii. p. 489, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LAST YEARS OF COSIMO. 
 
 1 45 4-1464. 
 
 Cosimo's absolute rule under a modest appearance— Complicated proceedings of the 
 Government — Policy of peace based upon Sforza's alliance — Causes of dissatis- 
 faction : self-interest, harsh measures, and pecuniary obligations — Vicissitudes of 
 Giannozzo Manetti — Division in Cosimo's party — Apparent neutrality of Cosimo — 
 Re-establishment of lot-drawing (February 23, 1454) — Conspiracy of Piero des 
 Ricci (September 3, 1457) — Death of Neri Capponi (November 1457) — New 
 catasto (January 11, 1458) — Reactionary attempts : Matteo Bartoli (March 1458), 
 Luca Pitti (July) — Secret complicity of Cosimo — Meeting of Parliament (August 
 11) — Creation of a new balie — The suspects exiled — Material improvements — 
 Honours awarded the diminished popular power — The importance and abuse of 
 Luca Pitti's power — Galeaz Maria Sforza at Florence (April 17, 1459) — Arrival 
 of Pius II. (April 25) — Public rejoicings — Death of St. Antoninus (May 10) — 
 Buonuomini di San Martino — Equivocal attitude of Cosimo between the houses 
 of Aragon and Anjou (1461), and with Sforza (1461) — The sorrows of Cosimo's last 
 years — His death (August 1, 1464) — The judgment of his contemporaries and of 
 immediate posterity — Cosimo's liberality — His constructions — Protection granted 
 to letters, arts, and trades — Moral decline of Florence. 
 
 The four previous chapters ought to prove the inaccuracy of 
 the general opinion that the history of Florence presents no 
 interest apart from the Medici. On the contrary, with them 
 the interest diminishes. The miserable intrigues of foreign 
 policy, the ineffectual wars upon a vast field, where the Floren- 
 tines disappear as lost, are less interesting than the struggles 
 of the democracy for sheer life upon a narrow but nearer field, 
 and of the oligarchy for domination. At home the interest 
 is not greater. We have seen Cosimo's severity upon his 
 triumphal return from exile, unpleasant because it was with- 
 out excuse ; now we will examine his selfish, crafty, and hypo- 
 critical government to the end, and we shall find nothing 
 but his protection of letters and arts to justify the esteem 
 
i454l COSIMO'S ABSOLUTE POWER. 125 
 
 which the lies and reticence of his courtiers exacted from 
 posterity. 
 
 It is asserted that in Florence he was the first citizen. So 
 was Augustus in Eome. Trustworthy testimony proves that 
 he ruled as a tyrant. No witness had greater opportunity 
 for impartial judgment than ^Eneas Sylvius, the great Pope 
 Pius II. He writes that Cosimo was all-powerful, the sole 
 arbitrator of peace and war aud of laws ; that in his house 
 the affairs of the Kepublic and the choice of public officers 
 were decided ; that all he wanted as a king were the name 
 and the pomp. 1 If he had neither court nor guard, if, he 
 exacted no exterior mark of respect and subjection ; if with 
 calculated modesty, 2 he pretended to regard himself as the equal 
 of his countrymen ; if he, like his sons, intrigued by chance 
 for the various offices of state, and permitted protestations, 
 prayers, and thanks to be addressed to the Signory, their 
 presentation depended upon his good- will. 3 " Whenever you 
 want anything before others," we read in one of Nicodemo 
 Tranchedini's despatches, " write secretly to Cosimo, and you 
 will always obtain it. Popular government is not like any 
 other, and Cosimo cannot always be in the palace, as in former 
 times." i Suffering from gout, he often received in bed in 
 
 1 "Nihil Cosmse negatum. Is belli pacisque judex et legum moderator, non 
 tam civis quam patriae dominus haberi ; consilium de Rep. domi suae agitari ; 
 magistratum hi gerere quos ipse designasset. Nihil sibi ad regnum, nisi nomen 
 et pompa, deesset" (Pii II Pontificis Commentarii Rerum Menwrabilium, 1. 
 ii. p. 50, Frankfort, 16 14). 
 
 2 "Non laxo Cosimo che dire, benche modestamente ... qui se scandalizo 
 quanto may piu el vedessi quantunche modestissimamente come sole " (Nicodemo 
 to Sforza, nth May and 9th October 1463, Orig., No. 1589, f. 138 and 243). 
 Such phrases are frequent in Nicodemo's despatches. 
 
 3 " Poy andaray ad Fiorenza et te retrovaray con el M co Cosmo . . . et poy, 
 parendo ad Cosmo, te retrovaray con li Signori. Dicendo piu et meno ad essi 
 Signori de le cose soprascripte como parira ad esso Cosmo" (Sforza's instructions 
 to Prospero de Camulio, April 21, 1457, Orig., No. 1587, f. 168, and Copies, No. 
 1604, f. 316). " Subgionsi . . . como non deliberavate parlassi cum la Signoria, 
 sed cum privati citadini, se non quanto, como et quando paresse ad sua magnifi- 
 centia" (Nicod. to Sforza, March 5, 1463, Orig., No. 1589, f. 121). 
 
 4 " Quando volete piu una cosa che un' altra, scriviate secretamente ad Cosimo 
 el parer o desiderio vostro, et luy ve lo adaptera sempre, et non state in sul dire : 
 
i 2 6 COSIMO EVERYTHING IN FLORENCE. [H54 
 
 his own room, or in his son Piero's, who was also gouty and 
 sometimes bedridden like his father : here they received Nico- 
 demo, his sons, his brother, Luca Pitti, and a few other inti- 
 mate advisers. Cosimo would either speak last to end the 
 debate 1 or disdainfully start the discussion, knowing none 
 would dispute with him. 2 Henceforth it was clear that every- 
 thing depended upon him. 3 Later on, a shameless eulogist 
 wrote in his manuscript Bicordi, " Cosimo was everything to 
 Florence, and without him Florence was nothing." 4 This 
 clear-sighted individual had not, however, seen the despatches 
 in which Nicodemo wrote likewise, " Cosimo does everything, 
 and without him nothing is done." 5 
 
 Now Cosimo only worked for himself. This hard nature 
 was solely animated by the spirit of selfishness ; but such was 
 his prudence, so crooked were his ways, that he managed to 
 make it acceptable, or rather to conceal it. He would con- 
 voke a commission of thirty or thirty-five citizens and expound 
 to them the question under discussion, but the truth, hidden 
 from them, was only revealed to seven or eight of his creatures. 6 
 Resolute to keep the exiles out of their country, he neverthe- 
 less allowed them to hope. 7 To Luca Pitti, one of those who 
 
 io voria intendere da loro, etc., peroche . . . li governi populari sono alieni et 
 diformi da l'altri, et non po Cosimo continuamente esser in palazo, et far como 
 solia" (Nic. to Sforza, April 4, 1458, Orig., No. 1588, f. 50). " Io euro poco 
 el dire de l'altri; ma Cosimo ..." (August 15, 1463, ibid., No. 1589, f. 189). 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, March 10, 1463, Orig., No. 1589, f. 123. 
 
 2 August 15, 1463, ibid., f. 189. 
 
 3 " Le altre cose che diremo di sotto diray solamente ad Cosmo et non ad altri " 
 {Instructions to Prospero de Camulio, April 21, 1457, Copies, No. 1604, f. 316). 
 
 4 " Cosimo in somma era tutto in Firenze, e, senza lui, Firenze era un niente ; 
 e benche il desiderio d'un buon cittadino sia di non poter piu che tutta la Rep. , 
 tuttavia il suo potere non era chi l'uguagliasse " (Bibl. Nat., MS. Ital., No. 348, 
 f. 28 v°). 
 
 5 "Cosimo che guida tuto " (Nicodemo to Sforza, July 15, 1458, Orig., No. 
 1588, f. 94). "Sine ipso factum est nihil" (ibid., July 2, 1464, Orig., No. 1590, 
 f. 262). 
 
 6 " Ad quali se diria el vero" (Nic. to Sforza, March 18, 1462, Orig., No. 1589, 
 
 f. 52). 
 
 7 See the curious Lettere di una Gentildonna, and those completed by M. 
 
 Guasti. 
 
HS4] SECRET OF COSIMO'S STRENGTH. 127 
 
 was on the look-out for perilous dignities, lie said, " You pur- 
 sue the infinite, whereas I look for the finite. Your ladders 
 reach heaven, and mine lean upon earth that I may not fall on 
 the other side." * He wished to pass for more modest than he 
 was, but self-betrayal is unavoidable. Everywhere he intro- 
 duced the balls that figure in the arms of the Medici, even 
 in places least likely to be so decorated. 2 This is no exaggera- 
 tion of Cavalcanti, prompted by hate. This queer historian, 
 who, while admitting that Cosimo was blamed for beginning 
 a palace that would cost more to build than the Coliseum of 
 Eome, that it is easy enough to build sumptuous palaces 
 with other people's gold, and that the taxes went to fill his 
 private purse, notes apologetically that "nobody complained 
 when this same individual supplied Florence with far more 
 money than he received from her." 3 
 
 Cosimo's strength lay in money, even when there was none. 
 He remained a merchant and banker, widening his business, 
 creating or impelling the creation and development of several 
 banks and establishments to correspond with his own, such 
 as the houses of the Sassi, the Portinari, the Benci, and the 
 Tornabuoni, 4 into which last family he married his son Piero, 
 as we have seen. He understood that states are strengthened 
 by increasing the number of those who have interests to pro- 
 tect, and who dread revolutions ; he was skilful in gilding the 
 pill for them, and herein lay his superiority over the other 
 lesser tyrants of Italy. 
 
 Not having an army, like them, he needed an ally from 
 whom to borrow one, and such an ally he found in Francesco 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di Cos/mo, c. 19, Spicil. Rom., i. 343. These proposals are 
 also reported at fuller length in the Lettere di una Gentildonna, p. 270. Ves- 
 pasiano, correctness itself, does not name Luca ; with his habitual tact, he says, 
 " Uno de' principali." 
 
 2 " Egli ha pieno per insino i privati de' frati delle sue palle " (Cavalcanti, Sec. 
 Storia, c. 33, ii. 210). 
 
 3 "Ma niuna cosa dicevano quando quell' uomo sovveniva il comune di molto 
 piu somme che quelle non erano" {Sec. Stor., c. 33, p. 211). 
 
 4 G. Capponi, ii. 64. See Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, c. vi. vol. i. p. 137 
 sq. ; Suprematie Cosimo's de' Medici bis zur Verfassungsreform Luca Pitti's. 
 
128 METHODS OF GOVERNMENT. [M54 
 
 Sforza. " The Florentines and Sforza are one and the same 
 thing/' 1 said the King of Naples. Sforza was not a whit 
 behind Cosimo in knowing what he was about. Who else 
 could and was willing to yield to his incessant and large 
 demands for money ? 2 On both sides self-interest cemented 
 and made the alliance durable, in spite of its drawbacks for 
 the Florentines, whose self-respect it wounded, and whose 
 internal dissatisfaction it awakened and inflamed. 
 
 Despots are wise in seeking to divert the minds of their 
 subjects by the troubles of war. No longer having the battle- 
 field to rain their gold upon, the people of Florence stood with 
 their eyes fixed upon the Government that was exhausting 
 and unjustly using them. They perceived that the fleeting 
 Signories, leaving office, selected their successors, and left 
 nothing to chance. But the murmurers were deprived of 
 employment, stripped, and exiled, and an abettor of the 
 Medici declares that the Eight of the guard had the right to 
 their blood. 3 If a humane law were proposed granting the 
 emigrants freedom to return to their country upon condition 
 of paying four florins a year each, Cosimo opposed it, not 
 willing to have his enemies upon his hands. The emigrants 
 were numerous and reduced to want ; the stationer, Ves- 
 pasiano, a great admirer of Cosimo, tells us of a daughter of 
 Rinaldo des Albizzi, and daughter-in-law of Einaldo Gianfig- 
 liazzi, who, with her son, forsaken in exile, thought herself 
 happy in obtaining a few ducats in alms. 4 So great was the ill- 
 will cherished for the master by his harsh and invincible 
 opposition, that one night the gates of his palace were smeared 
 with blood. 5 
 
 1 " Perchel sa (Alfonse) che Fiorentini sono una cosa medesima cum la S. V." 
 (Antonio de Tricio to Sforza, Naples, April 29, 1456, Orig., No. 1587, f. 120). 
 
 2 The registers of the Archivio Sforzesco are full of Sforza's demands for money, 
 Nicodemo's negotiations to obtain it, and Cosimo's curious bargainings with public 
 supplies. It is easy to understand Sforza's attachment to such an obliging ally. 
 
 3 Nerli, Comment. , 1. iii. p. 45. 
 
 4 Vespasiano, Vita <V Antonio Cincinello, c. 13; Spicil. Rom., i. 544. 
 
 5 G. Capponi, ii. 50. 
 
1454] ARBITRARY TAXATION. 129 
 
 Neither was lie pardoned the renewed excess of his 
 monetary charges, all the more intolerable because of an un- 
 interrupted famine. 1 In the first twenty years of the unacknow- 
 ledged reign of the Medici, seventy-seven houses of Florence 
 paid 4,875,000 florins in extraordinary and arbitrary taxes. 2 
 From 1442 to 1446 twenty-four taxes were raised, one half 
 of which, in the year 1442, produced the sum of 180,000 
 florins. 3 In 1452 a halie was named for five years, and one 
 of its uses was to impose and levy taxes. 4 It is true war 
 compelled them, but they were heavy. Boninsegni, as we 
 have seen, 5 brought the monthly expenses up to 70,000 florins. 
 The halie lost no time levying two taxes of 580,000 and 
 300,000 florins, of which 50,000 were upon persons until then 
 legally exempt. But even after the pretext of hostilities had 
 ceased, the exactions continued, and were no less shocking. 
 " We do nothing but pay," writes Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, 
 u although we have peace and tranquillity. It is wonderful 
 how we are bled. Truly we have nothing more to give." 6 
 This energetic woman sold all she possessed, and went into 
 voluntary exile with her sons. 7 
 
 If there were any laws in financial matters, they were few 
 and vague, and constantly misapplied ; there was only one 
 law for the assessors — their own pleasure, or rather Cosimo's. 
 What an admirable way of reducing his enemies and making 
 
 1 " La carestia e qui continuamente " (Nicod. to Sforza, February 19, 1459, 
 Orig., No. 1588, f. 223). 
 
 2 Alessandra Macinghi speaks of a tax which he calls the albitro, because it was 
 arbitrarily imposed upon the citizens, or, as Varchi says {Stor. Fior., 1. xiii. vol. iii. 
 p. 32, Flor. 1838), " per coniettura di quel cheeglino potevano guadagnare l'anno 
 coll' industria loro." Varchi wrongly believes that this tax dates from 1508. See 
 Lettere di una Gentildonna, August 24, 1447, p. 7, No. 1. 
 
 3 Cavalcanti, Sec. Stor. y c. 28, ii. 198. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxii. 72. 
 
 5 See preceding chap. , p. 118. 
 
 6 ' ' Mai s'ha a fare altro che pagar catasti, che se fussi punto di sospetto di 
 guerra, sareno disfatti, tanti se ne paga ora che la terra e in pace e tranquilla ; per 
 molti altro non si puo fare " (April 21, 1464). "Eun miracolo e danari si pagano " 
 (January 12, 1465. Lettere di una Gentildonna, Nos. 31 and 40, p. 293, 355). 
 
 7 She finally renounced the idea, though her sons shared it (see Lettere di una 
 Gentildonna, note to Letter 15, p. 164). 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 GIANNOZZO MANETTI. [«454 
 
 them creatures of his will ! Prayers for reduction were 
 showered upon him. To side with Cosimo, which was called 
 aver lo stato, meant slight taxation ; to side against him was 
 simple ruin. The rich but crushed family of the Pazzi 
 only began to breathe when they had allied themselves by 
 marriage with the Medici, and from that day they breathed 
 freely, and were numbered with the favourites. 1 As for the 
 victims, they were innumerable. One example will suffice. 
 
 Though not immensely wealthy, Giannozzo Manetti had won 
 a position of esteem and consideration. 2 At the age of 
 twenty-five he left the bank to devote himself to study, 
 only sleeping five hours, and not leaving his quarter of the 
 town for nine years, not even to cross the Arno. 8 Gifted with 
 an astonishing memory, as Vespasiano tells us, he learnt Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew. In public offices and upon embassies his 
 eloquence was celebrated. At Venice, Genoa, Naples, and 
 Rome he was received like a prince of the blood. While he 
 spoke, King Alphonsus seemed turned to stone. When he 
 was sent to address Nicholas V. upon his elevation, the new 
 Pope listened to him so attentively, that a prelate seated near 
 him repeatedly touched his elbow, imagining he had fallen 
 asleep, while the Venetian ambassador wrote to the Council 
 of Ten that the honour of their Republic demanded that no 
 less an orator should be sent by them to the Holy See. In 
 this corrupt century he enjoyed, like Coluccio Salutati and 
 Palla Strozzi, an extraordinary reputation for honesty. 4 But 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di Fiero de 1 Pazzi, c. 2 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 486. 
 
 2 Born at Florence in 1396, died in 1459. He will be mentioned again in fol- 
 lowing chapter as a man of letters. 
 
 3 Vespasiano, Vita di G. Manetti, sec. 2 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 579. 
 
 4 Ibid., and sections following. Cf. Villari, N. Machiavelli, i. 127. Manetti's 
 style of oratory appears to-day swollen and false. His works, histories, biographies, 
 and translations are an improvement. A few other honest men could be named, 
 but not many. Vespasiano praises Zambrino de Pistoia, who not only taught 
 
 etters but morals, who gave away all to the poor, and lived like a hermit ( Vita di 
 Zembrino, canon of Pistoia, sec. I ; Spicil. Rom., i. 655), and the learned Floren- 
 tine Paolo, who slept upon boards beside his writing-table, fed upon herbs and 
 fruit, and had never approached a woman ( Vita di Maestro Pagolo, sees. I, 2 ; 
 Spicil. Rom., i. 660-662). 
 
H54] GIANNOZZO MANETTI. 131 
 
 he committed the crime of differing from Cosimo in politics, 
 of reproaching him with the quarrel with Venice, and of even 
 striving to bring about a reconciliation. Sent to Rome two 
 years later, he negotiated with the Venetian ambassador for 
 the consent of the two Republics to the general peace that 
 Nicholas V. wished to procure. 
 
 As punishment, Cosimo resolved to ruin him by taxes. He 
 had already paid 135,000 florins; he was taxed to 166, that 
 is to say, he had to pay 5312a year. 1 To meet this obliga- 
 tion, he was forced to sell a part of his credit on the monte ; 
 where he had paid a 1 00, he received 10J. At last he took 
 refuge with the Pope, who was kindly disposed towards him, 
 and provided him with employment and an income. 
 
 When Cosimo saw him sheltered from his attacks, he 
 informed him that it only depended on himself to return to 
 favour ; the tax-malady, so he said, was not mortal. 2 But 
 Giannozzo knew his man and would have nothing to do with 
 him. Then Luca Pitti, who had raised the tax, played his 
 great game ; Manetti was bidden to present himself upon a 
 certain day, in default of which he would be declared a rebel. 
 This meant confiscation of his property. But Manetti was 
 equal to the occasion. He obtained letters of credit as am- 
 bassador from the Holy See, which he might present upon 
 necessity. According to custom, these letters ought to have 
 been guaranteed by a safe-conduct from Cosimo, which he did 
 not receive. However, so much he left to chance, and his 
 letters of credit were of sufficient value. " If I had served 
 my Creator," he said in his audience of the Priors, " with so 
 much fidelity and love as I have served the Republic, I should 
 think myself at St. John the Baptist's feet. Your lordships 
 are aware of the reward I have received." 
 
 This was an audacious start, but Manetti could risk it. 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di G. Manetti, sec. 28 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 607. 
 
 2 Ibid. Vespasiano, Cosimo's great friend, does not credit him with this 
 unworthy witticism. He says, " Uno de' principali," as with Luca Pitti. (See 
 above, p. 127, No. I.) 
 
132 DIVISIONS IN COSIMO'S PARTY. [1454 
 
 Behind him was the Pope, before him a people dissatisfied 
 with their chiefs, and public opinion was in his favour. John 
 of Calabria had just appeared in Tuscany. Upon the election 
 of the Ten of War, Giannozzo received a large majority of the 
 votes. " Such is the strength of virtue," was the comment. 
 In times of war the principal officers * were openly elected by 
 vote, a direct confession of the superiority of public choice to 
 election by chance. Having honourably fulfilled his duties, 
 Giannozzo preferred to return to Rome, finding life in his own 
 country far from comfortable, and after the death of his pro- 
 tector, Nicholas V., he sought refuge with Alphonsus in 
 Naples, where he ended his days. 2 
 
 Thus, after twenty years of continued progress, at a time 
 when the former malcontents were dead or forsaken, and their 
 sons, grown up under the new regime, had come to regard it 
 as the normal rule of their country, the Medici still found 
 an opposition upon which it was sometimes necessary to count. 3 
 After victory the victors are prone to divide, and if they find 
 no formidable adversaries to deal with, imagine that they will 
 never have any. Thanks to the elections a mano, or to the 
 sorting and jobbing of the exchanges, the friends of the first 
 rank transmitted their posts from one to another, and thus 
 reconstituted an aristocracy. The friends of the second rank, 
 left outside, were waiters upon providence, and undertook to 
 re-establish their position by the aid of declared enemies, as 
 little jealous as they of democratic freedom, whose ambition 
 and hatred found a vent in high-sounding words. 
 
 The question in this struggle between the Cosimites was, 
 for which party would Cosimo pronounce ? There is no doubt 
 that his own interest was to concentrate all power in the hands 
 
 1 From 1434 to 1455 the balie was ten times imposed in all regular form, 
 and by the vote of the councils (Machiavelli, vii. 102 a). 
 
 2 October 26, 1459. Vespasiano, Vita di G. Manet tz, c. 30-34; Spicil Rom. y 
 i. 609-613. 
 
 3 Ammirato (xxii. 62) speaks of an attempt in 1449 to substitute a secret for a 
 public ballot, easier to in imidate and direct. 
 
1454] NEUTRALITY OF COSIMO. 133 
 
 of a few lay figures animated by his will, but lie whose policy 
 always was to flatter the people could hardly oppose a reform 
 evidently desired by them. Besides, it was not pleasant for 
 the master to live surrounded by a little circle of friends to 
 whom he owed his recall, and who, deeming themselves his 
 equals, wished to share his power. He was not displeased to 
 see them compromised and weakened, his own lavishness pre- 
 serving him from their fate. The exchanges were full of 
 trustworthy names. The only danger was when they should be 
 exhausted, and until that day there was time to look abroad. 
 It is sometimes wise to stand apart and let the stream flow by. 
 During his exile Cosimo had been able to gauge his position 
 in his own country. Without going away, he could resume 
 the part of spectator, and leave his lieutenants, in pretended 
 independence, to make a display of their incapacity and 
 unpopularity, from which he alone had protected them : it 
 would always be time enough to pronounce his quos ego, 
 whether he tightened his purse-strings or exacted restitutions 
 which there was always the hope of eluding ; everybody was at 
 his mercy. Absolute master in finances, he could in politics 
 practise patience. 
 
 This was why he did not oppose the decision of the popular 
 councils of the commons on February 23, 1454, which re- 
 established the drawing of lots, the one by a majority of 218 
 votes against 22, the other by 169 against 7. 1 The figures 
 are eloquent ; they prove the public will, and help us to credit 
 the burst of joy with which, according to several writers, they 
 were greeted. It was thought that judgments and the distri- 
 bution of taxes would escape the decision of interest and in- 
 trigue, and that it would no longer be necessary to purchase the 
 favour of the ringleaders and friends of Cosimo by presents. 2 
 
 "It was an honest and excellent thing," wrote Giovanni 
 
 1 Fil. Rinuccini, Ricordi, p. 85. Machiavelli (vii. 102 a) believes that Neri 
 Capponi's death facilitated this reform. But this was in 1454, and Neri died in 
 November 1457. 
 
 2 Machiavelli, vii. 102 a. 
 
134 BALANCING OF PARTIES. [i457 
 
 later, " and if it could have been persevered in, the progress 
 of tyranny would have been arrested." * But it was not per- 
 severed in. There was even an extraordinary delay in conform- 
 ing to the decision reached. More than a year went by before 
 the Signory was drawn for (July I, 1455). But this did not 
 diminish the popular joy. 2 The people are practised in long- 
 suffering, and, as old Lancelot says, "they are often geese." 3 
 
 As there were none of Cosimo's enemies named in the ex- 
 changes, only his friends were selected by the restored system 
 of lot-drawing ; but raised by a reaction, they were in conse- 
 quence obliged more or less to represent or to serve it, and 
 thus acquired a certain independence in their relations with 
 their master ; so that the friends of the first rank, without 
 being quite excluded from office, lost the monopoly, and began 
 to talk of even burning the exchanges of the Signory. It 
 was Cosimo who prevented them (October 1 457).* Without 
 acknowledging it, he liked this game of see-saw, that balanced 
 and weakened the two classes of his partisans. 
 
 This rivalry, saved from excess by a powerful counterpoise, 
 secured a short period of tranquillity to the Florentines. The 
 few contemporary writers who have come down to us 5 only 
 speak of epidemics, earthquakes, cyclones, and inundations of 
 the Arno. 6 They scarcely mention the discovery of a conspi- 
 racy (September 3, 1457), at the head of which was one of 
 those Ricci 7 who had opened the road for the reigning family, 
 and whose sole reward had been expulsion. Amongst other 
 
 1 "La tratta a sorte fu chosa honesta e buona, se avessi seghuitato, che non 
 sare multiprichato la tiranida" (Cambi, Del., xx. 330). 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiii. 82. 
 
 3 See, under word Xdos, Jardin des racines grecques t to-day unknown to school- 
 boys. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, vii. 102 B ; Ammirato, xxiii. 85. 
 
 6 Cavalcanti ends in 1447, Neri Capponi before 1457, Boninsegni in 1460. 
 Cambi, Morelli, and Rinuccini, who continue to write, are extremely curt. The 
 historian's only resource for those times is the more or less numerous documents 
 published in latter days, and sometimes illuminated by judicious criticisms. 
 
 6 See Boninsegni, p. 116 ; Fil. Rinuccini, p. 86 ; and Cambi, Del, xx. 338 sq. % 
 a generation later. 
 
 7 Piero de Giovacchino des Ricci. 
 
1457] DEATH OF NERI CAPPONI. 135 
 
 conspirators, Alamaimo des Adimari and Botticello, natural 
 son of Niccolo Valori, saved their heads by flight ; but Piero 
 des Ricci paid for them all with his. 1 A doctor, Giovanni 
 de Montecatini, was hanged and burnt, but rather as a heretic 
 and wizard, 2 for having stoutly taught, in spite of remon- 
 strance, that the soul dies with the body. 3 Party quarrels 
 had nothing to do with the affair. At heart sceptical and 
 quite indifferent to form in religious matters, the Florentines 
 were in perfect agreement upon those questions that inflamed 
 the succeeding centuries. 
 
 Neri Capponi's death (November 1457) finished the split 
 in the Cosimite party. 4 Without possessing enormous wealth 
 or being the chief of a faction, Neri had nevertheless been 
 mixed up with everything in his country for forty years. He 
 had inspired a corrupt and cowardly generation with confi- 
 dence and respect by his disinterestedness and honesty, by his 
 abilities as civil commissioner and as captain. Before Lucca 
 and Piombino, as before Anghiari, he was the first. He was 
 praised for having withheld his hand from a relation guilty 
 of homicide — a good means of obtaining esteem, but certainly 
 not of drawing partisans. 5 Not being able to keep abreast of 
 Cosimo, towards the end he was satisfied to walk behind him. 
 Though never one of his intimates, no matter what Sismondi 
 says, his acquiescence was always sought, 6 and he covered 
 everything with his unquestioned respectability. 
 
 But if it chanced that he had another opinion, and showed 
 his disapproval, the malcontents seized upon him in spite of 
 himself as a chief of the opposition, and a possible rival in 
 
 1 September 16, according to Boninsegni (p. 119) and Fil. Rinuccini, p. 86; 
 the 26th according to Ammirato (xxiii. 84), but this may be a printer's error. Cf. 
 Cambi, Del., xx. 350; Morelli, Del, xix. 177. 
 
 2 Morelli, Del., xix. 174. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 65. 
 
 4 Machiavelli says, even, that this death began the split (vii. 102 a). But we 
 have shown that it was anterior. 
 
 5 Cavalcanti, Sec. Storia, c. 30, ii. 206. G. Capponi (ii. 65, n. 2) gives Caval- 
 canti's text. Machiavelli, vii. 102 A. 
 
 6 Machiavelli, vii. 102 A. 
 
1 36 RENEWAL OF THE CATASTO. [1458 
 
 view of future eventualities. Cosimo would not accept a 
 rivalry that presupposed equality with himself. Assuming 
 a serene and unapproachable elevation above all his fellow- 
 citizens, instead of appearing in open contest with Neri, he 
 pitted against him, publicly and in the councils, the person of 
 Luca Pitti, an energetic but far from formidable opponent, 
 full of devotion and as empty of brains. 1 Following his 
 natural inclination, and opposing violent measures through 
 love of reason and right, Neri served and strengthened Cosimo's 
 power, unwittingly perhaps, and Cosimo must have regretted 
 the loss of this useful counterbalance. The confusing activity 
 of Luca Pitti was no longer necessary, and the two Cosimite 
 factions were at liberty to tear each other to pieces. 
 
 One of the first actions of the Signory, on entering office 
 after Neri's death (January 1458), was to decide on renewing 
 the catasto, established in 1427. It confessed to the inten- 
 tion of redeeming the state debt, increased to a frightful pro- 
 portion, but it concealed the principal one, that of robbing 
 the powerful party of their advantages and privileges. 2 As 
 a fact, the measure was both legitimate and urgent. Fresh 
 fortunes had been made since 1427, especially since 1434, 
 which escaped the tax. The general preference fell upon 
 personal property, more easily hidden. These were erased 
 from the books destined to be examined, unless entered for 
 private inspection. Then, too, the opinion was advanced that 
 the obligation to show the books was injurious to public credit, 
 and interfered with the liberty of traders. The wealthy and 
 powerful obtained exemption from this obligation, and bribed 
 the authorities to shut their eyes to personal acquisitions. 
 However arbitrary the creation of a new catasto might be, it 
 was better than this deplorable state of affairs ; it would satisfy 
 the everlasting desire for equality in taxes of the poor and the 
 middle class. 3 
 
 1 Guicciardini, Opere ined., iii. 8. 2 Nerli, Comment., 1. ii. p. 48. 
 
 3 See Machiavelli, vii. 102 B ; Ammirato, xxiii. 85 ; Canestrini, La Scienza di 
 Stato, p. 66. 
 
i45»] COMPLICITY OF COSIMO. 137 
 
 But if the Medici, in quest of popularity, had favoured the 
 popular tendency when they only had their single voice in 
 the councils, now that fortune's wheel had turned and they 
 were absolute masters, how could they uphold the old system ? 
 Would political calculation prevail against threatened interests ? 
 Nicodemo saw Florence " upside down, in a state of ferment; 
 a stranger might have believed her on the verge of a revolu- 
 tion," * for the secret had soon got wind. 2 All the wealthy 
 were up in arms in pursuit of the orator of Milan, all except 
 Cosimo, who comported himself with sovereign modesty — on 
 the one side not wishing to displace the rich class, on the 
 other desirous of preserving the confidence of the people, who 
 were resolved upon the catasto? 
 
 By remaining neutral, without giving the lie to his words 
 of 1427, he ran no risk, since he could without any difficulty 
 pay the new tax, while those of his partisans who interfered 
 with him would be weakened. The provision passed on June 1 1 , 
 145 8, 4 was executed by ten commissioners named for a year, 
 who remained in office eighteen months, so onerous was 
 the work of valuation and distribution of charges. 5 This 
 labour was aggravated by the orders they had received only 
 to accord reductions by a unanimous vote, 6 a guarantee against 
 the pressure of the powerful assuredly, rather than against the 
 complaints and demands of the poor. 
 
 It seems to us that Cosimo should have shown himself less 
 
 1 " Interea se vedra el fine de questo catastro che bolle coss forte . . . Va 
 questa citta tutta sotto sopra, in modo che chi non intendesse el modo loro, exti- 
 maria fossero per venire a novita" (Nicod. to Sforza, January 10, 1458, Orig., 
 No. 1588, f. 10, and Buser, Append., p. 400). 
 
 2 " Li stati popolari non se sano ne possono governare cum quella discretione et 
 secreto che se converia, maxime questo nel disordine e stato da un pezo in qua " 
 {ibid.). 
 
 3 " Contra la voglia de tuti li richi da Cosimo in fora che se ne porta cum summa 
 modestia, perche da uno canto non vole dispiacere a li homini richi, dalF altro non 
 vole perdere la gracia del popolo minuto che vuole questo catasto omnino" {ibid.). 
 
 4 See text in Canestrini, p. 171. The preamble, like all others, is inspired by 
 feelings of justice and equity. 
 
 5 Boninsegni, p. 119. 
 
 6 Canestrini, p. 171. 
 
138 LUCA PITTI GONFALONIER. [1458 
 
 conciliatory upon giving up the convenient system of the 
 authoritative balie, 1 and upon the restoration of lot-drawing, 
 than upon the revival of the catasto ; but he knew how to 
 yield to circumstances and to bend before the wind. Matteo 
 Bartoli, Gonfalonier of Justice in the succeeding Signory (March 
 1458), wishing to repeal these two measures, did not support 
 him, but allowed the Priors to abandon him, and saw him 
 retire abashed and ridiculous ; he even permitted the Signory 
 to pass a resolution quite opposed to him. The balie could only 
 be solicited by the councils if the councils and their colleges 
 had been unanimous, and to create it needed the vote of the 
 three councils of the people, the commons and the Two 
 Hundred. 2 Such was the popular wish, and it seemed wiser 
 to yield to it. But let us see the end. 
 
 According to custom, a stringent decree had been issued 
 against the proposto and the lords who infringed the new 
 rules : a feeble barrier in truth, for resolute men. These 
 would be forthcoming one day, and Cosimo would not inter- 
 fere with them. Success, and not checkmate, was his desire. 3 
 On the 1st July 1458, Luca Pitti was for the third time 
 named Gonfalonier of Justice. He was at no pains to conceal 
 his opposition to the catasto and the old freedom. He was 
 regarded as a man of energy. In his youth he had obtained 
 of Eugene IV., then residing at Florence, and of the Signory 
 in power, a mission to Rome with a few fellow-countrymen, 
 to help the commander of the castle of St. Angelo to capture 
 and put to death the Patriarch-legate Yitelleschi ; such was 
 
 1 We may see in M. Cesare Paoli's work, Del Magistrate della Balia nella Rep. 
 di Siena, notizie e documenti, Sienna, 1870, that the balie was there, as at Florence, 
 an exception in grave circumstances, then an almost permanent abuse in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 2 Cambi, Del., xx. 353; Morelli, Del v xix. 177; Nerli, 1. iii. p. 47 J Machia- 
 velli, vii. 102 b ; Ammirato, xxiii. 85. Machiavelli is mistaken about the name of 
 the Gonfalonier, consequently also upon the date. 
 
 3 It is difficult to misunderstand Cosimo to a greater extent than Sismondi. 
 He shows him afflicted because his party gives in Luca Pitti a tyrant to the 
 Republic (vi. 373). See Nerli, 1. iii. p. 48, who cannot be accused of hostility 
 to the Medici. 
 
1458] STRATEGY OF LUCA PITTI. 139 
 
 the beginning of his friendship with the Medici. 1 There was 
 therefore no need to press him into action, as his friends and 
 a few of his colleagues did. 
 
 The surprising thing is that he showed prudence. He pro- 
 posed to proceed by the way of petition to demand that the 
 exchanges should be burnt and reconstituted, and that the 
 elections to office should again be made a 7nano, under pretext 
 that the death of Calixtus III., the state of anarchy at Rome, 
 and the brigandage of Count Averso d'Anguillara, caused the 
 Republic to run great risks. But this was not the way to 
 raise a revolution. Geronimo Machiavelli, doctor of law and 
 an influential citizen, denied the danger from without, and 
 displayed to parliament those of the balie and the assembly. 
 As we have shown, the unanimous vote of the lords and the 
 colleges was henceforth necessary. But the secret ballot, 
 recently established, gave to the dissenters, timid or inti- 
 midated, the easy courage to pronounce according to their 
 inclinations without peril. 2 Should this be renounced ? 
 Another would perhaps have done so. The impetuous Pitti 
 took refuge in patience. Like the ant faced by an obstacle, 
 he sought another path. The grand stroke he shrank from 
 forcing by strength he accomplished by craft. 
 
 It was only in the midst of the Signory and its colleges 
 that, according to the new law, the proposition of a balie should 
 carry a unanimous vote. An assembly of parliament had not 
 been foreseen. It might be convoked for any cause, and as 
 there was always a chance of unseemly comedy, it would be 
 easy, supposing a majority of two-thirds, to make it vote on 
 any side. But first it was necessary to lock up Geronimo 
 Machiavelli, reputed dangerous. His person was seized, and 
 at the same time four poor souls (pazzarelli or homini di poco), 
 two named Antonio Barbadori and Carlo Benizzi, who " might 
 
 1 Jacopo Nardi, Istoria delta Citta di Firenze, 1. i. vol. i. p. 22, Flor., 1842. 
 An understanding between the legate and Milan against the Holy See had been 
 discovered. 
 
 2 Boninsegni, p. 121. 
 
140 GER0NIM0 MACHIAVELLI. [1458 
 
 have had the state by the ears, were arrested in order to settle 
 their affair for some time." x Under torture they were made 
 to confess whatever was wished, notably that they had con- 
 spired through poverty and uncaptained. 2 This was high 
 treason. " Not having been able to endure the frog," wrote 
 Nicodemo, " they will endure the serpent," unless Cosimo par- 
 dons them, " for he always pardons, declaring that it suffices 
 him to vanquish," a declaration that earned the praise and 
 admiration of fools. 3 On this occasion there was no great 
 merit, since, upon the confession of the same poor devil, all 
 the crime of the principal accused consisted in " having gone 
 too far in words." * 
 
 It is doubtful if Machiavelli conspired, but it is certain 
 that Luca Pitti did ; conspirators in power are not rare. The. 
 day fixed upon was the I ith August. Upon the 8th, Nico- 
 demo, Cosimo's confidant, communicated to his master, Sforza, 
 the plan already settled. " To-morrow the Signor of Faenza 
 will arrive with 300 horse and 50 fanti, as well as the troops 
 of Simonetto. On Thursday the people outside will come. 5 The 
 infantry will be billeted in the houses of the Arts around the 
 square ; the horses of the Signor of Faenza in the plain of San 
 
 1 " Pur questi detti pazarelli poriano tanto tirare le orechie adquesti de lo stato, 
 che gli sveglariano a volere sodare el facto loro per un pezzo " (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 August 1, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 109). 
 
 2 ' ' Chi piii errava chiede perdonanza e confessa peccava perch egli mancava 
 faccenda et vedessi non haveano cappo et sono homini da poco " (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 August 5, 1458, Orig., No. 1588, f. 114). " Questi giorni passati, questa citade ci 
 e stata in grande ruyna, pensando il populo cum alcuni gentilhomini deffare questo 
 stato et retoglierlo ne loro mane. . . . Havoli dato de la corda a prode tante che 
 hano discoperto el facto " (Giovanni de Babilano, Podesta of Florence, to Sforza, 
 August 13, 1458, ibid., f. 119). The prisoners are named in a letter of Nicodemo 
 dated August 8, ibid. , f. 116. 
 
 3 " Et passa cum summa laude et commendatione de Cosimo, quale . . . per- 
 dona ad ognuno et dice gli basta el vencere" (Nicod. to Sforza, August 5, 1458, 
 Orig., No. 1588, f. 114). "Sono cose che ne anderia la vita et credessi che 
 moiano, ma la bonta de Cosimo ha viso de camparli " (Nicod. to Sforza, August 8, 
 ibid., f. 116). 
 
 4 " Uno M. Geronimo Machiavelli quale era el da piii fosse fra costoro et era 
 andato molto innanti con le parole" {ibid., Letter of August 5, f. 1 14). 
 
 5 Thus the country was Cosimite, and did not believe itself to have a right to 
 the same liberty as the townspeople. 
 
1458] MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. i 4 i 
 
 Salvi, outside the gate of alia Croce, and those of Simonetto 
 between the Lastra and the gate of Pisa. On the morning 
 of the day decided by parliament, they will come and range 
 themselves for battle upon the place. All the people will be 
 there unarmed. The lords will read a list of the numerous 
 citizens to whom they will say they have given balie to im- 
 prove the ground, and they will ask the people if they are 
 content. Those who are well disposed will cry ' Si, si/ and 
 every one will follow their example, as always happens. 1 The 
 lords, plaudentes et exsidtantes, will rise from the ringhiera ; 
 they will return to the palace, and this will terminate the 
 festivities. Then little by little the number of the members 
 of the balie will be reduced ; a few will remain who will 
 reform the state according to their fancy for some time, and 
 then we can estimate this Signory and commons which for so 
 many years have lived but upon agitation. Piero de Cosimo 
 arrives to-day. He wishes to be present at this act, which 
 does not take place often, and will be played without danger. 
 He has left his wife and family well protected at Cafaggiolo." 2 
 This may, indeed, be called a confession shorn of pretence. 
 The unworthy parliamentary snare is shown to light, and 
 Cosimo's complicity placed beyond a doubt, in spite of his 
 affected neutrality. 3 These accusing proofs are not to be 
 found in the archives of Florence, which by what has been 
 said allow us to guess what has not been said. 
 
 From the 8th to the I ith secret meetings were multiplied. 
 Nicodemo took part in them. Begged to give his advice, he 
 consented ; but he refused to mount on horseback, because no 
 appeal to arms had been made to Milan. But at least they 
 made him promise to shut himself up in the palace to guard 
 it with Piero de Cosimo, Angelo Acciajuoli, and other impor- 
 tant citizens. On the morning of the I ith the programme 
 
 1 " Et cossi fara il populo, como e de usanza." 
 
 2 Nicod. to Sforza, August 8, 1458, Orig., No. 1588, f. 116. 
 
 3 "Benche Cosimo se ne porti molto saviamente e in vista quasi neutrale " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, August 1, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 109). 
 
i 4 2 CREATION OF A NEW BALIE. [1458 
 
 transcribed for Sforza by his ambassador was executed. The 
 Signer of Faenza, with about 150 horse and more than 1 000 
 infantry, took up his position on one side of the place. On 
 the other, Simonetto, with the same number of horse and more 
 than 5000 infantry, gathered in the country or in the moun- 
 tains of Bologna. At the opening of the streets were more 
 than 2000 citizens, armed to the teeth, and devoted to the 
 state ; as for the rest of the people, they were allowed into the 
 middle of the square unarmed. Cosimo stayed in his palace 
 well guarded, with Nicodemo and ' ' such a quantity of arms 
 and armour that they were worth a treasure, and were un- 
 matched by any other collection in Italy." l 
 
 Then why any surprise that everything was accomplished 
 that morning " in the greatest possible unison, without the 
 least scandal ? " 2 Giovanni de Balbiano, at that time podesta 
 at Florence, must have known very little of its history, 
 and not have felt its disgrace, to admire a unanimity so 
 well prepared. " It seemed to me the most surprising thing 
 in the world," he writes. " If I had not been present, I 
 never could have believed that so great a multitude could 
 have been gathered, after recent rumours, without a scene." * 
 In one voice, and like a clap of thunder, the crowd shouted, " #2, 
 si, fiat, fiat ! " 4 to the proposal to grant full balie to the lords 
 and 250 other citizens to reform the state, to preside at the 
 election of public officers at judgments non-judicial, at the taxa- 
 tion and distribution of taxes, and at the reconstitution of the 
 exchanges for five years, and that until the end of the follow- 
 ing January, which meant a duration of about six months. 5 
 The podesta was confirmed in full power for a year, without 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, August II, 1458, Orig., No. 1588, f. 117. The podesta 
 of Florence, writing to Sforza, estimates the number of soldiers assembled at 
 12,000 cavalry or infantry (August 13, ibid., f. 119). 
 
 - Nicod. to Sforza, ibid., f. 117. Cf. Boninsegni, p. 121. 
 
 3 Giov. de Balbiano to Sforza, ibid., f. 119. - 
 
 4 Giov. de Balbiano to Sforza, Orig., ibid., f. 119. 
 
 5 Fil. Rinuccini, p. 88; Boninsegni, p. 121 ; Cambi, Del, xx. 358; Machia- 
 velli, vii. 102 B ; Ammirato, xxiii. 
 
1458] THE SCAPEGOATS. 143 
 
 having to render any account, without being submitted to the 
 syndicate on leaving office. 1 The famous balie of 1434 was 
 renewed. They had got on very well with shameful jobbery, 
 and they expected to get on no worse. "The proposals of 
 the Signory," again writes Nicodemo, "seemed very honour- 
 able, so that the people readily accepted them, and every one 
 praised them." 2 The trick was played. 
 
 For the comedy to look serious, there remained to make 
 the scapegoats at hand pay the piper. Geronimo Machiavelli, 
 Pietro, his brother, and Carlo Benizzi were confined in Avignon 
 for twenty-five years, and the first paid 400, the second 3000 
 ducats. The three brothers Benizzi and their son, Antonio 
 Barbadori and his sons, were banished outside the boundaries 
 for the same time, nine others for a year, and all of course 
 deprived of office for ever. 3 The Marquis de Lunigiana 
 having given up Machiavelli, he was again put to the torture 
 and flung into prison. There he died in 1460 from his past 
 sufferings, perhaps indeed from others imposed afterwards, if 
 he was not killed as a definite liquidation of his debts. 4 
 
 These were only a few of the victims : the Signory of Novem- 
 ber, to rid itself of the suspects, swept away, in the general 
 condemnations pronounced in 1434, all the sons and nephews 
 of the citizens who had incurred them. Thus eleven families 
 were struck out : Bardi, Belfredelli, Brancacci, Peruzzi, Cas- 
 tellani, Strozzi, Ardinghelli, Baldovinetti, Guasconi, Guadagni, 
 Rondinelli. 5 " Let the reader learn," writes Giovanni Cambi 
 
 1 " Cum baylia et cum possanza de poter fare come meglio a my pari et piace, 
 senza rendere alcuna, raxone. ne stare a sindacato" (G. de Balbiano, ibid.). 
 
 2 Nicodemo to Sforza, August II, ibid., f. 117. 
 
 3 Archivio Sforzesco, Orig., No. 1588, f. 129. List of the confined, August 17, 
 1458. The names are there. Cf. Boninsegni (p. 121) and Fil. Rinuccini (p. 88), 
 who are inexact. 
 
 4 Contemporaries hesitate. Boninsegni (p. 127) says he died "per disagi o per 
 tormenti." Machiavelli (vii. 103 a) believes unhesitatingly that his ancestor "fu 
 morto in carcere," that is, assassinated. Ammirato (xxiii. 90), "Si mori per i 
 disagi patiti prigione." Gir. Machiavelli died, says Inghirami (viii. 351), seeing 
 the value of a republican heart in a country of slaves. Cf. Cambi, Del., xx. 361. 
 
 5 Fil. Rinuccini, p. 88 ; Cambi, Del., xx. 362. 
 
i 4 4 COSIMO'S SYSTEM. [i459 
 
 upon it, "never to give the balie, never to let parliament 
 act. Better to die sword in hand than allow a tyrant to 
 be established, for in a little while he degrades those who 
 have made him great ; he surrounds himself with new men 
 unknown to the city, having every reason to sustain him lest 
 his fall should involve their own." 1 Thus speak the first 
 historians of " the father of his country." We are carried as 
 far away from the clemency of Augustus as from the universal 
 consent to his domination. What the cold Guicciardini, who 
 belongs to posterity, says of the early days of Cosimo may be 
 said of his latter days : " His rule was like all newly estab- 
 lished rules — severity and bad precedent in abundance." s 
 
 This authoritative balie, which was substituted for, or rather 
 superposed upon, all other official powers, which was to last 
 five years and be renewed every five years, strengthened for 
 ever the secret power of Cosimo, and made him absolutely 
 master under the guise of a smiple citizen. 3 It was the 'key 
 of his system. Machiavelli has clearly said that the men who 
 governed from 1434 to 1494 professed " that it was necessary 
 every five years to regain possession of the state by inspiring 
 the same terror with which they had seized it before," and he 
 justifies this policy by the fact that every ten years people 
 change fashions, ideas, and transgress the laws. 4 The in- 
 tention was to make up in material comforts to the Floren- 
 tines who yielded what they lost in liberty — a sure means of 
 securing the vulgar. Cosimo and Luca Pitti obtained the 
 commission to canalise the Arno. 5 Stone houses were con- 
 structed to accommodate the ever-increasing population (1463 ). 6 
 In eighteen months (1458—59) ten galleys full of merchan- 
 dise had been sent to England, Barbary, and Constantinople. 
 
 1 Cambi, Del., xx. 363. 
 
 2 Guicciardini, Del Reggim. di Fir. , Op. ined. , ii. 68. 
 
 3 Ibid. , Storia di Fir. , Op. ined. , iii. 1 3. 
 
 4 Disc or si sopra la prima deca di T. Livie, iii. I, p. 254 A. 
 
 5 Ammirato, xxiii. 88. 
 
 6 Fil. Rinuccini, Ricordi, p. 90. 
 
H59] THE SHADOW FOR THE SUBSTANCE. 145 
 
 This merchandise was sold and replaced by a heavy freight 
 for return. By a miracle, there were no accidents by sea, and 
 Florence was in high glee over such a manifest and unusual 
 protection of Providence. 1 
 
 Another feature of this degrading policy : there was a pre- 
 tence made to return in honours the power of which the prin- 
 cipal officers were shorn. Already, in November 1453, Luca 
 Pitti being Gonfalonier of Justice, it was decided that when the 
 Priors went out they should be escorted by twelve mace-bearers 
 carrying silver maces. In January 1454, silver and carpets 
 were bought to beautify their tables and residences ; in the 
 palace courtyard the offices were displaced from under the 
 arcades, and the market that was held upon the square was 
 removed elsewhere, so that whoever approached the Signory 
 should be filled with respect. 2 In January 1459, after the 
 events we have recorded, and upon the proposal of the same 
 Luca Pitti, for the official and ancient title of Priors of Art — 
 that of the lords was in reality only a courtesy title — was sub- 
 stituted the name of Priors of Liberty ', so that the constant use 
 of the word should satisfy the credulous for the loss of the 
 thing. 3 To the Gonfalonier of Justice, who had henceforth 
 authority over the podesta, more and more reduced in power, 
 over the captain of the people, now only the chief of the soldiers 
 of the palace, over the executor, reduced to the condition of 
 bargello or hangman, was granted the privilege not only of 
 sitting upon the right of the Priors/but in the midst of them, 
 and to walk at their head — a serious change which was cele- 
 brated by processions. 4 Until then, the gonfalon of justice 
 was remitted to the Gonfalonier entering office by the podesta ; 
 henceforth he was to receive it from the Gonfalonier leaving 
 office, so that there should be no interruption in the transmis- 
 
 1 Boninsegni, p. 125. Ammirato (xxiii. 87) only mentions five galleys. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxii. 78. 
 
 3 Cambi, Del., xx. 367 ; Nerli, I. iii. p. 49; Ammirato, xxiii. 88. 
 
 4 Nerli, 1. iii. p. 49 ; Machiavelli, vii. 103 A. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
146 POWER OF LUCA PITTI. [I4S9 
 
 sion of the principal magistrateship. 1 On the 3 I st January 
 1463, for appearance's sake, to throw dust in the eyes of the 
 people, four doctors were elected to sit in the podesta's palace 
 upon civil questions, with a salary of 300 florins; then two 
 others to sit in the captain's palace for appeals, and a notary 
 with forty fanti for the execution of the sentences pronounced 
 by the Eight of the balie. 2 
 
 Vain pretences ! illusive guarantees ! Cosimo was the sole 
 head, represented in his absence and in his son's (for both had 
 aged prematurely, were chained to the house with gout, and 
 usually lived in the country) by the faithful Luca Pitti, who 
 was followed everywhere and treated with honour as the first 
 citizen of the Eepublic. 3 In matters of cunning and ferocity 
 he at first had shown himself violent ; but by effort he culti- 
 vated courtesy, was amiable to everybody whose interest it was 
 to pretend to find him such while favours were in his hands. 
 He did not give them away : we are assured that he received 
 at one time from the Signory and from numerous Florentines 
 presents amounting to 20,000 ducats (December 23, 1463). 4 
 
 His appetite, once excited, grew insatiable. He wanted to 
 
 1 Cambi, Del., xx. 361 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 83. 
 
 2 Alam. Rinuccini, Ric. % p. 90. Ammirato (xxiii. 87) says that the Eight were 
 a recent creation ; he believes that later they were called " the Eight of practice." 
 According to Reumont (Cenni siii Magistrati della Rep.), the Eight of balie and 
 of guard had the charge of criminal and police affairs. Their office lasted four 
 months, but it should be confirmed at the beginning of the third by the incoming 
 Signory. They sat in the podesta's palace. The same Reumont, at the words 
 " Eight of practice," returns to "Ten of Liberty, also called Ten of balie or of 
 war, or of war and peace, and instituted in 1423." There were the Eight of war 
 before them in 1376. In 15 12 the Ten of Liberty were suppressed, and replaced 
 by the Eight of practice. It was a case for crying with General La Marmora : 
 " Un po piu di luce ! " But we recognise our impotence, and it is a little Florence's 
 fault with her plethora of offices succeeding, or rather superseding each other, with- 
 out either use or reason. 
 
 3 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., Op. ined., iii. 13. Nicodemo, speaking of an im- 
 portant decision to raise ("far novo squitinio ad tuti li offitii "), but difficult because 
 it needed "tre consigli de popolo et tre di comune," adds: "Li piu credono se 
 habia ad obtenere per rispecto a l'autorita de Luca Pitti." (July 24, 1458, Orig., 
 1588, f. 96.) 
 
 4 Morelli, Del., xix. 179. 
 
1459] THE PITTI PALACE. 147 
 
 compete with and even eclipse the Medici. As there were 
 balls in their arms, he added a bomb to his. Not so rich as 
 they, he lived more ostentatiously. He built "two superb 
 and royal palaces," says Machiavelli, 1 one at Kusciano, whose 
 walls extended a mile, the other equally large, at the foot of 
 the hills of Oltrarno, the famous Pitti palace, that has kept 
 his name even after the Medici, raised to the title of Grand 
 Dukes, and, in need of wider space, established themselves 
 therein. For the construction of these costly edifices, arbi- 
 trary power and unquestioned privileges came not amiss ; he 
 made the commons and private individuals furnish him with 
 money and materials. All burglars, murderers, and exiles 
 had only to work for him to find a shelter more sure than a 
 sanctuary in the shadow of the stones that were heaped in the 
 cyclopean fashion of the Etruscans. 2 The Medici must have 
 envied him this invention. As for the Florentines, they re- 
 garded this subaltern tyranny as intolerable, and yet it lasted 
 eight years ! 3 
 
 Festivities were their consolation, as in olden times they 
 had been their delight. They sought every excuse for them, 
 and certainly they missed none. Panem et circenses, a degraded 
 people want nothing else. iEneas Sylvius, a learned man 
 in the imperial service, as celebrated as Pope as he had been 
 as a man of science, had succeeded (August 16, 1458) old 
 Calixtus III., the enemy of Alphonsus of Naples, whose 
 minister he had been. 4 Given up to the idea of a crusade 
 against the Turks, Pius II. had, from his elevation, vexed the 
 Florentines by his relations with the Aragonese, and by invest- 
 ing with royal rights the successor of their irreconcilable 
 enemy, Don Ferrante, Ferrando or Ferdinand, the false and 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vii. 103 A. 
 
 2 Ibid.; Ammirato, xxiii. 87. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vii. 103 A. 
 
 4 Cosimo did not believe in this enmity. The King and the Pope, he said, 
 were "unum et idem, posto che facciano tale vista del contrario. ... II Re non 
 extima el Papa, como quello che cognosce da poco et sa non gli po scampare da le 
 mani" (Nicod. to Sforza, April 4, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 50). 
 
148 GALEAZ MARIA AT FLORENCE. [1459 
 
 cruel bastard of Alphonsus the Magnanimous. 1 All Italy, 
 as well as Florence, preferred the good-natured race of Anjou ; 
 but no state was so bound to them as this Kepublic by the 
 overtures and protestations made to Charles VII. and his 
 family. Everything justified Florence's dissatisfaction with 
 the Pope. Notwithstanding which, when they learnt that this 
 same old sovereign, whom Cosimo abused for undertaking 
 the work of a young man, 2 was to pass through their town 
 on his way to Mantua, where he had summoned an immense 
 meeting of Christian princes, they prepared to do him every 
 honour, in other words to amuse themselves. Their festivities 
 were so well known to be matchless, 3 that Sforza, sending his 
 son Galeaz Maria, aged seventeen, with his compliments to 
 the pontiff, allowed him to go to Florence, rather than to the 
 nearer town of Mantua. 
 
 Galeaz Maria arrived on April 17, 1459, and was lodged 
 in Cosimo's palace. From the 19th he sent his father 
 a valuable account of his stay, which give us a better glimpse 
 of the private lives of this family of upstarts than does ordi- 
 nary history. Whenever he went to hear mass at the Nun- 
 ziata, or to pay a visit to the Priors of Liberty, a crowd of 
 citizens gathered round him and followed him, delighted to 
 see him shaking hands with each of the nine members of the 
 Signory. Whenever he returned to the Medici palace, his 
 hosts came to meet him. As a rare mark of intimacy, they 
 allowed the women to remain in the room where they received 
 him. 4 At least once a day one of Piero's daughters played 
 
 1 October 1458. See Sismondi, vi. 324. 
 
 2 Machiavelli, vii. 104 B; Ammirato, xxiii. 92. " Hano in horrido et odio la 
 natura del Re di Ragona (Alphonsus), al quale dicono aver usate molte cortesie 
 et portato per suo amore mille corne, et tamen non l'hano may possuto placare ne 
 adomesticare " (Nicod. to Sforza, April 9, 1458, f. 54). 
 
 3 " Qui e uno vetustissimo dicto, cioe che li signori fiorentini non sano spendere 
 poco ne l'assay, se non a lume de lucerna, cioe in furia " (Nicod. to Sforza, December 
 15, 1457 ; Arch, di Milano, in Buser, Append., p. 399). 
 
 A After mentioning all that he finds agreeable in this reception, Galeaz Maria 
 adds, " Ma molto magiore l'usare la domesticheza con mi che egli fa in fare stare 
 le done sue dove io sto " (Galeaz Maria to Sforza, April 19, 1459, Orig., 1588, f. 225). 
 
1459] FESTIVITIES IN HIS HONOUR. 149 
 
 upon a metal instrument for him. 1 Does this not resemble a 
 matrimonial overture ? This is not all. The young Signor is 
 enticed to Careggi, where he admires everything — -the gar- 
 dens, the palace, the furniture, and the cooking. He dined 
 with all the family, except Cosimo's son Giovanni, who did 
 not sit at table, and did not even eat, that he might see the 
 others attended to. Galeaz notes eight dishes raised and gilt, 
 without counting the sweetmeats. " It was splendid," he 
 writes. Afterwards they went into another room. There a 
 master sang to the lyre. A poet recited verses in honour of 
 the foreigner, who naturally found that " no poet or orator 
 had ever before spoken so well. Some of his comparisons 
 surpassed Lucan and Dante. It was a mixture of history and 
 fable, plentifully sprinkled with the names of the poets, the 
 Eomans, and all the Muses." After music and poetry came 
 dancing. Piero, his "tall daughter," or his eldest, Giovanni's 
 wife, and others, among them a Strozzi, one of the most 
 beautiful women of Florence, and several country-folk danced. 
 They danced Florentine dances, " with leaps and capers." 
 A supper finished the proceedings. After this intimate enter- 
 tainment, on his return to his room, Galeaz found two mes- 
 sengers who came to offer him a parrot, a monkey, and a cat. 2 
 Two days later (April 25) Pius II. made his solemn entrance, 
 followed by ten cardinals, sixty bishops, and a number of pre- 
 lates. 3 He was received with a flourish of oratory, young 
 Sforza 4 making his speech on his knees ; and having offered 
 his foot to be kissed, he was placed upon a seat covered with 
 brocade, and held upon their shoulders by Galeaz, and the 
 Signors of Bimini, Carpi, and Forli. In olden times it was con- 
 
 1 " Fea spnare una figliola di Piero suo figliolo uno organo do cave, che era una 
 zentil cosa da oldire . . . laqual cosa pero l'ha facto ogni di dopo ch'io sono qui " 
 (Galeaz Maria to Sforza, April 19, 1459, Orig., 1588, f. 215). 
 
 2 Galeaz Maria to Sforza, April 23, 1459, Orig., 1588, f. 226. 
 
 3 Boninsegni, p. 123. 
 
 4 Sforza's ambassadors are wearisome about his son's eloquence, modesty, and 
 prudence in this ceremony. See their two letters of April 27, and that of Galeaz 
 to his mother of same date. Orig., 1588, f. 227-229. 
 
ISO SPECTACLES AND SPECTATORS. [M59 
 
 sidered enough to mount a Pope, upon his entrance into a town, 
 upon a magnificently caparisoned mule. Crescit eundo. " It 
 was^pride, and not piety," writes the historian Cambi. 1 
 
 At night the jousts were celebrated upon the square of 
 Santa Croce, by the light of more than 300 torches. On April 
 30, at the Mercato Nuovo, there was a ball, where the young 
 people of both sexes, dancing officially in the name of the com- 
 mons, changed their dresses several times, each costume more 
 magnificent than the last. Eefreshments were offered in 
 vases and baskets of silver. The spectators were numbered at 
 6o,ooo. 2 Certainly the twentieth part could not find accom- 
 modation in such a narrow if splendid square. By "spec- 
 tators," doubtless the immense crowd gathered in the neigh- 
 bourhood to see the guests is meant. 3 On the 2nd May 4 a 
 chase took place in the square of the Signory. All the issues 
 were closed, the public protected, and a collection of animals 
 let loose — horses, bulls, cows, calves, buffaloes, boars, wolves, 
 one giraffe, at that period a novelty, and a few lions — that 
 the Republic kept from time immemorial. But the noble 
 brutes, ruined by a long captivity, bewildered and frightened 
 by the tumult and shouts, only showed a feeble front to each 
 other. The spectacle fell flat, and was ridiculous. 5 Vexed 
 by this failure, the Signors tried to atone for it by courtesies 
 and a banquet, to which Galeaz Maria and several cardinals 
 were invited, and which cost a mint of money. 6 
 
 1 "Cheffu chosa di superbia e non di santita" (Cambi, Del., xx. 369). 
 
 2 Cambi, ibid. 
 
 3 A long description of these feasts in verse may be seen in Muratori (R. I. S., 
 Supp., ii. 723-75 2 )- 
 
 4 Date given by Galeaz the next day, who could not have been mistaken (Orig. , 
 1588, f. 233). The descriptive poem referred to says May 1 (p. 741). 
 
 6 It was remembered long afterwards. Proposing a fresh trial of the lions, 
 March 15, 1462, the people cried, " Un porco ghagliardo et poy una cerva 
 grande." Nicodemo, reporting the fact, adds, "Et fecero bona prova et bel 
 vedere molto piu che a la caccia grande del nostro 111. Conte Galeaz" (March 16, 
 1462, Orig., 1589, f. 51). 
 
 6 Galeaz to Sforza, May 3, 1459, Orig., 1588, f. 233; Cambi, Del., xx. 369- 
 370; Morelli, Del., xix. 178; Boninsegni, p. 124; Fil. Rinuccini, p. 89; Poem 
 
1459] THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE. 151 
 
 On the evening of the same day came the real compensation. 
 In the trembling and fantastic flame of torches, Florence cele- 
 brated the triumph of Love. Twenty young " gentlemen," 
 the first of the town, and a regiment of men on foot, armed 
 with wands decorated with various devices, walked before a 
 car drawn by two white horses. The horses were richly har- 
 nessed in brocade and velvet. Behind came the standard and 
 the trumpets. The car was of fine gold, and raised from the 
 four corners into a sort of campanile, surmounted by an apple, 
 the whole of pure gold. Young boys carrying lanterns at the 
 end of their wands formed a fiery garland which threatened 
 to burn the car. Conspicuous in the middle stood a youth 
 dressed in flesh-coloured tights, with many-hued wings, his 
 eyes bandaged, bow and arrow in hand — the god of Love ! 
 Twelve youths broke a lance against a richly decorated wooden 
 horse, and this was the end of the spectacle. We must add 
 the epilogue of gifts. Galeaz Maria, who, more than Pope 
 Pius II., was the hero of these scenes, since more than ever 
 was the Republic in need of his father, received from the 
 Signory two silver basins and vases so heavy, that a single 
 man could hardly lift one ; twenty-four cups exquisitely 
 wrought, and very heavy too; the whole valued at 1800 
 ducats. This he called a small present. 1 He had acquired 
 the lust of gold in a good school. 2 
 
 These festivities were, if not interrupted, troubled and 
 saddened by the illness that carried off* St. Antoninus, the 
 venerated Archbishop of Florence, on the 10th May. 3 This 
 little man, called Antonino because of his low stature, had 
 
 in R. I. S., Supp., ii. The poem is headed by a vignette showing the empty 
 space and the lions diverting themselves. Only few spectators are seen. 
 
 1 Galeaz Maria to Sforza, May 3, 1459, Orig., 1588, f. 233. One cardinal, taking 
 Galeaz for a child, sent him a toy ship beautifully worked in crystal and silver 
 (ibid.). 
 
 2 The festivities were hardly ended when Galeaz left Florence, preceding the 
 Pope by two days (Boninsegni, p. 124 ; Fil. Rinuccini, p. 86), which proves that 
 he came for his own pleasure, and not through respect. 
 
 3 Ughelli, Italia Sacra, to the Archbishops of Florence, iii. 173. 
 
152 DEATH OF ST. ANTONINUS. [i459 
 
 worn the mitre in his native town from the year 1446. The 
 Pope had to use his authority to force him out of the Domi- 
 nican convent of Fiesole, and the Florentines welcomed him 
 with delight, although it seemed strange to these pretended 
 democrats to see the son of the humble notary Pierozzo raised 
 to a rank so high. 1 If he courted the Medici like everybody 
 else, it was simply that he could not but be like Panurge's 
 sheep. Generous, charitable, indulgent for others, for him- 
 self he was rigid, and preached virtue by example as well as 
 by words, living in his episcopal palace in a small cell fur- 
 nished with a monk's bed and a wooden seat, and leaving 
 behind him, for all possessions, hardly the value of £120 and 
 the mule he was in the habit of riding. 2 
 
 But he also left as a lasting remembrance a charitable 
 establishment that deserves mention, because it still exists 
 — the buonuomini of San Martino. Their duty was to suc- 
 cour the wretched victims of confiscation and despoilment. 
 Knowing the encroaching proclivities of these societies, the 
 prudent prelate imposed upon his own the obligation to buy 
 no land, to amass no capital, and to spend everything in alms, 
 no matter how great were the gifts or legacies it might 
 receive. 3 He had the rare fortune of proving a prophet in 
 his own country. His death was an apotheosis. The citizens 
 followed his funeral as far as San Marco, his own convent, 
 where he was buried. They acquired the habit of invoking 
 him, of consecrating to him images and ex voto offerings, 
 thereby forcing his canonisation upon the Holy See. 4 
 
 Pius II. had gone to Mantua ; he returned thence humbled 
 enough, without having excited the Christian princes against 
 
 1 Boninsegni, p. 125. 
 
 2 Vespasiano, Vita del? Arcivesc. Antonino Fior., c. 14, Spicil. Rom., i. 242 ; 
 Pii II. Comment., 1. ii. p. 50; Boninsegni, p. 124; Ammirato, xxii. 49. 
 
 3 Boninsegni, p. 125 ; G. Capponi, ii. 72 ; Martelli, a work upon the buon- 
 uomini di S. Martino and their history to our times in the Rassegna Nazionale, 
 Ann. vi., February I, 1884. 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 124; Adrian IV. in 1524 canonised St. Antoninus. See 
 Ughelli, iii. 173. 
 
1459] ARAGON AND ANJOU. 153 
 
 the Turk ; those of Italy above all being quite given up to 
 their selfish quarrels. The question of the hour was the 
 struggle between Ferrante of Naples and Renews son, John of 
 Anjou and Duke of Calabria. Simultaneously the two rivals 
 solicited the aid of Florence and Venice — Ferrante, according 
 to the engagements of the league of 1455 ; John, in virtue of 
 the bond between the house of France and the two Republics. 
 The one title had the double merit of being recent and written, 
 while the other was lost in the night of ages ; but the balance 
 was established by the fact that John possessed the general 
 sympathy ; his modesty, his honesty, his goodness and humanity 
 won him the praise of all. 1 The balance even dipped on John's 
 side, and, as we are always ready to justify our actions by 
 sound reasons, it was said that both Republics were pledged 
 to Naples, and not to the princes of Aragon, seeing that kings 
 are supposed to treat in the name of their subjects, and that 
 the alliance could not compel the allies fco force a hated king 
 upon the kingdom. It was added that Don Ferrante had lost 
 the right to appeal to the treaty of the league by permitting 
 Piccinino, and even ordering him perhaps, to make war upon 
 the Tuscans. 
 
 But Florence did not at once decide. 2 Between Charles 
 VII., who occupied Genoa, and Don Ferrante, who disputed it 
 with him, her citizens were divided. Acciajuoli and Dietisalvi 
 believed Don Ferrante would succeed 3 because of " the natural 
 negligence of the French," * and along with many others de- 
 sired it. Cosimo was of another opinion, and his old hatred 
 
 1 Letter of the Signory to Charles VII., June 30, 1455, to King Rene, undated ; 
 text in Desjardins, i. 80. Replies to an ambassador of Charles VII., October 7, 
 1458, and one of Rene, October 21, 1458; text in Desjardins, i. 87, 91. 
 
 2 The negotiations lasted all the year 1458. See documents in Desjardins, i. 
 82-96. They lose a little of their value when we remember that these discus- 
 sions were only, as low comedy style calls it, " La bagatelle de la porte." 
 
 3 Nicod. to Sforza, April 9, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 54; August 17, 1463, Orig., 
 1589, f. 190. Nicodemo formally states that Dietisalvi is Aragonese because 
 Cosimo is French. 
 
 4 "Per la loro innata negligentia" (Nicod. and the Bishop of Modena to 
 Sforza, May 6, 1458, ibid. t f. 57). 
 
154 COSIMO AND SFORZA : [1459 
 
 of the Aragonese, strengthened incessantly by daily squabbles, 1 
 was of course shared by the greater number of his country- 
 men. More zealous on John of Calabria's side than Venice, 
 he promised him an annual subsidy of 8 0,000 florins. Every- 
 thing depended upon Sforza, his right hand, in the keeping of 
 his promise, and Sforza at that moment leaned towards the 
 King of Naples. Weak as this prince was, and weaker still 
 by reason of the Pope's enmity, since he could no longer have 
 designs upon Milan, he ceased to be a dangerous neighbour 
 for Genoa. 2 It was Sforza who advised Don Ferrante to recall 
 the treaty of the league in claiming the help of the Florentines 
 when he asked to be rid of the Pope. 3 Cosimo reminded him 
 of his obligations to the house of Anjou, his wrongs from the 
 house of Aragon, showed him the latter as a lost cause, and 
 begged him not to resuscitate the dead. He offered himself 
 as intermediary between him and the Duke of Calabria, with 
 the promise to obtain fair conditions. 4 
 
 1 " L'universale de li cittadini nel comuni voriano piutosto Francia per ris- 
 pecto a l'amicitia antiqua" (Nicod., Letter of April 9, 1456, f. 54). "Non se 
 mostrano contenti die l'habii piutosto luy che Francesi " (May 6, 1458, f. 57). See 
 text above, p. 148, note 2. The King of Naples held in dependence all the ports 
 of the Florentine coast. A Genoese galley, pursued by the Neapolitans, sought 
 refuge at Leghorn ; they wanted to seize it. Not being able, they charged 100 
 ducats for their disappointment, and seized three barques manned by seventeen 
 sailors. The captain of Leghorn retorted by seizing twelve men of the Neapoli- 
 tan galleys who had come ashore. The Florentines said, " Io mi darey prima 
 al inimico de Dio non che al gran Turcho che patergli tanta puzza" (Nicod., 
 April 9, 1458, f. 54). 
 
 2 " De Re Ferrando se haveria molto meglior servitio che del patre, presertim 
 perche la reputation e menore, et ex consequente luy ha major bixogno de amici " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, July 15, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 94). The proofs of pontifical 
 enmity may be seen in the two despatches of Don Ferrante and Nicodemo to 
 Sforza of 20th and 24th July 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 95-96. 
 
 3 He asks, "De duobus alterum : o mandino al Papa, a removerlo de questa 
 opinione, o per via d'arme gli propulsino questa ingiuria da dosso" (Nicod. to 
 Sforza, July 29, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 103). Pius only continued the policy of 
 Calixtus III., who had excommunicated the King of Aragon and of Naples. See 
 the discourse of the ambassador of France, Milon de Liers, doctor and Dean of 
 Chartres, in Desjardins, i. 88. 
 
 4 See this letter of Cosimo in R. I. S., xxi., as a note to Simoneta's text, 
 p. 701-703. Nothing in Simoneta indicates precisely the date of this letter and 
 the reply ; but above the columns in which they are reported are "An. 1459." 
 
1460] THEIR DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. 155 
 
 Sforza preferred something craftier than these commonplace 
 tactics of a veteran politician. At first alleging his engage- 
 ments, which he could have broken had interest prompted 
 him to do so, he replied that Don Ferrante was far from 
 dead ; that he even had over his rival the advantage of pos- 
 sessing capital and fortresses ; that only possessing his king- 
 dom, 1 he became Italian, in which he differed from his father, 
 who also reigned in Spain, and from the princes of Aujou, 
 who were only supported in Naples by the insolent and 
 ambitious French, who despised the manners and laws of 
 other races, and who already had a footing in Italy by 
 their garrisons of Asti and Genoa, their alliances in Kom- 
 agna, and by their conquests in Calabria. Established in 
 the North, was it the intention to establish them in the 
 South ? 2 
 
 As reason is always in the right, Sforza gained over Pius 
 II. in spite of the Pope's inveterate dislike of his Neapolitan 
 neighbours and their king. In turn, Pius II., passing through 
 Florence, where he felt himself too unpopular 3 to remain 
 longer than forty-eight hours 4 (January 27, 1460), ques- 
 tioned Cosimo, and forced him to withdraw the vote of sup- 
 plies to John of Calabria. By a common agreement, Florence 
 and Venice consented to a strict neutrality, while promising 
 both rivals friendship and service. 5 
 
 In reality this right-about-facing cost Cosimo nothing ; he 
 was used to double dealings. Two years earlier he sent an 
 embassy to the King of Naples that provoked a protest from 
 
 1 This was just the reason that decided the French upon a fresh expedition : 
 " Nullum aliud regnum nisi Sicilie retinentem, tempus Renato Regi visum est 
 illius regni recuperandi " (October 20, 1458, Embassy of the Bishop of Marseilles 
 in Rene's name ; text in Desjardins, i. 90). 
 
 3 See the text of this reply in Simoneta, R. I. S., xxi. 703-706. Cf. Ammirato, 
 xxiii. 89. 
 
 3 " L'universale de la citta non amano el Papa" (Nicod. to Sforza, June 28, 
 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 256). 
 
 4 Boninsegni, p. 126. 
 
 8 Pius II. Comment., 1. iv. p. 96; Ammirato, xxiii. 89. 
 
156 FICKLENESS OF COSIMO. [1460 
 
 the Bishop of Marseilles, Rene's ambassador. 1 It is worth 
 seeing the reply the Gonfalonier of Justice, Otto Niccolini, 
 was ordered to make the prelate : the Kepublic had concluded 
 the treaties which prevented it from interfering in behalf of 
 Rene* with the prince's own assent, and he could not want his 
 allies to incur dishonour and infamy without profit even to his 
 own cause, 2 since Florence was the least powerful of the con- 
 federates. How could she sustain a war with her poor terri- 
 tory solely supported by her trade, a trade too considerable 
 in Apulia and Sicily to be exposed to loss by the loss of secu- 
 rity upon the seas ? 3 The Bishop was not silenced : no treaty 
 with a bastard against whom the Pope and the cardinals had 
 declared could be regarded as binding ; but knowing with whom 
 he had to deal, he demanded a written reply, 4 and persisted 
 in his demand, although the Gonfalonier declared his suspicion 
 of Florentine good faith an insult. 5 Hurtful or not, it was 
 justified. Cosimo's advice to the King of France and King 
 Rene* was still fresh in the memory. Had he not even traced 
 a plan for them ? After exhausting flattering terms upon the 
 Duke of Calabria, and the reverse upon the " King of Aragon," 
 he counselled the lords of the fleur-de-lis to join Milan, Lucca, 
 and Florence, to await the death of King Alphonsus and of Pope 
 Pius, both old men, to secure a favourable election at Rome, 
 and then together start an expedition against the kingdom. 6 
 
 1 " Et quum intellexit orator ipse destinasse Dominos oratores quosdam ad hunc 
 regnum Sicilie detinentem . . . dixit rem hanc Francorum regi et suo non medio- 
 crem admirationem allaturam ; ideoque rogare Dominos ut oratoribus ipsis desti- 
 natis scribant, ne ultra progrediantur " (October 20, 1458; text in Desjardins, 
 i. 90). 
 
 a "Dedecus illis et infamiam pararent, absque, aliqua ipsorum commoditate" 
 {ibid., p. 92). 
 
 3 "Nam ex Italie potentiis que in federe sunt, hanc minorem esse" (Otto 
 Nicolini, Gonf. of Justice, &c, ibid., p. 92, 93). 
 
 * The Bishop ojf Marseilles, ibid. , p. 94, 95. 
 
 5 Otto Nicolini, ibid., p. 95, 96. The Gonfalonier twists all the Bishop's argu- 
 ments against himself : Don Ferrante was always regarded as Alphonsus's son ; 
 Calixtus's decision was null ; the ambassadors could not be recalled. The negotia- 
 tions continued until 1460. See Desjardins, i. 96-100. 
 
 6 Nicodemo to Sforza, May 24, 1458, Orig., 1588, f. 74. 
 
1462] COSIMO'S WANT OF INSIGHT. 157 
 
 It is possible that in France this specious policy was well 
 liked, but the weathercock had again changed. 
 
 Rascality is not ability, and a man may be caught in 
 his own net. Cosimo's great ability, which history insists 
 upon, is not visible in his actions at this time ; the only 
 proof of it lies in his established rule, and in this he was 
 helped by circumstances. Towards the end of his career all 
 his calculations were false. In July 1461 Rene's fleet was 
 beaten by the Genoese ; 1 John of Calabria was defeated at Troia, 
 August 18, 1462. 2 Forsaken by his allies, he left the king- 
 dom in the spring of 1464, and Genoa at once submitted to 
 the Duke of Milan. 3 
 
 This was Cosimo's sole chance, to cling to his alliance in 
 order to obtain some advantage from it. 4 The Duke of 
 Milan was stronger than ever, the more so because Louis XL 
 avowed his intention to marry John of Calabria to Hippolita, 
 Sforza's daughter, and to unite with the latter as well as with 
 Florence to combat the Duke of Orleans' pretensions upon 
 Lombardy, and to support the young married pair in the con- 
 quest of Naples. 5 Well, this is just the moment he selected 
 to worry, or allow his old ally to be worried by impolitic 
 quibbles dictated by stinginess. It is an instructive detail. 
 
 To Sforza's reiterated and truly exasperating demands, 
 Cosimo at last sent him 50,000 ducats. 6 But if he had read 
 Seneca he would have learned that he who gives at once 
 
 1 See details in Sismondi, vi. 357-361. 
 
 2 The 4th of May preceding, when, twice victor, he still kept a footing in the 
 kingdom, Louis XI. thanked the Florentines for "labores non modicos et dili- 
 gentias per vos jam factus apud ducem Mediolani super pacificatione regis Sicilias " 
 (text in Desjardins, i. 134). 
 
 3 See Sismondi, vi. 357-361. 
 
 4 " La partenza di M. Alberico in su la quale fa fundamento (Cosimo) assay per 
 la salveza de' vostri incliti successori, ex consequenti de soy figlioli " (Nicod. to 
 Sforza, September I, 1463, Orig., No. 1589, f. 201). Machiavelli (vii. 104 b) says 
 that Cosimo was displeased that Sforza had not helped him to reconquer Lucca. 
 
 5 Report of the ambassadors of France, March 13 and 14, 1642, in Desjardins, 
 i. 127-133. In this collection are various documents (p. 104-124) proving the 
 friendly relations between Louis XL and Florence. 
 
 8 Nicod. to Sforza, June 6, 1463, 1589, f. 150. 
 
158 HUCKSTERING DIPLOMACY. [1464 
 
 gives twice, and he ignored the legal adage that we cannot 
 give and retain. The funds voted, he refused to allow them 
 to be claimed from the Signory until he had arranged matters, 1 
 he alone being responsible for the Duke, a chord he continually 
 played. 2 A month passed, when he, the master, made no objec- 
 tion to the exaction that the sum should be repaid in two 
 years. Even more, he made no statement regarding the nature 
 of the payment ; the text did not say whether the florins should 
 be larghi or di camera, which left it open to pay di sugello 
 florins, worth less, by which Sforza would lose seven thousand 
 ducats. Cosimo admitted that a loan or a subsidy should be 
 paid in florins di camera, but there was no remedy, he added, 
 as it would be necessary to have recourse to the councils. 3 
 " These fifty thousand ducats," Nicodemo wrote, " are turning 
 me into a goat. May the Lord send me death rather than 
 condemn me to go incessantly from the lords to the monte and 
 from the monte to the lords." 4 It was hardly worth while to 
 accuse the Venetians of sowing discord, 5 as Cosimo did, when 
 a quarrel with Sforza was risked like this for the sake of a few 
 ducats. It is true " the lying Venetians" cherished an extra- 
 ordinary hatred for the Florentines, 6 but this was only a loan 
 
 1 " Non vole Cosimo che per hogi faci la richiesta vostra de li 50 m. ducati ad 
 questa Signoria che e intrata questa matina, ma vole prima haver disposta la cosa " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, September 1, 1643, Orig., 1589, f. 201). 
 
 2 " Havimo voluto chiarire che qui non havete altro che luy (March 26, 1464, 
 Orig. , 1590, f. 91). Cosimo et Piero vogliono quel che noy, ma dubitano de doe cose 
 principalmente : una di non poter indure el popolo al bixogno vostro, dubitando 
 de guerra et de la disfactione de loro mercadanti et trafichi oltremonti. L'altra 
 che sopra de la borse de questo popolo, nol dicono a la scoperta, ma cum enigmati 
 che gli intendo benissimo" (April 4, 1642, Orig., 1589, f. 55). 
 
 3 ' ' Pur conclude non vi esser rimedio, perho ne da corozarsene " (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 September 27, 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 221, andBuser, Append., p. 415). Se si potesse 
 havere per qualche via extraordinaria senza havere a capitare a consigli " (October 
 16, 1463, f- 254). 
 
 4 October 1, 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 227, and Buser, Append., p. 416. 
 
 5 " Sentisti tu may, Nicodemo, li maiori bosardi et sfazati homini che sono 
 Venetiani. . . . Non si vergognano ad volere irritare el signore contra de noy " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, October 9, 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 243). 
 
 6 " Costoro ano tanto odio contra Fiorentini che he una cossa incredibile " 
 (Ghirardo de Colli to Sforza, Venice, March 24, 1^64, Orig., 1590, f. 83). 
 
1464] A FAMILY OF INVALIDS. 
 
 159 
 
 for a return. 1 For a loug while Florence had aroused a general 
 enmity. 2 
 
 While continuing to twist and turn according to his genius, 
 Cosimo was less cautious than in the past ; he felt himself well in 
 the saddle. Alessandra Macinghi, mother of the exiled Strozzi, 
 wrote these significant words : " It is well for those who side 
 with the Medici ; it is ill for those who side with the Pazzi." 3 
 A little earlier she lowered herself by saying, doubtless in secret 
 irony, that "every one should kiss the ground his feet had 
 touched." 4 However, at this time Cosimo was upon the decline. 
 Old, worried by gout, which left him susceptible to the slightest 
 damp, the slightest change of temperature, 5 reduced to go to bed 
 after his audiences, or even to receive in bed, 6 he was frequently 
 in fever or suffering a variety of internal troubles. 7 This lucky 
 family seems to have been a family of invalids : the famous 
 Doctor Benedetto of Norsia once found them all in bed ill. 8 They 
 were bad-tempered also, constantly quarrelling amongst them- 
 selves, incapable of listening to a third party in their disputes, 9 not 
 even to their intimate though untrustworthy friend Nicodemo. 10 
 
 1 " Mostro epso sign. Laurenso che il sign, suo intende benissimo l'ambitione et 
 mala dispositione de' Venetiani, et che veruna cosa desideri piu che trovarsi a la 
 persecutione loro" (Nicod. to Sforza, May 11, 1463, Orig., No. 1589, f. 138). 
 
 2 " Quel me doleva e che in fine se siano qua governati per modo che non habino 
 satisfacto a persona" (Nicod. to Sforza, March 16, 1462, Orig., 1589, f. 51). 
 It will be observed that this grave declaration preceded by eighteen months the 
 dissatisfaction over the 50,000 ducats. 
 
 3 Letters di tma Gentild., March 15, 1462, p. 256. 
 
 4 Ibid.) August 25, 1461, p. 249. 
 
 5 Nicod. to Sforza, October 24, 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 265 ; cf. April 4, 1458, 
 Orig., 1588, f. 50. 
 
 8 Nicod. to Sforza, February 21, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 52. 
 
 7 Letter of his son Piero, July 26, 1464, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 251, and Ricordo 
 of the same, p. 253. Cf. Alam. Rinuccini, p. 94 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 92 ; Bibl. Nat., 
 MSS. Ital., No. 348, f. 45 v°. 
 
 8 "Nicodemo wittily writes : "Non sapevano che maior honore se gli fare che 
 aspectarlo tucti in lecto, sperando tamen che gli havesse a liberare " (October 7, 
 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 237). 
 
 9 " Me confesso haverne facta pur cum molti etiam de soy carissimi, et non gli 
 consentono. Dissemi poy favellassi con alcuni. . . . L'odio e grande fra loro " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, March 24, 1462, Orig., 1589, f. 53). "Qui sono pur de' mali 
 spiriti et tucti nonse possono admonire" (ibid., August 8, 1463, f. 186). 
 
 10 u Cosimo et li soy non hano qui major ne piu ambitioso inimicoche Dietisalvi. 
 
160 DEATH OF GIOVANNI DE MEDICI. [1464 
 
 And yet these disagreements did not prevent them from 
 mourning whenever death struck one of them down. In 1 440 
 Cosimo lost his brother Lorenzo, from whom sprang the race 
 of Grand Dukes. In 1463 he lost his second son, Giovanni, 
 his sole and dearest hope, as Piero, five years older, was at this 
 time broken by gout, and hardly expected to survive his father. 
 Hope placed in him was hope placed in a rotten branch, for 
 Cosimo was well aware that his favourite, intemperate in eating 
 and drinking, had ruined his constitution, and was a victim 
 to his own excesses. 1 The grief upon his death was so des- 
 perate that it was feared his parents would not recover from 
 the shock, 2 an unnecessary apprehension, for Cosimo bore the 
 catastrophe more philosophically than any one could predict. 
 " He neither wept, nor did his voice shake, while he spoke like 
 a sage and a saint." He even consoled his consolers, saying 
 that there are only two kinds of men who need consolation — 
 those who have no memory and those who are not on good 
 terms with their Creator. 3 Christian resignation truly, and 
 very natural a month after he had lost his favourite son ; but 
 preceding the blow it is somewhat too Christian. Here is a 
 precious fact gathered from Nicodemo : " Cosimo quoted history 
 and texts from the Psalms, the Prophets, philosophers, and 
 Gentiles. He comforted us much better than we were able to 
 comfort him. We were interrupted by the church-bells, when 
 he prayed with marvellous devotion, and begged the Lord, if 
 his son Giovanni must die, to put an end to his own days 
 while yet he lived. And all this without a sigh or a tear. 4 
 It was like Job upon the death of his sons." 5 
 
 . . . Io sto cum Dietisalvi et cum ognuno qui come came et ungia ; et cognosco el 
 mal me poria far questa lettera" {ibid., August 17, 1463, f. 190). 
 
 1 Bibl. Nat., MSS. Ital., No. 348, f.49 v°. See Nicodemo's despatches of 25th 
 September, and 1st, 7th, and 10th October 1463, on Giovanni's illness and death. 
 Orig., 1589, f. 218-237. On Cosimo's last years, Reumont, Lorenzo il Magnifico, 
 c. viii. vol. i. p. 179-190. 
 
 2 " Parmi vedere nonperderamo luy che non perdessimo anche in poco tempo 
 el patre et la matre " (Nicod. to Sforza, October 10, 1463, f. 252). 
 
 3 Nicod. to Sforza, November 4, 1463, ibid., f. 275. 
 
 4 Nicod. to Sforza, October 31, 1463, Orig., 1589, f. 271. 
 
 8 /bid., November 4, 1463, f. 275. The very day of Giovanni's death. 
 
1464] COSIMO'S SONS. 161 
 
 Cosimo had a third son, a bastard, named Carlo, born of 
 a slave (very likely the Circassian he had bought at Venice, 
 1427, 1 for sixty-two golden ducats), and consequently not 
 recognised. 2 Hence the only hope of the growing dynasty lay 
 in Lorenzo, Piero's son. Already his grandfather contemplated 
 his marriage. 3 He suffered cruelly from the void around him, 
 and used to say that his house was too big for so small a family. 4 
 Two months before his death, he felt his end approaching, 5 
 
 1 "De genere Circassiorum setate annorum viginti duorum vel circa, vocatam 
 Magdalenam, sanam et integram de persona et de omnibus et singulis suis membris 
 tarn occultis quam manifestis ac a morbo caduco" (August 1, 1427, contract of 
 sale in Fabroni, Doc, p. 214). Cosimo had other slaves, four of whom walked at 
 his funeral. See Piero's note on the attendant expenses at the end of Fabroni. 
 
 2 Cosimo made him apostolic protonotary and chief of the chapter of canons at 
 Prato. There are letters of his to his father and brother {Carteggio Mediceo). 
 They concern private matters and the correction of MSS. His father ordered him 
 to translate from Greek to Latin the Letters of Phalaris. In his epitaph he is called 
 Cosimo's son, died in 1494. See Fabroni, p. 130, and Doc, p. 213. In an article 
 in the Revue des Deux Mondes, M. Blaze de Bury speaks of Cosimo's " sultanism," 
 but he also mentions the depopulation of Florence, caused by his sentences of 
 death, and he believes "logical intuition" surer than documents. We have not 
 met with anything to justify this assertion, and M. Pellegrini, consulted by us, 
 shares our opinion. Logical intuition is out of place in history. The gravest 
 charge against Cosimo is the accusation of Filelfo, his enemy, and what an enemy ! 
 He obtained from somebody a husband's rights over his wife, and, what is still 
 worse, granted his own to Pope John XXII. (Balthazar Cossa) : — 
 
 " Dicam ego pontifici qui cesserat oere Joanni 
 Prima nocte torum, sobolemque e sanguine sacro 
 Partum leno suam nondum appellare rubescit." 
 
 (Filelfo, Dec. vii. hec. 4, in Charles Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Republique des 
 Lettres, i. 54, Paris, i860). Let us add that Cosimo did not hesitate to accept the 
 dedication of Antonio Panormita's Hermaphrodite, a work that disgusted the cynical 
 Filelfo and Poggio, the author of which was denounced from the pulpits, and his 
 effigy was burned at Ferrara and Milan, while waiting to burn himself, according 
 to the wishes of Lorenzo Valla (Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Republique des 
 Lettres, i. 56). 
 
 3 He wished to marry him to Clarissa Orsini, of whom Lucrezia Tornabuoni, 
 Lorenzo's mother, said contemptuously, " La fanciulla a due buone parti, ch'e 
 grande e bianca" (Letter of Lucrezia to Piero, published with two others at 
 Florence in 1859. See Lettere di tma Gentild., p. 6, No. 1). 
 
 4 Machiavelli, vii. 104 B. 
 
 5 " Nicodemo mio, io non posso piu ; sentomi mancare in modo che me accordo 
 al andarmene" (Nicod. to Sforza, June I, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 212, and Buser, 
 Append., p. 422). At this time he was "in lecto da doy di in qua continuo, molto 
 defesso et invilito " {ibid.). See despatches of 13th and 20th July on the progress of 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
1 62 DEATH OF COSIMO. [1464 
 
 and expired en August 1, 1464, in his villa of Careggi, at 
 the age of seventy-five, after having repeatedly implored 
 Nicodemo to recommend his son Piero to the Duke of Milan, 
 whom he regarded, he said, as his God in this world. 1 
 
 This mighty leader of men departed life in lugubrious isola- 
 tion, those around him keeping away from him in vague fear 
 of pestilence. 2 Recognising the vanity of display, he begged to 
 be buried without any funeral pomp. 3 Out of respect for his 
 wishes, or perhaps through neglect, few invitations were sent 
 out, but every one rushed to Careggi. The body, followed by 
 four slaves, 4 was carried to San Marco, and afterwards to San 
 Lorenzo. Piero occupied a loggia in his palace upon the route of 
 the procession, where Nicodemo addressed him in a speech. 5 
 Thus the funeral oration was pronounced by a foreigner, not a 
 compatriot. Indeed, it was only the foreign princes and republics 
 that regretted him, for they dreaded his successors. Letters of 
 condolence poured into the Signory. 6 Sforza's were the prin- 
 cipal ones. His intimacy with the family gave him the right 
 to sympathise with them. So tenderly did he express his 
 sympathy, that every one wept as he read, and Piero commis- 
 sioned Nicodemo to beg him to discontinue " his mournful and 
 weeping letters, and to resign himself, as they did, to the 
 will of God." 7 A very curious compliment to Sforzas skill in 
 sympathetic correspondence ! Florence bore her loss no less 
 philosophically. For a moment she may have imagined her 
 
 the disease. A burning itch spread over his body ; he was a mere shell threaten- 
 ing to disappear unperceived. 
 
 1 " L'affectione che vi portava era paterna, licet ve haveva per suo Dio a questo 
 mondo, et nol direy se non l'havessi inteso da luy moltissime fiate " (Nicod. to 
 Sforza, August 1, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 316, and Buser, Append., p. 423). 
 
 2 "Che sono quasi soli per lo dubio de la peste " {ibid., August 1, Careggi, 
 f. 313, and Buser, App., p. 423). 
 
 3 Ibid., July 30, 1464, f. 311. Cf. Reumont, c. viii. p. 190. 
 
 4 Piero's note at the end of Fabroni. 
 
 5 Nicodemo to Sforza, August 4, 1464, f. 325. 
 
 6 Fabroni quotes a few. Doc, p. 262-263. 
 
 7 " Che si ponga fine ad questo scriver et lachrimoso . . . che se degni accor- 
 darsi come loro a la volunta et dispositione di N. S. Dio" (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 August 10.. 1464, from Montughi, Orig., 1590, f. 340). 
 
1464] POSTHUMOUS FLATTERY. 163 
 
 fortune dependent upon the existence of this man, 1 " who 
 dressed like a peasant and lived like a king," 2 but she soon 
 discovered that nobody is indispensable. It was only later, 
 when the inferiority of his son was recognised, that the Sig- 
 nory, in March 1465, decided to inscribe upon Cosimo's tomb, 
 at the foot of the high altar of San Lorenzo, the pompous and 
 undeserved title of "father of his country." 3 
 
 This was the beginning of the posthumous flattery that g*ave 
 law to history. Before his corpse the least indulgent of his 
 contemporaries was disarmed. Humanity is forgetful ; as soon 
 as we have ceased to suffer, we forgive those who caused our 
 suffering. Henceforth Cosimo was regarded as the greatest 
 man of Florence, by reason of his sense, his reputation, and his 
 wealth. 4 From a distance his rule was considered " doulce et 
 amyable, et telle que estoit necessaire a une ville de liberte." 5 
 Distance in space produces the same effect as distance in time. 
 Shadows and details disappear. To see them, the piercing eye 
 of hate is necessary. Thus Michele Bruto, a century later, 
 at Lyons, wrote, either from the memoirs or dictation of the 
 Florentine exiles, the victims of the Grand Duke Cosimo I., an 
 accusing and avenging history, which shows the older Cosimo 
 as the real author of the misfortunes of those whose secretary 
 the historian had constituted himself. 6 Bruto's authority is not 
 accepted, but it is worth at least that of Cosimo's professed 
 apologists, as far as facts are concerned. Take, for instance, 
 Machiavelli and Guicciardini. 7 Are they wrong when they 
 
 1 " La grandeza de V. S. E. e perho la megliore medicina habino costoro, et 
 drieto ad questo la vita di Cosimo" (Nicod. to Sforza, July 24, 1458, Orig., 1588, 
 f. 96). 
 
 2 Bibl. Nat., MSS. Ital., No. 348, f. 45 v°. 
 
 3 Ammirato, xxiii. 94 ; Bibl. Nat., MSS. Ital, No. 348, f. 45 v<>. 
 
 4 " Uomo di senno ricchezza, e riputatione tale che mai la nostra citta avea fino 
 ad ora avuto simile " (Alam. Rinuccini, p. 94). 
 
 5 Comines, 1. vii. chap. vi. vol. ii. p. 338, e"d. de la Societe de l'Histoire de 
 France. Pius II. is no less favourable. 
 
 6 Historia Florentines, Venice, 1 764 ; also in Burmann, Thes. Antiq. Ital. , 
 vol. viii. part I, p. 1-24. 
 
 7 Machiavelli, vii. 104, 105. Guicciardini, Del. Reggim. di Fir., Op. ined., 
 . 30. 
 
164 CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES. [1464 
 
 reproach Cosimo with having pressed on the war against Lucca 
 before his exile, to increase his own importance, and afterwards 
 with having impeded its progress, to ruin his enemies ; with 
 having enriched himself by the handliug of the public funds, 
 from which his credit held back his fellow-citizens; with having 
 revenged himself upon every illustrious member of the Repub- 
 lic, and, finally, with having joined Sforza in the interest of 
 his family rather than in that of his country ? * Even Caval- 
 canti is not more lenient to him, though he was in the begin- 
 ning, and he wrote in Florence and was a cotemporary. 
 
 But however ready we may be to believe the best established 
 charges of Cavalcanti and Bruto, there remains the undeniable 
 fact that Cosimo, without much violence, imposed his rule. An 
 authority quick to hide itself becomes tolerable, especially if it 
 happen to succeed one that nobody could regret. How could 
 the Florentines regard themselves as victims and humbled, 
 since they had given themselves up, or rather sold themselves ? 
 We are reminded of the quip of Jugurtha, already appro- 
 priated by Niccolo of Uzzano : ' ' Town to be sold if a buyer 
 be forthcoming." Florence found her purchaser, crafty rather 
 than brutal, and concealing corruption under a beneficent 
 exterior. 
 
 In the distance, with time, as was natural, painful memo- 
 ries of this sly and hypocritical ruler, of his heavy but veiled 
 despotism, faded. Only his unequalled liberality was remem- 
 bered, for he gave without counting, or only counted to 
 give ; he lent without claiming interest, and often forgot 
 the capital. Under these conditions, the people are indulgent 
 to the masters who spare their purses and help them to in- 
 crease them by agriculture and the bank. 2 The chief thing is 
 
 1 Michele Bruto, loc. cit. 
 
 3 See Cosimo's advice to Sforza: "Vi conforta a sgravare li vestri subditi, 
 tenere meglio pagati li salariati et provisional vostri, ex consequenti piu contenti, 
 et cossi ad non spendere si largamente et provedere che la 111. Mad. Duchessa 
 facia il simile. Item ad non vendere li offitii, poy honestamente vi conforta ad non 
 vi travagliare de benefitii, et sopratucto vi conforta ad mectere homini intendenti 
 et amorevoli ad havere cura de ordinare, accrescere et manegiare le intrate vostrc 
 
1464] MAGNIFICENCE OF COSIMO. 165 
 
 to rain terrestrial manna on their path. Like a pious man, 
 Cosimo said that he was not certain that his wealth was 
 honourably acquired, and that he had never given enough to 
 God to find him a debtor in his books. 1 Nobody saw the 
 cards, and could not follow the game ; they did not remark 
 that he always gave with an object in view, as in the case of 
 his bounty to Thomas de Sarzana, from whom, when this lettered 
 clerk became Pope, he obtained the title of Depositary of the 
 Church, so that at the jubilee of 1 450 he had already in his bank 
 100,000 pontifical ducats that brought him profit. 2 Thanks 
 to the power of gold, which we imagine to be modern, no man 
 cut such a figure in his time. Comines says that his house was 
 " la plus grande que je croy qui jamais ait este au monde, car 
 leurs serviteurs et facteurs ont eu tant de credit soubs coleur 
 de ce nom Medici, que ce seroit merveilles a croire a ce que 
 j'en ay vu en Flandre et en Angleterre." What Comines saw 
 in England was Edward IV. receiving the sum of 120,000 
 florins from Cosimo ; and in France he saw the same banker 
 offering himself as a surety for this king to the Duke of 
 Burgundy, once for 50,000, and again for 80,000 florins. 3 
 
 Indulgent to generous givers, mankind is no less so to great 
 builders. This Cosimo well knew ; it was as much through 
 interest as from taste that he built so many splendid edifices 
 at Venice and Padua during his exile, and at Florence after 
 his return : the convents of San Marco and Santa Verdiana, 
 the church of San Lorenzo and others near Fiesole, as well as 
 in the Mugello, the beautiful altars and chapels of the Novi- 
 ciate of Santa Croce, of the convent called the Angelo, and of 
 
 como ha facto hiy qui che da pochi anni in qua Vha accressute per quarto pin" 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, March 26, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 91). This admission did not 
 prevent Cosimo crying " Poverty," like a good merchant, upon occasion : " Ch'io 
 me trovi in evidente pericolo de omne mio stato et de quello ancora non ho guadag- 
 nato io et che l'hanno sudato li antenati mey, non me par sia da haverci pacienzia " 
 (ibid., May II, 1464, f. 160). 
 x x Vespasiano, Vita di Cosimo, c. 18; Spicil. Rom., i. 342. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 75. 
 
 3 Comines, 1. vii. chap. vi. vol. ii. p. 337, ed. de la Societe de l'Hist. de 
 France. 
 
166 COSIMO'S EDIFICES. [1464 
 
 the church of San Miniato a monte. The house in Milan, 
 where his agent, Portinari, had an office, was the most hand- 
 some and sumptuous in the town ; it is still to be seen to-day. 
 In Paris Cosimo restored the Italian College. In Jerusalem 
 he built an hospital for poor travellers. Naturally, he did not 
 forget himself. Both for his own comfort and the astonishment 
 of his countrymen, he built a house in Florence near San 
 Lorenzo, since known as the Palace Riccardi, which to-day is 
 regarded as a wonder of majesty and grace. He had four 
 country-houses, kingly palaces according to Machiavelli, in the 
 suburbs, at Careggi, at Fiesole, at Trebbio, and at Cafaggiola. 1 
 
 No year passed without his spending from 1 5,000 to 1 8,000 
 florins upon building; 60, 000 were sunk in his magni- 
 ficent palace in Florence ; 70,000 in the cloisters and other 
 edifices of San Lorenzo ; 80,000 in the Abbey of Fiesole ; 
 40,000 in the convent of San Marco, and even that was not 
 enough. 2 An unpublished author does not hesitate to state 
 the total expenses on this count at 500,000 crowns. 3 Cosimo's 
 son, Lorenzo, in the records he has left, asserts that from 1434 
 to 1 47 1 he and his father spent in taxes, alms, walls, &c, 
 663,755 florins. "A considerable sum," he writes, "but I 
 do not regret it. Many might think it would have been 
 better to have some of it in our pockets ; but for my part, I 
 regard it as an honour to our house." 4 
 
 These were Cosimo's securities against the future. " In less 
 than fifty years we shall be expelled ; but the buildings will 
 remain." 5 Against the worst chances he was thus preparing 
 a refuge for his great-nephews. 
 
 In addition to the common merit of the builder, he had that 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vii. 103 B. 
 
 2 Vespasiano, Vita di Cosimo, c. 8, 10, u ; Spicil. Rom., i. 331, 333, 335, et seq. 
 
 3 MSS. Ital., No. 348, f. 28 v°. 
 
 4 See these records in Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo ', iii. 98, 4th edit., London, 1800. 
 This large sum, Sismondi says (vi. 375, note), equals in weight and measure 
 7,975,060 francs, or about a million of francs, and about 32 millions of francs, 
 according to the proportion between metals and the price of labour. We have 
 still to learn the figure of the taxes and alms to know that of the buildings. 
 
 6 Vespasiano, Vita di Cosimo, c. 16 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 339. 
 
1464] ENCOURAGEMENT OF ARTS. 167 
 
 of the good builder. To what extent he naturally possessed the 
 love of arts and letters we cannot say ; but by protecting them 
 through fashion and calculation, he acquired the taste for them 
 and made them the consolation of his old age. Brunelleschi, 
 and Michelozzo, the two most illustrious architects of the time, 
 furnished him with plans for his Florence house. In choosing 
 the simpler and more modest designs of the latter, less illus- 
 trious than the former, he sacrificed nothing in elegance. 1 
 His constructions were decorated by the most expert artists. 
 Following the advice of Donatello, he gathered as models all the 
 works of ancient art that he could find, ruins of monuments, 
 engraved stones, medals, coins, vases, jewels which were valued 
 at 28,423 florins, not counting the silver and furniture. 2 
 
 In the following chapter we shall treat of the writers and 
 painters of the age, who, for the most part, were also sculptors 
 and architects, and whom one hardly dares to call artists for 
 fear of an anachronism. To mention them here would be to 
 group them around Cosimo, whereas he was only their patron, 
 to be guilty of an error which is often committed in according 
 to Leo X. the honours of the splendid century of which he 
 hardly saw a quarter, or in crediting Louis XIV. with the 
 glory cast so profusely over his long reign by the men of 
 genius preceding his maturity, who owed him nothing in their 
 development — Pascal and La Rochefoucald, La Fontaine and 
 Sevigne\ Moliere and so many others who deserve to be named, 
 though less brilliant than these. 
 
 Literature still more than art has lifted Cosimo's name to 
 the clouds ; there are more resources in the pen than in the 
 brush, the chisel, or the mallet for transmitting to posterity 
 the memory of men of mark ; not only does it furnish testi- 
 mony, but it judges and adds motives to its judgment. Ima- 
 gination and invention were exhausted ; they yielded place 
 to a generation of scholars. Now wealth, powerless to evoke 
 
 1 Leo, 1. vii. c. iv. vol. ii. p. 212. 
 
 2 See inventory in Fabroni, Doc, p. 231-233. 
 
i68 ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE. [1464 
 
 genius, is quite capable of stimulating laborious research. 
 Greek, Latin, and other manuscripts were acquired and copied 
 with great expense. The price paid for the work was sufficient 
 to encourage students to ransack for such treasures every- 
 where, and quantities were found. In this matter, Cosimo's 
 only advantage over his compatriots and contemporaries was 
 his immense wealth. 
 
 The majority, according to their means, followed his ex- 
 ample ; even Sforza, who was only a peasant and uneducated 
 soldier, lagged not behind. 1 But this luck followed him in all 
 things. Though Cosimo was no greater scholar than Sforza, 
 he welcomed none the less for that the legion of scholars that 
 the Turks drove into the path of exile. 
 
 His policy ever was to assist them in their youth or old 
 age, to create professorships for them, and to purchase the 
 manuscripts, with which they were plentifully supplied. Thus it 
 was that Marsilio Ficino, amongst others, grew famous through 
 his patronage; not only did he give him a town-house in Flor- 
 ence, but also a country-house, a villetta, at Careggi. To help 
 students in their work he opened two libraries, one in the 
 convent of San Marco, and the other in the Abbey of Fiesole. 
 His palace abounded in books. Vespasiano, Poggio Bracciolini, 
 and Cristoforo Buondelmonti were ordered to have fresh ones 
 copied for him. " In twenty-two months," writes Vespasiano, 
 " I engaged forty-five copyists, and I finished two hundred 
 volumes." And the excellent paper-merchant, the ingenuous 
 but useful biographer, gives us a list of the ancient tran- 
 scripts he had made. A library catalogue left by Cosimo, 
 which may be seen in the Archivio Mediceo, appeared too long 
 for the learned Fabroni to publish among the documents of 
 his appendix. Cosimo enriched the church of San Lorenzo 
 
 1 Sforza wanted a Titus Livy complete in the vulgar tongue. He could not find 
 one in his own States, and sent to Florence for one, even if it should have to be 
 transcribed expressly (Sforza to Nicodemo, January 3, 1463, Orig., 1595, f. 298). 
 He commands a Titus Livy just as you might a heart-shaped diamond (same date, 
 ibid., another letter) or a pair of spectacles (October 21, 1462, ibid., f. 291). 
 
1464] ENCOURAGEMENT OF TRADE. 169 
 
 by thirty big volumes, which he had written and illuminated 
 for the choir. San Marco received a similar present. 1 The 
 impetus was given, and for a long while it was unchecked. 
 
 Cosimo was helped by quietude within and peace without, 
 two sources of prosperity that were strengthened by his neu- 
 trality in the quarrels of Italy and the protection accorded in 
 Florence to the minor arts above the greater. Between them, he 
 diminished the conflicts by encouraging delicate works in silk, 
 that were done at home, to the detriment of woollen works, 
 that require the competition and co-operation of so many men 
 and trades. Besides, he was at the service of everybody, 
 boasting that he and his were clean-handed. 2 Thus the banker, 
 become head of the state, gave the best example of honouring 
 trade and enriching both the Kepublic and private individuals. 
 
 These were conditions of life too unusual in Florence not to 
 produce popularity. It is easy to understand that the people 
 shut their eyes to the price they paid for their comfort, — 
 venality, corruption, moral degradation, citizens transformed 
 into courtiers, men of letters earning a livelihood by selling 
 praises, constant rivalries, the absence of all fraternal feeling 
 even in the most exclusive classes, the example of vice and crime 
 given by the Medici as well as by the Holy See, the official 
 seat of virtue ; in a word, a society fallen into decadence. 3 
 
 1 See Vespasiano, Vita di Cosimo, c. 11— 15 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 334-338 ; Machia- 
 velli, vii. 104 B ; G. Capponi, ii. 76. In the Italian translation of Roscoe by 
 Gaetano Mecherini (4 vols., Pisa, 181 6) can be seen the fate of the books of Cosimo, 
 his son Piero, and his grandson Lorenzo, published as well as in manuscript. 
 When, after the latter's death, the Medici were exiled, the books and MSS. fell to 
 the convent of San Marco, and were promptly sold for 1 500 florins to Cardinal 
 Giovanni de' Medicis, the future Leo X., who brought them to Rome. Clement 
 VII., another Medicis, sent them back to Florence, where they became the kernel 
 of the Laurentiana, to which other collections were added, notably that of the 
 Abbey of Fiesole. 
 
 2 Speaking of Cosimo's son Giovanni, on his deathbed Nicodemo wrote : " Se 
 vede in quanta affection et gracia era de tucto questo populo, perhoche a dicto de 
 ognuno non fo may qui el piu servente et netto cittadino de luy, presertim netto de 
 le mane, licet el padre et fratello sienoquel medesimo" (November 4, 1463, Orig., 
 1589, f. 275). This friendly assertion is naturally contradicted by his enemies 
 (see above, same chapter, p. 127). 
 
 3 Villari, who can be trusted, energetically condemns the fifteenth century, and 
 
i 7 o JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. [1464 
 
 But what is less comprehensible is that history, in our days 
 the organ of posterity, should continue to preserve the judg- 
 ment of four hundred years ago, of which even the sincerity 
 may be doubted. Italy is still too indulgent to Cosimo, 1 with 
 a little, it is true, of the fierce patriotism which believes it 
 honourable to cover paternal shame, as did the sons of Noah. 
 Germany, which has not the same reason to forget the evil 
 and exalt the good, holds the same language because she has 
 no sense of freedom. 2 England, possessing it, has not fallen 
 into this grave error ; she recognises the oppression and the 
 moral degradation, and is indignant because of it. 3 The 
 writer is not indignant, because he deems it natural that an 
 apple-tree should bear apples, and a young uncultivated tree 
 but bitter fruit ; but he regards it as his duty to expose the 
 servitude of this generation, and, in exposing the facts, to 
 point out the moral muck-heap which favoured and hastened 
 the growth of the poisoned fruit. 
 
 Henceforth it will be impossible to say that free France does 
 not join free England in condemning oppression and the sup- 
 pression of all liberty and all morality. But in order to diag- 
 nose the evil, we must look higher than the domination of 
 a single will, and we will find it already in the supremacy of 
 the oligarchy. If we recognise an excuse for the Medici, it 
 will be in the example of the Albizzi. 
 
 sees nothing to extol but its intellectual, greatness (see N. Machiavelli, i. 130). 
 How much this praise is deserved will be seen in the next chapter. 
 
 1 See article quoted above of M. Agenore Gelli and M. Pellegrini's work in 
 course of publication. G. Capponi is only severe against the Albizzi, whose' oli- 
 garchical government is quite to his taste. A recent work, Cosimo d# Medici, by 
 M. Ferrai, Bologna, 1822, may also be consulted. 
 
 2 See Buser and Reumont. To an unruly mind like Leo's, everything in Cosimo 
 is admirable, not only his cleverness and his success, but the glory of having formed 
 men of learning and artists. He does not regret liberty, for the reason that Sienna 
 and Lucca, remaining free, did nothing for civilisation (see 1. vii. c. iv. vol. ii. 
 p. 222). As if every town had the right of supremacy ! As if Sienna did nothing 
 for art ! As if Florence herself had not done as much under free government as in 
 servitude ! 
 
 3 See Trollope, A History of the Commonwealth of Florence, iii. 165, 168. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS UNDER COSIMO DE' MEDICIS. 
 
 Literary movement of the fifteenth century — Reorganisation of the Studio under the 
 oligarchy (1385) — Its budget (1387) — The professors — Their disciples — Leonardo 
 Bruni — Poggio Bracciolini — Niccolo Niccoli — The Studio closed (1404), reopened 
 (1412), reformed (1428) — Filelfo as professor (1429) — His vicissitudes in Florence — 
 Scholarship — Contempt for the vulgar tongue — The literary movement under 
 Cosimo — Falling off of the Studio — Erudition encouraged— Public libraries — 
 Favours to men of letters — The Platonic school — The Platonic academy — Mar- 
 silio Ficino — Fine arts in the last days of the democracy — Under the oligarchy — 
 The Maecenates — Lorenzo de Bicci — Under the Medici — Architecture and sculpture 
 — The goldsmith's art — Brunelleschi — Ghiberti — Donatello — Michelozzo Miche- 
 lozzi— Leone Battista Alberti, theorist — Luca della Robbia — Painting— Study of 
 nature — The Peselli — Masolino — Perspective — Paolo Uccello — Oil-painting — 
 Andrea del Castagno — The miniature school enlarged — Fra Beato Angelico — 
 Naturalism — Masaccio — The Brancacci Chapel — Masaccio's school — Filippo Lippi 
 — Benozzo Gozzoli— Piero de Cosimo, parsimonious protector of the arts. 
 
 In tracing the history of the Florentine oligarchy, 1 if we have 
 passed over in silence the progress of letters and the fine arts, 
 it is not that they suffered a total eclipse under that iron 
 regime, but that they occupied so small a space, compared 
 particularly with that which they occupied in the times of the 
 democracy and in the period of the Medici which followed. 
 But in resuming this study, we should cast a glance backward, 
 and distinguish in this magnificent development the Medici 
 period from that of the Albizzi, just as we must discriminate 
 among the Medici between Cosimo and Lorenzo, between the 
 grandfather and the grandson. 
 
 Before them Florence for a while had enjoyed supremacy in 
 the republic of letters and arts, but its glory belonged to the 
 democratic period, while the intellectual poverty of the other 
 provinces of the peninsula and of all Europe enhanced and 
 
 1 See our Hist., vol. vi. 
 171 
 
172 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 lent a persuasive charm to the genius of Dante, of Petrarch, 
 of Boccaccio, as well as of Giotto and his greatest disciples. In 
 the fifteenth century there was little creative genius, but scholars 
 were numerous. If Giotto still remained head of his school, 
 his school extended all over Italy. No longer peculiar to any 
 city or country, the men of the Rennaissance were everywhere 
 the same, imperfectly freed from the coarser instincts and the 
 rough manners of the Middle Ages, seeking to give voice to 
 the strivings after modern genius and its refinement; always 
 inclined towards pleasure, but towards pleasure including beauty, 
 order, and harmony. The Florentine oligarchy, which, as it 
 were, sits astride the two centuries, the fourteenth and fifteenth, 
 had already entered into the intellectual movement which was 
 going to free Europe from the scholastic yoke, but still it 
 held more to the past than to the future, and its intermittent 
 and incoherent efforts towards transformation were destined 
 to remain fruitless. 
 
 It is beyond doubt that its object was to give a certain im- 
 pulse to learning. Not certainly at the start. The people 
 had emerged from a great crisis, there was a good deal of 
 revenge to be taken, many ruins to repair, and reforms to 
 undertake which were considered most urgent. Let us not 
 forget that during eight years, from 1382 to 1390, the 
 expression of public dissatisfaction was the whole history of 
 Florence. But from the 14th of July 1385, the reorgani- 
 sation of the Studio 1 was decreed. 
 
 This poor university had not much of a voice to assert 
 itself. A city of merchants valued instruction only as it 
 proved useful in trade. In the fourteenth century there were 
 
 1 We have henceforth in studying the workings of the Studio Florentin a valuable 
 collection of documents : Documenti di Storia Italiana ; Statuti delP Universita e 
 Studio Fiorentino dalP anno 1387, seguiti da tin Appendice di Documenti dal 1320 
 al 1472, by Alessandro Gherardi. This collection, divided into two parts, (1.) 
 history of the Studio, (2.) scholars and lecturers, is prefaced by a discourse by 
 Prof. Carlo Morelli, 1 vol., Flor., 1881. M. Giuseppe Rondoni has drawn from 
 this collection a work which gives us all the principal results. See Arch. Stor., 
 884, vol. xiv. p. 41 sq. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE. 173 
 
 schools for 8000 children who learned to read, and for 
 1200 who were taught arithmetic. 1 Intermediate education 
 was only a somewhat neglected branch of superior education. 
 The latter pupils were obliged to elect a master for the primary 
 schools ; and the object of their studies, the scholastic routine 
 of theology, the trivium and quadrivium, only moderately 
 interested a people preoccupied with war. The students were 
 few; in 1364 there were only eight reckoned for canon law, 
 and in 1404 twenty -three. The salaries of the best paid 
 masters of the canon and civil law amounted scarcely to a 
 few hundred florins. In its best days the Studio only cost the 
 State 1000 or 2000 florins, and now and again in exceptional 
 times 3000 florins. 2 
 
 Festivities more than study were the chief thought of the 
 students. As well as Sunday, sixty religious festivals were 
 observed, — the carnival, a fortnight at Easter, three days at 
 Pentecost, a week at the beginning of May, and an indefinite 
 number of days at the feast of St. John, the city's patron 
 saint. There were in addition the autumn holidays, shorter per- 
 haps than our own. The examinations or probational discus- 
 sions were special occasions for rejoicing. The students, whom 
 the strict regulations compelled to wear a cheap costume of black 
 woollen texture, called panno delV onestd, or the honest man's 
 cloth, rode on horseback to carry the competitors' invitations, 
 accompanied by their fellow-students and the beadles. If they 
 were successful in these tests, of which one was private and 
 the other public, fifes and trombones were played as they left 
 the Studio palace, for which they paid, and which they were 
 supposed to furnish all day at their own expense. Wine and 
 sweetmeats were passed round, and a banquet was given or a 
 tournament was held in front of their house ; the latter was 
 
 1 It is what Giovanni Villani says. This history remains to be written ; but it 
 seems impossible for want of documents. See Rondoni, p. 200. 
 
 2 /did., p. 200, 54, 194, and Gherardi, part ii. p. 32, part i. p. 80-93 ; Prezziner, 
 Storia del Pubblico Studio e delle Societa Scientifiche e Letterarie di Firenze, vol. i. 
 p. 43-46, Flor., 1810; Corpi, Le Universita Italiane nel Medio Evo, Flor., 1880. 
 
i 7 4 THE STUDIO. 
 
 not officially compulsory, but a recognised custom. 1 These 
 habits were not quite those of the University of Paris. If they 
 worked less hard at Florence, they enjoyed themselves more ; 
 instead of sitting upon straw, as in the Rue de Fouarre, they 
 sat upon benches, and they enjoyed privileges that helped them 
 to forget the petty but innumerable tyrannies of control. 
 
 The reform of 1385 was full of details ; the Florentines 
 did not quite understand why they felt so indifferent to the 
 professorships they maintained. It is scarcely credible that 
 before that time the Studio had no staff, while the smallest 
 office had each its own. In creating this charge, it was de- 
 cided that it should be yearly. Not daring to interfere with 
 the recently established political powers, the sacred refuge 
 and last illusion of a vanquished democracy, the oligarchy 
 ventured upon a new ground, neglected by the majority. 
 The officials were not chosen men ; they were recruited from 
 all professions. Among them were artisans, wine merchants, 
 and soldiers, though their duties were to determine the rector's 
 stewardship, to choose professors to review the statutes, as well 
 as to look after the chambers, the salaries, receipts, and expendi- 
 ture. Later, in 1420, Calimala's art was destined to take, 
 through his consuls and his arruoti, the direction of the Studio? 
 The rector, Napoleone Parisani, assembled the students in the 
 Badia for the acceptance of the new or renewed statute which 
 would bind them hand and foot. The pill was gilded for them 
 by limiting the attributes and rights of their chiefs. The 
 application of this statute helped them to appreciate its merits 
 from the authoritative point of view, since in 1473 Lorenzo de' 
 Medicis, who reorganised the University of Pisa, enforced it. 3 
 
 It is lamentable that so little is known regarding education 
 at that time. In 1402 the teaching staff seems to have been 
 
 1 Gherardi, p. 32-38, 79-81, 97 ; Rondoni, p. 51, 59, 61. 
 
 2 Gherardi, part i. p. 62-75, 106; Rondoni, p. 63, 197. 
 
 3 Fabroni, Historia Academics Pisarum, vol. i. part I, c. 8, p. 72, Pisa, 1791. 
 The second volume is dated subsequent to the fall of the Florence Republic. 
 Prezziner, vol. i. p. 43-46. 
 
THE PROFESSORS. 175 
 
 complete ; there were twenty readers, nine for law, four for 
 medicine, two for surgery, one for rhetoric, one for logic and 
 philosophy, and one for " natural philosophy." Note the title 
 reader. Can we say professor of astrology and arithmetic, 
 ad faciendum Taccuinum t This was Giovanni Bartoli, called 
 delV Abbaco ; he was paid fifteen florins. Filippo Villani was 
 paid eighty for reading Dante at the festivals. 1 Another, 
 Giovanni Malpaghini of Kavenna, for the same work and on 
 the same days, only received eight florins ; and the Eepublic, 
 always penurious, thought itself mighty generous. 2 If every 
 professor was so poorly remunerated, there were a good many 
 for the same subjects, though competition was then ill-viewed 
 in letters as in traffic ; some were second-rate, and the others 
 efficient, according to the different salaries, the hours of the 
 classes, and the importance of the subject. The bodies of the 
 hanged 3 were utilised for lessons in anatomy. Everything 
 was regulated, the time of the year when each school was to 
 be opened, and the duration of its various classes ; 4 but in 
 their profession the masters were not any more hampered 
 than their neighbours. Their liberty, it is true, was often 
 exclusive. Domenico de Bandino, a citizen of Arezzo, would 
 not allow Antonio, piovano or curate at Vado, to read Seneca's 
 tragedies which he himself was reading. Not having the 
 power to prevent him doing so, by prayers and persuasion 
 he induced Coluccio Salutati, chancellor of the Eepublic, to 
 undertake to force the importunate curate to choose another 
 author. 6 
 
 These rivalries and impediments, with the low price paid for 
 teaching, rendered it exceedingly difficult to find good profes- 
 sors, and made it almost impossible to retain them. But they 
 
 1 Gherardi, part ii. p. 115 ; Rondoni, p. 198. 
 
 2 " Volentes maxime pro honore civitatis et utilitate civium provedere" (Pro- 
 vision in Gherardi, part ii. p. 127). 
 
 3 Gherardi, p. 74-76 ; Rondoni, p. 56. 
 
 4 Gherardi, p. 60, 63 ; Rondoni, p. 56. 
 
 5 See letter in Mehus, Vita Lapi Castiglionchii, p. 141. Prezziner gives a 
 portion of it, vol. i. p. 47. 
 
176 EMMANUEL CHRYSOLORAS. 
 
 frequently returned, for life in this new Athens was pleasant. 
 The two most illustrious among them — Giovanni of Kavenna 
 and Emmanuel Chrysoloras — went away and returned. Giovanni 
 of Kavenna, a renowned grammarian in his youth, disciple of 
 the aged Petrarch, lectured on the banks of the Arno in 1396. 
 He emigrated to other cities, and returned again to his profes- 
 sor's chair in 141 2. He there expounded Dante for the second 
 time. 1 Emmanuel Chrysoloras first made his appearance at the 
 Council of Pisa in the train of Gemistus Plethon, who devoted 
 all the time left him from the Council's futile debates to the 
 propagation of Platonic doctrines. Later, in 1 396, he returned 
 as imperial ambassador, imploring help against the Turks. He 
 consented to give a few lessons, and, delighted with his success, 
 accepted a ten years' engagement to teach grammar and Greek 
 for a salary of a hundred florins and the right to take as many 
 private pupils as he chose. He did not keep his word, how- 
 ever, unfortunately a common failing of his time. In 1400, 
 at Milan, he joined the Emperor Manuel Paleologos, where- 
 upon he was offered a hundred and fifty florins, then two 
 hundred and fifty, with an engagement reduced to five years, 
 and the privilege to go away for short intervals whenever the 
 plague appeared, and this offer he did not refuse. 2 
 
 Interrupted as were his lessons, at least he had not taught in 
 vain. His transient stay and his success marked an epoch. 
 He broadened the horizon, and brought the gift of sacred fire. 
 Scholasticism gave place to rhetoric, that was called omnium 
 scientiarum persuasorium instrumentum and rerum puolicarnm 
 maximum instrumentum? The Studio was transformed. Until 
 
 1 Salvino Salvini, Fasti Consolari, preface ; Mehus, Vita Ambrosii Camaldul., 
 p. 348 ; Prezziner, i. 50 ; Ginguene, iii. 281, 282 ; Sismondi, De la Litt. du Midi 
 de I Europe, ii. 29, Paris, 1813. Giovanni de Ravenna died in 1420. 
 
 2 Gherardi, part ii. 105-110; Rondoni, p. 198. It was previously believed that 
 after his departure in 1400 Chrysoloras did not appear again in Florence. He died 
 in 141 5 at the Council of Constance. See Hody, De Gra-cis Illustribus, 1. i. c. 2, 
 p. 12 sq. t London, 1742 ; Tiraboschi, vol. vi. part ii. 1. iii. c. 2, § 9; Prezziner, i. 
 52 ; Ginguene, Histoire Litteraire de Vltalie, iii. 261, 262 ; Sismondi, De la Litt. 
 du Midi de P Europe, ii. 29. 
 
 3 Gherardi, part ii. p. 105 ; Rondoni, p. 198. 
 
FLORENTINE SCHOLARSHIP. 177 
 
 then no one knew Greek thoroughly. The Calabrians of Magna 
 Graecia, Barlaam and Pilato, had formerly been able, the one 
 to teach Petrarch his language, the other to form classes at 
 Florence ; but Petrarch never succeeded in making out Homer, 
 and, in spite of Pilato, the study of Greek had begun to wane, 
 and finally disappeared. They themselves knew it only imper- 
 fectly by practice. Guarino and Filelfo went to Constantinople 
 in order to learn it thoroughly. The first refugees who landed 
 in Italy could not improve the situation, for they knew little 
 Latin and no Italian at all. Chrysoloras, on the contrary, 
 was a thorough man of letters. Thanks to him, Greek, so 
 different from Latin, was largely introduced into Florence. He 
 exposed its beauties with all the delicacy of a man of taste, 
 with all the dexterity of a philologist and in the phraseo- 
 logy of a philosopher. Two literatures, two civilisations, and 
 only two languages co-existed, whose contact produced a 
 flash of light. The disciples were innumerable. Among 
 them, Roberto des Rossi, in his turn master of Cosimo de* 
 Medicis and of Luca des Albizzi, Giannozzo Manetti, Palli 
 Strozzi, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Carlo Marsup- 
 pini, Francesco Filelfo, Guarino de Verona, Giovanni Auri- 
 spa, Lorenzo Valla, and many others. 1 All were not born 
 at Florence, but several taught there in turn, notably 
 Guarino and Aurispa, more useful by their lessons than their 
 writings. 
 
 Among those born under the skies of Tuscany, many whose 
 names have already figured in the history of their country 
 have recorded that history ; Leonardo Bruni, as an imitator of 
 Titus Livy, 2 Poggio Bracciolini continuing Leonardo, both too 
 good writers — it was beginning the habit to write in good 
 
 1 Details regarding these persons may be found in Prezziner, i. 52 ; Ginguene, 
 iii. 261, 282, 288, 291-294 ; Sismondi, ii. 25, 31, 36 ; Leo, Histoire de Italie, trans. 
 Dochez, ii. 218. On the picture of this literary movement, Villari, N. Machiavelli, 
 i. 109-112. 
 
 2 Leon. Bruni, Rerum suo Tempore in Italia Gestarum Commenlarius ; R. I. S., 
 xix. 920. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 FLORENTINE LITERATURE. 
 
 Latin — not to be given posts where their practised pens might 
 be of service. Leonardo Bruni studied the science of law ; he 
 gave it up for the language of Homer when he found that it 
 could be learned. 1 From that time, in this curious city, he 
 who did not know Greek was only an imperfect man of letters, 
 and was almost looked upon as an ignoramus. The terror 
 of a threatening future and the reunion of the Council had 
 again thrown upon the coast of Italy great numbers of Greeks, 
 attracted by taste or a mission to the city that so highly ap- 
 preciated them. Poggio Bracciolini, the most lively and 
 original in his style, at the same time a man of learning and 
 of pleasure, 2 wrote his Liber Facetiarum, if we may believe his 
 preface, only to prove that everything could be said in Latin. 
 We can only half believe him, though he was then more than 
 seventy years of age, and wore, as so many bachelors did, 
 the ecclesiastical habit without taking orders, in order to 
 enjoy its privileges and immunities. His obscenities de- 
 lighted every one, and, after the ITermaphroditus of Panor- 
 mita, the Italians could read anything. In any case, the best 
 test of these indecent and wearisome pleasantries was the 
 extent to which the art of story-telling had degenerated since 
 Sacchetti's time. To Poggio's honour is the intelligent use 
 to which he put a fortune acquired in correcting pontifical 
 letters during fifty years. He travelled far to obtain, pur- 
 chase, and save from the carelessness of monks many precious 
 manuscripts. 2 
 
 Earlier in the adoption of modern ways than either Leon- 
 ardo or Poggio were Coluccio Salutati, and even Niccolo 
 
 1 See two pretty anecdotes on the manners of Poggio and the clergy in Shep- 
 herd, Life of Poggio, and in Villari, N. Machiavelli, i. 118. Poggio, fifty-five years 
 of age, abandoned the woman by whom he had had fourteen children to marry 
 quite a young girl of good family, and wrote a dialogue to justify it, An seni sit 
 uxor ducenda. 
 
 2 See Life of Poggio, by G. Shepherd. Poggio's letters have been published 
 under the title Poggii Bracciolini Epistola, editce a L. Tonelli, Florence, 1831. 
 Cf. Sismondi, De la Lift, du Midi, ii. 32, 33 ; Ginguene, iii. 303-325 ; Reumont, 
 Tavole cronologiche ; Villari, A'. Machiavelli, i. 1 17 sq. 
 
NICCOLO NICCOLL 179 
 
 Niccoli, who only survived the oligarchical period two years. 1 
 Both had been preceded by Luigi Marsigli (13 30-1 394), 
 Augustine friar and doctor of theology, and a great lover 
 of antiquity, who marks the transition between the scholasti- 
 cism of the fourteenth century and the erudition of the 
 fifteenth. Coluccio Salutati had the credit of polishing political 
 language and of introducing into diplomatic despatches a style 
 that he deemed, and which appeared, Ciceronian. Galeaz 
 Maria, in a famous sally, gave proof of the literary success 
 of these despatches, more powerful against him than a thou- 
 sand cavaliers : a fatal progress in this sense, that it lent 
 itself to treachery, but a gain if regarded from the literary 
 point of view. 2 Niccolo Niccoli, in no respect a writer, and 
 known besides as the acknowledged servant of his handmaid, 
 spent a large fortune in donations, in purchasing books, and 
 even made debts. He made a collection of eight hundred 
 volumes, Latin, Greek, and Oriental, of a value of 6000 
 florins. 3 It was a great deal for a private individual. This 
 studious Florentine himself copied the texts, arranged them 
 in order, corrected the faults of the preceding copyists so well 
 that he passed for the father of this style of criticism. 4 He 
 first after the ancients conceived the idea of a public library ; 
 when dying, he bequeathed his own for that purpose, and he 
 appointed sixteen trustees. 5 In that way he responded to a new 
 need, which attests a curious fact. From the year 1400, on 
 the square of the Duoma a spacciatore was established whose 
 
 1 Died in 1436 at the age of seventy-three. See our vol. vi. p. 74. 
 
 2 Secretary from 1 375, Coluccio died in 1406. See Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung 
 des classischen Altherthums, Berlin, 1859, and Villari, N. Machiavelli, i. 103, 104. 
 
 3 Vespasiano, Vita di N. Niccoli, § 8 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 624. 
 
 4 " Illud quoque animadvertendum est Nicolaum Niccolum veluti parentem 
 fuisse artis criticse, quse auctores veteres distinguit emendatque " (Mehus, Prcefatio 
 in Vita Ambrogii Camald., p. 50). 
 
 5 P°ggH * n funere Nycholai Niccoli oratio fzmebris, dans Poggii Opera, f. 104 
 v°, 15 1 3, without indication of city. The history of Niccoli's library is found 
 in F. Blumes' Iter Italicum, vol. ii. p. 42, Berlin, 1824. Niccoli is not the less 
 the hero of a disagreeable family adventure, which may be found related in Leo, 
 ii. 217. 
 
180 FILIPPO VILLANI. 
 
 business was to sell Latin and Greek manuscripts, often full 
 of mistakes and blunders. 1 Such was the taste for letters 
 from that time, and such the renown of this private library, 
 that every scholar who visited Florence solicited the favour of 
 admittance to examine Niccoli's books. 2 This passionate lover 
 of letters encouraged, in addition, the spread of the classics, and 
 in that way won the interest of many of the youths who, like 
 Piero des Pazzi, had no other thought than that of amusement. 
 
 In the first year of the fifteenth century, Filippo Villani, 
 third of the name, son of Matteo, and nephew of Giovanni, 
 and like them a historian and jurisconsult as well, was one of 
 the professors of the Studio. But it was only for a few days ; 
 in 1404 the studio was closed. 4 The war with Pisa was 
 beginning to attract attention, and very soon the war with 
 Ladislaus absorbed all interest and resources. For the Floren- 
 tine oligarchy then, as for the democracy of old, public educa- 
 tion had never been more than a secondary consideration. 
 The public funds were only spent on it when the balance was 
 large. It was for having acted otherwise that the Medici 
 obtained, and to a certain extent merited, the glory which 
 succeeding centuries have somewhat exaggerated. 
 
 Subjected thus to the fluctuations of politics, and suffering 
 from the precariousness of the climate, since the least 
 epidemic caused the people to rush away, and leave Florence 
 
 1 See Ch. Yriarte, Florence, Paris, 1881. This author makes N. Niccoli, 
 Cosimo's pensioner, one of his commercial travellers for the sale of manuscripts. 
 In any case, it could not have been for any length of time. Cosimo returned from 
 exile only at the end of the year 1434, and Niccoli died in 1436. 
 
 2 "Nemo Florentiam, qui aliquid sapit, unquam adiit quin potius in primis 
 Nycholai domu'm et libros sibi visendos putaret" (Poggio to Carlo Marsuppini, 
 Poggii Opera, f. 129 v°). 
 
 3 "Attendo a darmi buon tempo." See this pleasant anecdote in M. Eug. 
 Muntz's work, Un Mecbie Italienau XV 6 Siec/e, Revue des Deux Mondes, Novem- 
 ber 1, 1881, p. 171. 
 
 4 From 1404 to 141 2 the suppression or suspension was real ; nevertheless several 
 professor's chairs remained occupied. In 1405 Filippo Villani was appointed 
 lecturer on Dante for five years, and the Signory requested a passport from Venice 
 for Francesco Zabarella de Padua, invited to read at Florence. See Gherardi, part 
 ii. p. 124; Rondoni, p. 194. 
 
VICISSITUDES OF THE STUDIO. 181 
 
 almost empty, how could the Studio have prospered ? They con- 
 tinued to close it, reopen it, and close it again. In a happy change 
 of Florentine affairs, March 13, 14 12, provision was made to 
 open its door, which had been closed for eight years. Giovanni de' 
 Bavenna resumed the professor's chair, and Guarino de' Verona 
 also occupied one two years later to give a fresh impetus to 
 learning, and, in accordance with Niccolo Niccoli's proposal, 
 a decree was renewed forbidding all subjects of the Eepublic 
 to lecture at the Studio, which made it necessary to employ 
 learned foreigners, and, as in 1348, they recalled the young 
 Florentines who were studying abroad. 1 Very soon ( 1 4 1 7) the 
 power of the superintendents was extended from one to three 
 years. Niccolo of Uzzano was one of them, and he and Palla 
 Strozzi were the most zealous. In his will Niccolo left money 
 for the foundation of a college, the Sapienza, in imitation of 
 other cities which had a Studio, for receiving forty or fifty poor 
 students, half Florentines and half foreigners, who upon the 
 slightest condemnation should be considered as dead to the 
 university. This generous testator instituted an income of 
 1000 florins in gold, gave the management of the college to 
 the care of Calimala, and bequeathed him his possessions in the 
 city and country, in case his heirs did not turn up. 2 It was 
 no fault of his if his last wishes were not respected, and the 
 building subsequently suspended, the funds being otherwise 
 disposed of. 3 
 
 In 1428, Palla Strozzi, who had already spent a large sum 
 
 1 Prezziner, i. 76. 
 
 8 Prezziner, i. 72-100. In 1496 the consuls of merchandise, to whom belonged 
 the edifice of the Sapienza, gave it up to the convent of San Marco. In 15 10 
 the second Cosimo kept his lions there. Cavalry was also placed there, and finally 
 the building was transformed into stables for the Grand Duke. See Reumont, 
 Tav. Cron. 
 
 3 Ten thousand five hundred florins were employed in this foundation, which 
 was voted at the Captain's Council by 217 votes against 17; at the Common 
 Council by 157 against 30. Pope Martin V. authorised the levying of a tax 
 of 1500 florins upon the goods of ecclesiastics ; but it was Niccolo d'Uzzano 
 who provided the funds. See Gherardi, part i. p. 122, 125 ; Rondoni, p. 200- 
 202. 
 
182 FRANCESCO FILELFO. 
 
 in purchasing manuscripts at Byzantium, and who furnished 
 from his own pocket a portion of the salary which induced 
 Chrysoloras to come and teach Greek to the Florentines, 1 drew 
 attention to the university of his country by introducing another 
 scholar, already celebrated, and one of the most quarrelsome 
 of that noisy century. This was Francesco Filelfo, who, accord- 
 ing to Poggio, was the illegitimate child of a priest 2 and, 
 they add, of a washerwoman. He had scarcely finished his 
 eighteenth year when he began to teach oratory at Padua. 3 
 Strozzi persuaded him to come to Bologna, where he gave the 
 same instruction, as well as professed moral philosophy, for 
 450 crowns of gold. 4 He came to Florence without increase 
 of salary. Bologna paid badly, 5 and to this spendthrift philo- 
 sopher, as he called himself, a big income was necessary. 6 
 
 In April 1429 he began his lessons. 7 At daybreak he gave 
 one on the ancients before more than 400 auditors, mostly 
 men of importance and of senatorial rank. 8 Then, after a 
 rest of a few hours, he returned and gave another lesson, 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di P. Strozzi, § I sq.; Spicil. Rom., i. 358-376. 
 
 2 Liber Facetiarwn, f. 176 r°, and Invectiv., hi. p. 177; Poggii Opera, 1 5 13. 
 Filelfo, born at Tolentino in 1398, died at Florence in 148 1. His epileptic 
 violence, we see, did not shorten his days. Cf. Meucci, Philelphi Vita, 
 Flor., 1 74 1 ; Lancelot, Vie de Philelphe, Mem. de PAcademie des Inscriptions, 
 vol. x.; Niceron, Memoires, vol. vi. x. ; Voight, Die Wiederbelebung des clas- 
 sischen Altherthums ; Ch. Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Pep. des Lettres, Paris, 
 i860. 
 
 3 Sismondi, De la Litt. du Midi, ii. 32, 33. In Leo, ii. 217, is found a sum- 
 mary of the youth and peregrinations of Filelfo before his arrival at Florence. 
 
 4 Philelphi Epistola, 1. i. ep. 24, to Giov. Aurispa, February 23, 1428, f. 4 v°, 
 without place or date. Vol. at the Bibl. Nat., Z. 697. The documents pub- 
 lished by M. Gherardi state that to teach rhetoric Filelfo earned 225 florins 
 (see part ii. p. 178, and Rondoni, p. 203). He exaggerated, perhaps, to add to 
 his glory. 
 
 5 "Ut sine quottidianis molestiis ii mihi temporibus numerentur" {Philelphi 
 Epistola, to Palla Strozzi, September 19, 1428, 1. i. lett. 41, f. 7). 
 
 6 " Existimo tibi consuetudinem meam non esse ignotam. Non modo foenerari 
 non didici, sed ne parcus quidem, etc. Haud enim consuevi unquam servire 
 nummis, sed iis uti potius pro servis" (ibid.). 
 
 7 His first letter dated at Florence is of April 19, 1429. Philelphi Epistola, to 
 Palla Strozzi, f. 9 r°. 
 
 8 " Auditores sunt quotidie ad quadringenta vel fortassis et amplius, et hi quidem 
 magna ex parte viri grandiores et ex ordine senatorio" (ibid., to Giov. Aurispa, 
 July 31, 1429, 1. ii. f. 9 r°). 
 
FRANCESCO FILELFO. 183 
 
 either on the same subject or on morals and philosophy. To 
 protect him in his quarrel with the two Marsuppini, father 
 and son, his rivals in teaching and erudition, the public 
 authorities assigned him a chair at Santa Maria del Fiore, 
 where he expounded Dante on holidays, and condemned to a 
 fine of a hundred florins whoever should endeavour to pre- 
 vent him from lecturing or occupying his chair. 1 Kather a 
 professor than a writer, his success increased, and he was in- 
 toxicated by it. " The whole city has its eyes upon me," he 
 wrote to Aurispa. "All love and honour me, overwhelm 
 me with praise, and exalt me to the skies. My name is in 
 every mouth. On my way the first citizens, the most noble 
 matrons, give place to me." 2 After we have made allowance 
 for exaggeration, due to too great an amount of self-pride, 
 it remains no less true that Filelfo filled an immoderately 
 large place in Florence. The faction of the Albizzi, which was 
 favourable towards him, as that of Medici was opposed to 
 him, was no less forced to banish him for three years to Home 
 because he spoke badly of Venice and its orator, threatening him 
 that if he returned sooner he should be dragged through the 
 streets and beheaded. 3 That was on the 10th of March 143 1 ; 
 on the 1 2th, they suspended the execution of the sentence. 
 Filelfo was forbidden to leave Florence under pain of death ; 
 
 1 Gherardi, part ii. p. 167, 171 ; Rondoni, p. 204. Here again we take Filelfo 
 in the very act of exaggeration, even bordering upon falsehood : " Da niuno 
 astrecto . . . senza alcun altro o publico o privato premio a cio fare indocto, 
 cominciai quello poeta publicamente leggere " (phrase of Filelfo in a discourse 
 on Dante, addressed by him to his audience ; document produced by Carlo des 
 Rosmini, Vita di Filelfo, vol. i.; Monumenti Inediti, No. ix. p. 124, Milan, 1808). 
 
 2 Phil. Epist.) 1. ii. f. 9, r°, to Giov. Aurispa, July 31, 1429. 
 
 3 "Die 10 Martii 143 1. Considerantes quod Fr. Philelphus qui legit Dantem 
 in Civ. Flor. coram dictis DD. PP. inhoneste et temere locutus fuit contra domina- 
 tionem Venetorum et contra oratorem dicte dominationis Venetorum . . . quod 
 per totum presentem mensem Martii teneatur et debeat confinare et mittere ad con- 
 fines pro tribus annis dictum Fr. Philelphum in civitate romana " (Fabroni, Vita 
 Cosmi, Doc, p. 69). Filelfo speaks in no place of that sentence, but Ambrogio 
 Traversari makes mention of it in his Letters (lib. vi. ep. 28, col. 311, at the end of 
 his Life by Mehus). He says in it that Filelfo requested that his clothes and books 
 be sent him at his expense. Cf. Gherardi, part ii. p. 168 ; Rondoni, p. 204 ; A. Gelli, 
 VEsilio di Cosimodei Medici, in Arch. Stor., vol. x. disp. 5, ann. 1882, p. 149 sq. 
 
184 FILELFO AT FLORENCE. 
 
 on the I Ith of April he was absolved, and he returned to his 
 former position. In May they forbade any one to molest him, 
 no matter what was said of him, and he received the freedom 
 of the city. 1 The Capitol after the Tarpeian rock ! 
 
 But the Tarpeian rock still threatened his spiteful tongue ; 
 his enemies very soon renewed their conspiracy. It existed 
 even among the officers of the Studio, a few mediocre men, 
 tolerably lettered, if we must believe him, to whom his presence 
 gave umbrage. 2 To rid themselves of so inconvenient a guest 
 without attacking him openly, Niccolo Niccoli, Poggio Braccio- 
 lini, Carlo Marsuppini passed a decree to reduce the salaries 
 of all the professors. They hoped that, a spendthrift, burdened 
 with a family, and, moreover, of a bilious temperament, 
 Filelfo would rebel against this unexpected deficit in his 
 domestic budget, and they persuaded their colleagues to 
 abstain from protesting in so far as they were concerned. 
 But instead of regarding himself as defeated, Filelfo carried 
 his cause before the public council, 3 where thirty-four votes 
 out of thirty-seven were given in his favour. In their 
 anger his enemies retaliated by electing four officers or com- 
 missioners with full power to examine, and diminish if necessary, 
 all the expenses of the Kepublic. According to their desire, 
 their agents, under pretext that a sufficient sum had been 
 spent on the war, suppressed the salaries of all. This time 
 Filelfo appealed to the moderate party, and it was decided to 
 repeal so wild a measure, which suppressed or suspended an 
 entire institution 4 in order to strike one man, at the very time, 
 
 1 Salvini, Fasti Consolari, pref., p. 18 ; Prezziner, i. 92; Gherardi, part ii. p. 
 168 ; Rondoni, p. 204 ; A. Gelli in Arch. Stor., vol. x. disp. 5, ann. 1882, p. 149 sq. 
 
 2 Phil. Epist., 1. ii. f. 10 v°, to Niccolo, Card, of Bologna, September 22, 1432. 
 
 3 Rosmini, Vila di Filelfo, i. 61. To which council does it refer? The old 
 institutions were of so little importance that they were given fancy names of 
 public council or senate. The number of members present permits us to suppose 
 that it referred to the Signory and to its colleges, forming a reunion of thirty-three 
 members, to which were undoubtedly joined four ancient gonfaloniers of justice or 
 other richiesti, according to the usage established by quite recent provisions. 
 
 4 Phil. Epist., 1. ii. f. 12 r°, v°, to Cosimo de' Medicis, May 1, 1433 5 Rosmini, 
 i. 61-62 ; Prezziner, i. 97-98. 
 
FILELFO AT FLORENCE. 185 
 
 above all, when once again it had been reformed to give it a 
 fresh impetus. It had been decided that the professors should 
 lose the privilege of being judged by their own tribunals, and 
 that their disciples should no longer contribute, as at Bologna, 
 to increase their salary (March 1 1, 143 i), 1 and that was all 
 that remained under that famous oligarchy of the political 
 spirit of the Florentines. 
 
 Twice vanquished, Filelfo's enemies did not retire from the 
 field. There still remained assassination. A certain Filippo 
 of Casale, of a well-known family of paid assassins, was com- 
 missioned by them to stab the learned lecturer in the left 
 arm and in the face. But he missed his aim, and Filelfo, 
 despising the murderer, unhesitatingly accused Cosimo and 
 his brother Lorenzo, solely because he was not of their party. 
 Vainly did Ambrogio Traversari, the celebrated Camaldule, 
 bring him their expressions of sympathy. "I cannot answer 
 you," he replied; "but no one can hide himself from God." 2 
 Filelfo was as rancorous as a priest and audacious as a 
 coward. "From the cesspools of his mind" 3 he heaped in- 
 sults upon Cosimo in prison. 4 Cosimo once recalled, could he 
 remain in Florence ? The same day on which the Signory 
 entered into office and put an end to the exile of the enemy 
 that he had so gratuitously made for himself, he communi- 
 cated to Palla Strozzi his fears of this cunning, wealthy, and 
 taciturn man. 5 Twelve days after the arrival of the new 
 
 1 Letter of Minucci, No. 22, in Prezziner, i. 96. 
 
 3 Phil. Epist, 1. iii. f. 17 r°, to yEneas Sylvius, March 28, 1439; Rosmini, i. 
 64, 65. "Qui fuerit sicarius notum est; a quibus autem conductus, et si nihil 
 habetur certi, infamia tamen in Medices repit et Cosmum, quoniam non solum 
 ejus factio mihi semper adversaretur, sed etiam Laurentius frater aperte multa 
 adversus me ageret. . . . Ego quid tibi respondeam nihil habeo. Deum latere 
 nemo potest" (Letter of Filelfo, June 5, 1433, published by Rosmini, vol. i. p. 
 132, Append. 12). In the letter to yEneas Sylvius, f. 17 v°, Filelfo reasons just 
 as long on his assassin. 
 
 3 Poggio's expression. Poggii Opera, p. 165, in Villari, N. Mack., i. 118. 
 
 4 Rosmini, i. 75. 
 
 5 " Cavendum est a pecunia cosmiana ; est enim vir ille versutus et callidus, et, 
 ut nosti, taciturnus. Tantam opportunitatem nunquam sinet elabi sibi e manibus " 
 (Filelfo to Palla Strozzi, September 1, 1434, in Rosmini, i. 143, Append. 18). 
 
i86 FANATICAL ERUDITION. 
 
 master he spoke of returning to Sienna, 1 where he had been 
 for some time entreated to go, if he did not prefer Bologna, 
 or Milan, or Venice. 2 The attractions of Florentine life, how- 
 ever, retained him, until a last annoyance decided the matter. 
 Carlo Marsuppini had just been directed to teach the same 
 subjects as himself. 3 He pretended not to be hurt ; he even 
 accepted a new engagement. But he resigned and left for 
 Sienna, where we shall again find him. 
 
 It was his teachings and that of his colleagues which gave 
 the tone to letters for the last twenty years of the fourteenth 
 century. Their introduction into the Studio was like that of 
 a wolf into the sheepfold. Thanks to them, erudition, the 
 study of antiquity, together with its languages, customs, and 
 beliefs, predominated. In their teaching, criticism was not 
 wanting. They knew how to distinguish in the ancients 
 that which was unworthy of them. These were the questions 
 of the hour, and not war. If they differed upon a word, 
 deliberately and in the best rhetoric the opponent was accused 
 of theft, perjury, poisoning, and parricide ; the grossest insults 
 do not wound if they are in good Latin, and not followed by 
 blows. 4 But their Latin was still rough ; they had not 
 acquired elegance. Let a work be recognised as ancient, it 
 was admired without reserve, even to its faults. The women 
 did not insist upon politeness; ignorant or delighting in 
 indecency, their part was an insignificant one. How, then, 
 could they control the impulses of the brute that exist in all 
 of us? 
 
 1 October 12, 1434, to Antonio Petrucci, ibid., p. 144, Append. 19. 
 
 2 Phil. Epist., 1. ii. f. 10, to Antonio Panormita, July 13, 1432. At that date 
 Filelfo, who had already thought of following that advice, inclined towards Milan. 
 Rosmini, i. 133-140, Append. 13, gives letters relative to this appeal. 
 
 3 Carlo Marsuppini, the father, whom they then called Carlo Aretino, was 
 born at Arezzo in 1399; he died at Florence in 1453 (Reumont, Tav. Cron. ; 
 Tiraboschi, vol. vi. part 2, 1. iii. § 50 ; Vespasiano, Vita di Carlo (TArezzo, in 
 Spicil. Rom., i. 572). Prezziner confused the facts, because he was not careful 
 about dates. 
 
 4 Poggio and George de Trebizonde came to blows. See Villari, N. Machia- 
 velli, i. 120, who gives curious particulars. 
 
THE VULGAR TONGUE. 187 
 
 Obstinate study will chasten both manners and language, even 
 the vernacular, then completely neglected ; but this requires 
 time. The vulgar tongue was held in great contempt by 
 Filippo, Poggio, and others. 1 They even wrote their common- 
 place and obscene pleasantries in Latin. Did a few lines in 
 Italian escape their practised pens, they were instantly translated 
 into Latin. Filippo Villani speaks disdainfully of his uncle 
 and father, who, in using the vulgar tongue to write history, 
 "have certainly not done a very fine thing." 2 What was 
 admired in Dante was the catholic thinker, and not the writer ; 
 in Petrarch, the philosopher of love, and not the poet. 
 Niccolo Niccoli despised what the author of the " Divine 
 Comedy " said, as well as the manner in which he said it. 
 For this super-fastidious critic, Dante was the poet of the 
 hosiers and bakers. 3 We know in what contempt the bakers 
 were held in Florence. He reproached him with not under- 
 standing Virgil, and with imitating him badly. He was alone 
 in his opinion, it will be said. Not at all ; many years later, 
 towards the end of the century, Pico de la Mirandola insisted 
 that Petrarch lacked ideas, and Dante words. Ohristoforo 
 Landino would not admit that one could speak Tuscan 4 well 
 without knowing Latin. Angelo Poliziano, who had a thorough 
 command of both languages, thought himself obliged to write 
 the history of the conspiracy of the Pazzi in Latin ; and Lorenzo 
 de' Medicis excused himself for using the common tongue. 5 
 
 It had been employed before him, however, in writings and in 
 speech — Cavalcanti used it with an odd and confusing sprightli- 
 ness ; Neri Capponi with a correct simplicity ; 6 the authors of 
 
 1 Ginguene, iii. 348. 
 
 2 Fil. Villani, Le Vite cCUomini Illustri Fiorentini, p. 90-91, Venice, 1747. 
 
 3 " Poeta da fornai e da calzolai" (Leon. Bruni, Dialog. I. ad Petrtim 
 Histriuniy MS. of the Laurentiana, and printed at Bale. Citation of G. Capponi, 
 ii. 180). 
 
 4 " Ch'era mestieri essere latino chi vuole essere buono toscano " ( Oratione di 
 Cristoforo Landino , Flor., 1853. Citation of G. Capponi, ii. 180). 
 
 5 G. Capponi, ii. 181. This author has consecrated the whole of a long and 
 excellent chapter to considerations more literary than historical. 
 
 6 We have often cited it (1388- 1457). It is known that, as well as the history 
 
1 88 DANTE AND PETRARCH. 
 
 familiar letters, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, Ser Lapo Mazzei, 
 and others gave it a lively turn, though their style, in spite of 
 Boccaccio, lacked elegance and classic ampleness. But they had 
 changed their minds since then. Dante, by his obscurities as well 
 as by his genius, had discouraged the imitators, and Petrarch, 
 who had not discouraged them, had only produced the intoler- 
 able train of those Petrarchists who, by their witticisms a 
 la yrovenqale, by their butterfly flights through unintelligible 
 ideas and incoherent images, turned from poetry and the 
 vulgar tongue minds cultivated and purified by the study of 
 the ancients, 1 but often empty and shallow, as was until our 
 days the old Italian school. 2 A sonorous period did duty 
 for thought. Several men of letters were already shocked by 
 this state of things. " An artistic speech," said Pius II., " is 
 only the work of a fool." 3 Cardinal d'Estouteville hearing 
 the eulogy of St. Thomas d'Aquinas by Lorenzo Valla, ex- 
 claimed, " Why, that man is mad ! " 4 Fashion was no less a 
 law. There was no public or private solemnity that did not 
 indulge in the pleasure and the luxury of these carefully 
 " furbished " speeches, to use a favourite word of the Italians 
 in speaking of eloquence. Every rich family, as well as the 
 courts and governments, had their official orator. 5 A fine 
 school for making or improving a national literature ! 
 
 of his time and that of the expulsion of the Count of Poppi, he has been attri- 
 buted, with every appearance of reason, the commentaries on the war with Pisa, 
 published under the name of his father, Gino. 
 
 1 If one wished to cite a few representatives of the vulgar poetry, it would be 
 necessary to name in the fifteenth century, Feo Belcari, an inferior author of lauds 
 and representations, and the Florentine barber Domenico de' Nanni, called 
 Burchiello (died in 1448), who wrote at random, alia burchia, absurdities often 
 unintelligible, in the style of Rabelais, without the genius or even the talent. 
 See Ginguene, iii. 481, 482 ; Capponi, ii. 176. 
 
 2 M. Villari {N. Machiavelli, i. 121) gives a curious passage from Filelfo. 
 
 3 " Artificiosam orationem stultos, non sapientes nectere" (Platina, Vita Pii 
 If., p. 302, Cologne, 1574). 
 
 4 Gaspardo de Verona, cited by Voigt, Die Wiederbeleining, &c, p. 437, and 
 Villari, N. Machiavelli, i. p. 121. 
 
 6 Many of these speeches have been published ; a greater number still remain in 
 manuscript in the libraries in Italy. See Villari, ibid. 
 
PATRONAGE OF COSIMO. 189 
 
 In this literary chorus Cosimo was the Corypheus at Florence, 
 as were Nicholas V. and Pius II. at Eome ; the Visconti and 
 Sforza at Milan ; Alphonsus and Ferrante at Naples ; the 
 house of Gonzaga at Mantua ; the house of Este at Ferrara ; 
 each turning their residence into a little Athens, where men 
 of learning found an asylum, protection, and ease, among people 
 who spoke Latin like themselves, and even wrote Greek verse. 1 
 If Cosimo strikes the imagination more than the rest, it is 
 because he was only a banker and a merchant, and yet he 
 rivalled popes, kings, and lords in magnificence, and such was 
 his wealth, that it was impossible to accuse him of imitating 
 the frog swollen to the dimensions of an ox. His gold attracted 
 writers as light attracts butterflies, and a population more 
 gifted than its neighbours retained them ; and thus, for the 
 third time, as in the days of Dante and Petrarch, Florence 
 took first rank in the march of civilisation. 
 
 We need not doubt that Cosimo, like his predecessors and 
 imitators, wished to develop the study of the ancients, 2 but, 
 like them, he failed as far as the Studio was concerned. The 
 Studio could never be in any other than a perilous position, 
 since it was in an eternal state of undoing, like Pene- 
 lope's weaving. In 1434, Niccolo Niccoli and Francesco 
 Sacchetti once more undertook the thankless task. In 1437, 
 during a light epidemic that lasted eighteen months, the 
 Studio remained closed ; it was even formally decided not to 
 open it until after the disappearance of the plague. 3 When it 
 was reopened, it claimed public attention, in spite of the war 
 with Lucca, because of the troubles of a visible decadence. 
 Its budget was hardly more than some hundred or even fifty 
 
 1 See for details Tiraboschi, vol. vi. part i. c. 2 ; Ginguene, c. xviii. vol. iii. p. 
 2 37 s 1' i Sismondi, ii. 24-28. 
 
 2 We can see on this subject, Don Agostino Fortiuno, Camaldule, Hisloriarum 
 Cama/do/ens, lib. iii., Florence, 1575. 
 
 3 Here is what we read in a Ricordo cTEntrata delP Universita preso il di 4 
 Maggio 1439, by a notary of the Studio: " Hassi avere del comune per danari 
 avanzati nel 1437-38, perch e non si lesse per la moria, fl. 1936." In Prezziner, i. 
 104, 105. Cf. Gherardi, pref. ; Rondoni, p. 205. 
 
i 9 o NEGLECT OF THE STUDIO. 
 
 florins, and it was again closed from 1447 to 1452 ; Defecit 
 Studium was written on the documents. 1 The scandals were 
 incredible. A doctor of medicine lent a rector certain objects, 
 and reclaiming them, was expelled upon an infamous pretext. 
 The rector suppressed one of his assistant's salary, and robbed 
 him of half a dozen pairs of gloves. The Stinche was there 
 for those who were robbed. A student who had been cheated 
 of six measures of wheat, and given a book in exchange, was 
 asked to give up this book to the rector, and upon his refusal 
 thrown into prison. 2 Thus we find doctors refusing the offer 
 of a chair. The Studio had only two lecturers, paid sixty 
 florins each, and they lectured, taught, and argued at San 
 Miniato, or the Convent of the Angels, or in Ambrogio Traver- 
 sari's cell in Cosimo's house at Careggi. These were private 
 reunions of men of letters. But what about the instruction of 
 youth ? 3 It was above all in their interest that the few good 
 masters engaged continued to form classes. John Argyro- 
 poulo, engaged from Constantinople for two years (1456), 
 taught for fifteen years Greek and the peripatetic philosophy, 
 taught Donato Acciajuoli, 4 Pandolfo Pandolfini, Angelo Polizi- 
 ano, John, Duke of Gloucester, 5 and, like Filelfo, received the 
 freedom of the city. Christoforo Landino, by origin of Prato- 
 vecchio, born at Florence in 1424, excluded in consequence 
 from the Florentine professorships, was none the less, from 1457 
 to 1497, with little interruption, a professor of Greek and the 
 platonic philosophy at a hundred florins a year. He also com- 
 mentated Dante and Petrarch. A favourite of Cosimo, Piero, and 
 Loreuzo, in resigning his functions at the age of seventy-three, 
 
 1 Gherardi, part ii. p. 153-160, 206; Rondoni, p. 206. 
 
 2 Gherardi, part ii. p. 180, 425-438 ; Rondoni, p. 207. 
 
 3 Gherardi, part ii. p. 199 ; Rondoni, p. 208-209. 
 
 4 Donato Acciajuoli, born at Florence in 1428, died at Milan in 1478. He 
 discharged under Lorenzo important diplomatic missions, and has left a commen- 
 tary of the Ethic of Aristotle, and an Italian translation of Leonardo Bruni. See 
 Vespasiano, Vita di D. Acciaj., c. 22-; Spicil. Rom., i. 458; Bandini, Specimen 
 Litteraturce Florentines Scec, xv. vol. ii. p. 9-15, Flor., 1748. 
 
 5 See Vespasiano, Vie du Due de Glocester, c. i. ; Spicil. Rom., i. 525 ; Paolo 
 Cortese, De Hominibus Doctis, p. 43, Flor., 1734 ; Prezziner, i. 131. 
 
FILELFO AT SIENNA. 191 
 
 he preserved the title and the emoluments as a reward, no 
 doubt, for the education of the grandsons of Cosimo, the gouty 
 Piero's children, 1 whom he taught after Gentile Becchi. 
 
 Filelfo' s fate in Florence was quite other, as we shall see 
 in his stormy history. A well-known enemy of the Medici, 
 insulting them in exile as well as everybody else, 2 he had taken 
 refuge at Sienna to continue his insults with immunity. "If 
 I hadn't run away," he ambitiously wrote, ' ' there would have 
 been an end to philosophy and the Muses." 3 By insinuation, 
 he accused Cosimo of seeking to kill him a second time, 4 and 
 attacked him openly in bitter and obscene satires. 5 He defied 
 him, called him a coward, and pretended that he was too 
 frightened to persecute him. 6 Thus provoked, persecution was 
 renewed, and ten months after his flight he was declared a rebel. 7 
 To this condemnation he replied with bravado, and shouted for 
 vengeance. Under the pretence of wishing to kill two of his 
 enemies, a medical student of Imola and Carlo Marsuppini of 
 Arezzo, who studied rhetoric, he employed an obscure Greek 
 to kill Cosimo, who, before attempting the blow, was caught 
 and had his hands cut off. A little before, Filelfo had 
 claimed that the hired assassin, whom he accused Cosimo of 
 employing against himself, should have one hand cut. The 
 Greek, questioned, gave the name of the instigator of the pro- 
 
 1 Prezziner, i. 132-133 : Ginguene, iii. 371-373. 
 
 2 Notice the insults which Poggio and Filelfo exchanged liberally when the 
 latter left the Studio and Florence, in Poggii Opera, p. 165, 167; Villari, N. 
 Machiavelli, i. 117 sq.; Ch. Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Republique des Lettres, 
 vol. i. p. 136-159. 
 
 3 Phil. Epist., 1. ii. f. 13 r°. From Sienna, December 24, 1435, to Leonardo 
 Giustiniano. 
 
 4 "Vides tu quanta arte quibusque conatibus hi perditissimi et facinorosissimi 
 homines qui Florentise tyrannida nunc gerunt, cum aliis viri (sic) optimatibus per- 
 scriptis omnibus turn mihi in primis vitam eripere moliuntur " (Phil. Epist. , 1. ii. 
 f. 13 v°. Sienna, April 13, 1436, to Francesco Gallina). 
 
 5 Philelphi Opus Satyrarum seu Hccatostichon Decades x. Milan, 1476, in f° ; 
 Venice, 1 504, in 4 ; Paris, 1 508, in 4 . Cosimo is designated there under the 
 name of Mundus, translation of Greek icdo-fxos. See Ginguene, iii. 332. 
 
 6 Rosmini, i. 80. 
 
 7 Phil. Epist., 1. iii. f. 17, r°, v°, to ^Eneas Sylvius, March 28, 1439. 
 
1 92 FILELFO RETURNS TO FLORENCE. 
 
 jected crime, and Filelfo was condemned by default to have 
 his tongue cut out and to perpetual exile. 1 
 
 But eternity does not belong to politics, and besides, 
 nobody then believed in it. The ambitious and crafty 
 Camaldule Ambrogio Traversari acted as mediator between the 
 two enemies. 2 Cosimo was too well aware of the loss to 
 Florence to refuse to allow Filelfo to return ; but to avoid a 
 precedent, of which other rebels would take advantage, he 
 wished the Duke of Milan to plead in his favour the excuse 
 of a foreigner. Sforza, preferring to keep Filelfo for himself, 
 upset this plan, 3 and the decision was put off. Later on, 
 Francesco Filelfo returned to Florence with the honours of 
 war, and died there. 
 
 Either from impotence or from distracted attention, Cosimo 
 did little or nothing for the Studio. His taste was for ancient 
 literature. Like many of his less fortunate citizens, but upon 
 a grander scale, he profited by the exodus of the learned 
 Byzantines, before the taking of Byzantium, to purchase their 
 MSS. in various languages — Greek, Syrian, and Chaldean — 
 which his vessels brought him with Alexandrian stuffs. He 
 also profited by the carelessness of the monks, to despoil the 
 convents of Europe of the books that their ignorant owners 
 did not value, and sold for gold. In those researches and 
 bargains he employed his clerks and merchants, travellers 
 
 1 This is the phrase of the delivered sentence, which proves that Cosimo was 
 meant : "D. Franciscum Checchi vocatum il Filelfo da Tolentino, condannato a 
 doverli essere tagliata la lingua e bandito dal dominio fiorentino per avere voluto 
 fare ammazzare M. Girolamo de Broccardi da Imola, o M. Carlo di Arezzo, o un 
 cittadino fiorentino del presente governo e stato, il nome del quale per meglio si 
 tace" (August 1436, Fabroni, Vita Cosmi, Doc, p. 115. Leo (ii. 220) gives a part 
 of the text. Cf. Rosmini, i. 85 ; Prezziner, i. 101 ; Ginguene, iii. 333). 
 
 2 Ambrogio Traversari, born at Portico de Romagna in 1386, named General 
 of the Camaldules in 1431. See Mehus, Ambr. Camald. Vita, and Villari, N. 
 Machiavelli, i. 108. 
 
 3 Filelfo's letter to Lorenzo de Medici, Milan, May 20, 1478. Text in Fabroni, 
 Laurentii Vita, Doc, p. 102. See, on Filelfo and other literary men of the time, 
 Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in fta/ien, Leipzig, 1877 ; Voigt, Die 
 Wiederbelebung des classischen Altherthums ; Eug. Muntz, Un Medne Italien au 
 XV* Siecle, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, November I, 188 1, p. 164-170. 
 
COSIMO'S LIBRARIES. 195 
 
 and missionaries : Cristoforo Buondelmonti, as well as Poggio 
 Bracciolini, distinguished himself in this hunt for manu- 
 scripts. 1 
 
 During his exile, Cosimo was already on the look-out for a 
 place wherein to preserve his treasures ; with this object he 
 built the library of the convent of San Giorgio in Venice. His 
 constant occupation in Florence was the building of libraries. 
 We have seen 2 that Niccolo Niccoli had decided to leave his 
 own to the public, and among the forty trustees that he named 
 was Cosimo. Treated like an ordinary citizen, but desiring 
 to be first in the least matters, Cosimo persuaded the other 
 thirty-nine to give him the right to dispose of the books as 
 he wished, upon the condition of paying the testator's debts ; 
 he therefore placed the precious manuscripts in the convent of 
 San Marco, rebuilt by Michelozzo Michelozzi, his companion 
 in exile in Venice, for the sum of 36,000 ducats. 3 He had 
 them put in order by the excellent copyist called Tommaso of 
 Sarzana, soon afterwards known as Nicholas V. He added a 
 good many of his own, numbering in all 400 volumes. He 
 was praised to the skies for this. But what was it compared 
 with Niccolo Niccoli's gift of 800, 4 and Nicholas V.'s gift of 
 5000 to the Vatican Library, his own creation? Andrea de 
 Rimini and Vespasiano de Bisticci, biographer and paper- 
 maker, with Poggio, Buondelmonti, and others, were em- 
 ployed to arrange it. Their post was not a sinecure, for 
 
 1 See Sismondi, ii. 24, 28; Leo, ii. 115. On Poggio, see above, same chap, 
 p. 178. 
 
 2 See above, p. 179. 
 
 3 Vespasiano, Vita di N. Niccoli, § 8; Spicil. Rom., i. 624; Mehus, Ambr. 
 Camald. Epist., prsefatio, p. 31, 63, 82 ; Marchese, Scritti Vari, p. 46, Flor., 
 1855 ; Vasari, Vie de Michelozzi, ed. Lemonnier, in- 12, iii. 272, 279. Henceforth, 
 in quoting this author from the Lemonnier edition, the best, we will state the 
 1 2mo, our own edition, or the 8vo, into which the brothers Milanesi have intro- 
 duced numerous additions and corrections. For further details see Villari, N. 
 Machiavelli, i. p. 108, note. On the reconstruction of S. Marco, Alberto Avo- 
 gadro, De Religione et Munificentia Cosmi, 1. i, in Lami, Delicice Eruditorum, 
 xii. 117, and Marchese, Scritti Vari, p. 43, note 2, the text of which must also be 
 seen here. 
 
 4 See above, p. 178. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
i 9 4 COSIMO A M^CENAS. 
 
 whenever he built an establishment or convent, Cosimo never 
 forgot to arrange and open a library. 1 
 
 Possibly in filling his book-shelves he did not examine very 
 carefully ; his treasures were sometimes false finds. He was 
 often deceived by old-looking vellum, the result of chemical 
 preparations. 2 But it mattered not to him, as his correspon- 
 dence shows us that this interest was not a very passionate one. 3 
 Following Petrarch's steps, in which Niccoli also walked, he 
 outstripped both by reason of his inexhaustible resources, as 
 the renown of a Maecenas depends not so much upon the mere 
 love of letters, as upon the accompaniment of a full purse. 
 
 His favours to men of letters have often been celebrated. 
 But we must distinguish between them. They were given 
 only to those who separated erudition from politics. The men 
 of the old school remained forgotten when not in disgrace, like 
 Giannozzo Manetti, whose great renown as a linguist and man 
 of science did not save him from oblivion. 4 But if once a 
 writer attached himself to the Medici, unconcerned for politics, 
 he might aspire to every honour and favour. He might even 
 be employed upon embassies, where his polished language 
 redounded to his master's glory. Matteo Palmieri, 5 Donato 
 
 1 Reumont, Tav. Cron. ; Leo, ii. 215. The fate of the library of San Marco 
 is known. It was destroyed in 1453, and was reconstructed in 1457. After 
 the death of Lorenzo, when the Medici were exiled, their books remained 
 in the possession of the monks of San Marco, and were sold by them to the 
 Cardinal Giovanni de' Medicis, the future Leo X. Transported by him to Rome, 
 the books were sent again to Florence by Clement VII., another member of the 
 family. They became the principal basis of the Mediceo-Laurentiana library, 
 which was increased later by other collections, notably that of the abbey situated 
 near Fiesole. 
 
 2 Upon these falsifications M. Ch. Yriarte, in his book entitled Florence^ gives 
 <=ome curious details. 
 
 3 See Carteggio Mediceo Innanzi al Principato. 
 
 4 Giannozzo Manetti has left many Latin works, among which the lives of Petrarch 
 and of Nicolas V., the funeral orations, a chronicle of Pistoia. Vincenzo Accia- 
 juoli has written his life. His statue is at S. M. del Fiore, like that of Poggio Brac- 
 ciolini (Reumont, Tav. Cron.). Manetti has been spoken of in chap. v. p. 174- 
 1 77, upon the occasion of his disgrace. 
 
 5 Matteo Palmieri (1405-75) was so renowned then, that a treatise of his was 
 translated into French, but is quite forgotten to-day, like all his other writings, 
 even his historical recital, De Captivitate Pisarum {Tav. Cron.). 
 
FAVOURS AND REWARDS. 195 
 
 Acciajuoli, of whom we shall treat further, served him thus 
 in serving themselves. Each desired, as a reward of his 
 literary renown, the permanent post of secretary and chancellor 
 of the Republic. Men of letters had been sought for earlier, 
 now it was necessary to choose between them. This post had 
 been occupied by such masters of style as Leonardo Bruni and 
 Poggio Bracciolini, the two Carlo Marsuppini, father and son, 
 Benedetto Accolti, Bartolommeo Scala, native of Oolle, a 
 favourite of Cosimo from his youth. 1 One of their successors 
 was Niccolo Machiavelli. 
 
 The interests and caprice of Cosimo showed startling dif- 
 ferences in his favourites' fortunes. Paolo Cortese became so 
 rich as to place his castle at the disposal of the learned men of 
 whom sometimes he wrote the life. Poggio Bracciolini, with his 
 twelve sons and two daughters, all born out of wedlock from 
 the same mother, 2 was exempted from all taxation under the 
 pretext that he had come to Florence to live by study and not 
 to gain by traffic; but Filippo Bonaccorsi, a native of San Gemig- 
 nano, like Cortese, had to travel in search of fortune, and only 
 became a personage in Poland where he took to writing history. 3 
 
 It was servile zeal and not literary talent that Cosimo 
 rewarded in men of letters and authors. Let it be well under- 
 stood that if he served letters, it was by the purchase of 
 manuscripts and the creation of libraries ; above all, by his 
 truly original claim in the Platonic Academy. He conceived 
 the idea in attending the classes of the aged George Gemistus, 
 such an enthusiastic admirer of Plato that he was named 
 Plethon. Called to Florence to sustain the rights of the Greek 
 Church in the Council, though his book had been burned because 
 he attempted to restore the Pagan gods, Gemistus taught his 
 pupils Platonic philosophy, asserting that they could not at the 
 
 1 See D. M. Manni, Bart. Scala Collensis, equitis Flormtini ac Roma Senatoris 
 Vita, Flor., 1768. 
 
 2 Poggio married at fifty-five Selvaggia de Ghino Manenti des Buondelmonti, 
 who was eighteen. See Ginguene, iii. 303-325 ; Sismondi, ii. 32, 33 ; Leo, ii. 
 218. See above, p. 178, n.'i. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 169, 170. 
 
196 THE PLATONIC ACADEMY. 
 
 same time accept the Peripatetic school, and that they must 
 choose between the two. 1 He was supported by Bessarion, 
 and opposed by Theodore Gaza and George Scholarius, also 
 called Gennadius, both disciples of George of Trebizonde in the 
 art of invective and insult. 2 But he soon dipped the scale. 
 Who could hesitate long between Aristotle, who only seemed 
 novel because they were beginning to read the original, and 
 Plato, who was really novel, since they had never even read him 
 in translation ? At any rate, Cosimo did not hesitate. He 
 yielded to his old guest's desire to restore the Platonic Aca- 
 demy, 3 and established it in his own gardens, and in all Europe 
 it was the first institution consecrated to science which broke 
 loose from Scholasticism. 
 
 This hothouse plant at first seemed to depend upon one man : 
 death threatened it when Gemistus Plethon returned to the 
 Peloponnesus. But Cosimo was fortunate enough to find 
 another director. He had living with him his doctor's son, 
 Marsilio Ficino, born in 1433, and attached to him in 145 I. 
 Of a pleasant nature and agreeable disposition amid so many 
 disputants, of an exemplary life amid so many reprobates, 
 partly perhaps through his weakly constitution, which claimed 
 
 1 See the book of Gemistus Plethon, De Platonicce atque Aristotelicce Philosophies 
 Differentia, Bale, 1574. 
 
 2 George of Trebizonde was, however, very moderate in his invectives, confining 
 himself to calling his adversaries non philosophos, sed philotenebras. Bessarion repri- 
 manded him in two writings, of which one bears the title In Calumniatorem 
 Platonis. This dispute is recorded at length in the Memoires de PAcademie des 
 Inscriptions, vol. ii. p. 775, ann. 1717, Qiierelles des Philosophes duXV e . Century, 
 by M. Boivin, sen. See also Fabricius, Bibliotheca Grceca, vol. xii. p. I sq., Ham- 
 bourg, 1809, where is found Leonis Allatii De Georgis et eorum Scriptis Diatriba. 
 The three Georges were Geo. Gemistus, Geo. Scolario, Geo. de Trebizonde. M. 
 Villari has given a substantial summary of the affair in Storia di Girolamo Savona- 
 rola, i. 49-66, Flor. 1859 ; Tiraboschi, vol. vi. part i. 1. ii. c. 2, § 16 sq. ; Prezziner, 
 i. 128; Brucker, Historia Philosophic , Leipzig, 1743. 
 
 s This origin is found related in the dedicatory letter by Marsilio Ficino at the 
 beginning of his translation of Plotinus. It is found on page 1320 of the volume 
 entitled Sententia pulcherrima cum mullarum rerum definitionibus ex Marsilii 
 Ficini operibus collects, Bale, 1576. The volume commences on page 1013. 
 The important phrases of the passage, which is here in question, have been 
 reproduced by Leo, ii. 221. 
 
MARSILIO FICINO. 197 
 
 solitude, 1 Ficino was a devout Aristotelian ; it was only later 
 that he was converted to the cult of Plato. From that time 
 forward his fervour was such that he constantly kept a lamp 
 lighted before the bust of his idol, as if it were a sacred image, 
 and, what was better still, published the first complete and 
 exact translation of him. 
 
 He was, however, only a Neo-Platonist of Alexandria. His 
 philosophy was that re-hash of the mother- doctrine transplanted 
 from Greece into Italy by its last followers. 2 He was not even 
 a pagan. A priest at forty-two, and canon of San Lorenzo 
 by favour of the Medici, he endeavoured to reconcile Platonism 
 with Christianity. A singular Christian, who, to prove his reli- 
 gion, had recourse to Plato, Porphyry, Virgil, and the Sibyls, 3 
 and who shared the grossest superstitions, such as a belief in 
 spirits, from which the Materialists themselves were not exempt. 4 
 In the quarrel between the Platonists, who held that Nature 
 acts by design, and the Peripatetics, who believed that, having 
 learned her business, she acted from instinct, he took up an 
 intermediate position. He held that in all things there 
 was a third essence, a soul, immortal, although inseparable 
 from the body, and that Plato's idea can be reconciled with 
 Aristotle's form. The notion of Divinity, which for the Jews 
 is the Almighty and nothing else, and for the Christians 
 the Father of believers, was for the Neo-Platonists the philo- 
 
 1 See on Ficino, Leopoldo Galeotti, Delia Vita e degli Studi di Marsilio Ficino, 
 in the Arch. Stor., n. ser., vol. ix. part ii. p. 27-91 ; Prezziner, i. 128; Ginguene, 
 iii. 362. 
 
 2 Villari, i. 52. 
 
 3 See Brucker, Hist. Phil. ; Giov. Corsi, Marsilii Ficini Vita, published by 
 Ang. Mar. Bandini ; Villari, i. 57. 
 
 4 Landino, so grave, drew out the horoscope of religion. He concluded upon 
 the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that a great religious reform would take 
 place November 25, 1484. Let us note as a curiosity that Luther was born 1483 
 or 1484. (Landino, Commento alia Divina Commedia, Flor., 1481, in Villari, i. 
 61.) Machiavelli is inclined to believe that the air is full of spirits compassionate 
 to mortals, and who warn them by baleful auguries of the evils that await them 
 {Discorsi, 1. i. c. 56, p. 217). Guicciardini, much more positive, declares that he 
 saw spirits {Kicordi Politici e Civili, Ric. 211 ; Opere ined., i. 162). The cen- 
 tury that accepts spirit-rappers and turning-tables had better not cast a stone at 
 the subtle Florentine. 
 
i 9 8 PHILOSOPHIC SPECULATIONS. 
 
 sophic Absolute. They were on the high-road to Pantheism, 
 though they imagined by means of Plato they were renewing 
 Christianity, and giving it a more rational form. 
 
 In principle these elevated speculations lacked a basis ; 
 philosophy was only stammering. For a long while the 
 scholars of the time contented themselves with extracts 
 from the ancients upon glory, friendship, contempt of death, 
 sovereign good, happiness, and virtue. And in reading 
 Plato, they hardly saw in what he differed from Aristotle, or 
 if he differed at all. If Marsilio Ficino started by a study 
 of Platonism, he had only bad and incomplete^ translations, 
 and Cosimo induced him to study Greek in order* to reach the 
 fountain-head. He did so, taught what he had learnt, com- 
 municated the unripe fruit of his meditations at first to 
 Cosimo's sons and grandsons, then to a larger audience at the 
 Studio, and finally to the followers that surrounded him and 
 his master in the gardens of the Medici Palace : Cristoforo 
 Landini, whose Disputationes Camaldulenses give us all the 
 details of the discussions of the Neo-Platonists ; Leone Bat- 
 tista Alberti, a scholar, writer, and architect, one of the great 
 men of the century, Donato Acciajuoli, Antonio Canigiani, 
 Naldo Naldi, Peregrino Agli, Alamanno Rinuccini, Giovanni 
 Cavalcanti, and others. 1 
 
 Such reunions have always been common. In the seven- 
 teenth century Malherbe and Conrart copied them, though 
 with an aim less serious. In Florence the learned gathered 
 in Marsigli's or Traversari's cell. When they met under 
 Cosimo's roof, the importance of the place, the presence of 
 the host, the introduced ceremonies, drew much more atten- 
 tion to the existence of a society avid of learning, and much 
 more spontaneous than was believed. On November 7, 
 
 1 See this excellent exposition in Villari, G. Savon., i. 53-59, and N. Machia- 
 velli, i. 172-189. It was from the orthodox point of view that Tiraboschi wrote 
 upon the subject of the Platonists of Florence : " II lor trasporto per esso (pour 
 Platon) gli condusse sino a scriver pazzie che non si possono leggere senza risa " 
 (vol. vi. part i. 1. ii. c. 2, § 18). 
 
FICINO AND THE ACADEMY. 199 
 
 anniversary of Plato's birth or death, according to Alexandrian 
 tradition, Ficino revived the customs of Plotinus and Porphyry, 
 who celebrated it ; there was a public dinner, followed by a 
 philosophical discussion, which terminated in the apotheosis of 
 Plato, a sort of religious hymn. There was nothing in these 
 so-called Platonic reunions of the Academy to recall the 
 innumerable academies by which Italy afterwards incurred 
 general ridicule ; there were no rules or statutes. The name 
 was simply a remembrance of Greek culture, and of the master 
 they wished to honour by reviving his memory. 
 
 F'icino was the soul of the Academy. It was born and died 
 with him. The cement and chain consisted in the affection 
 his friends bore him and the faith his disciples had in him. 
 There was no real philosopher among them ; they all repro- 
 duced his ideas, even in the second period, when Lcrenzo, 
 Cosimo's grandson, and Pico de la Mirandola, made a brilliant 
 addition to the aged Ficino's circle. As for Cosimo, he was 
 but a courteous host from the beginning. 1 
 
 As we know, he was repaid his hospitality and courtesy 
 with interest. The learned, who knew how to profit by the 
 aspirations they provoked, constituted themselves the dispensers 
 of glory, promising an eternal eulogy, threatening an indelible 
 stain, according as the object of their life was served or neglected, 
 an object all the dearer as it was generally their own interest. 
 Therein we see the reflex action of things upon men, and of 
 men upon things — men of letters upon Cosimo, and Cosimo 
 upon men of letters. 2 It was so with the painters and sculp- 
 
 1 Many writers have spoken of the Academy : Ficino in several letters ; Giov. 
 Corsi in his Vita Ficini ; Fabroni, Tiraboschi, Roscoe, Gibbon, Ginguene, and 
 more recently Harford, Life of Michael- Angelo Buonarroti, London, 1858 ; Sieve- 
 king, Die Geschichte der platonischen Akademie zu Florenz, Hambourg, 1844 ; 
 Galeotti, Saggio hitorno alia Vita ed agli Scritti di M. Ficino, in Arch. Stor., n. 
 ser., vol. ix. disp. 2, and vol. x. disp. 1. In Bandini's work {Specimen Litt. Flor.> 
 sec. 15) there is a biography of Landino. Upon the doctrines, Ritter, Geschichte 
 der neuern Philosophic, part i. 1. ii. c. 4 ; Schultze, Geschichte der Philosophie der 
 Renaissance, Jena, 1874. 
 
 2 J. Burckhardt has clearly set forth this role of the men of letters {La Civilisation 
 de la Renaissance en Italie, Florence, 1876). 
 
2oo THE DISCIPLES OF GIOTTO. 
 
 tors too ; they returned in glory what they received in com- 
 missions. In the chapel of the Carmine the Medici are placed 
 among the witnesses of the miracle of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 while in the Campo Santo of Pisa they served as models for 
 the figures of the patriarchs. 1 It was natural, but it is none 
 the less one of the curiosities of the history of the times. 
 
 Neither letters nor arts belong exclusively to the Medici. 
 Their claims throughout Italy are older. Tuscany, that had 
 produced Florence, that had encouraged Giotto and Orcagna, 
 had already established its rights. If the two schools of the 
 Giottos early marked the decadence complained of by Taddeo 
 Gaddi, 2 through want of genius, excessive imitation of their 
 master, and an affectation of long flowing gowns, at least 
 they were still distinguished by a respect of the great laws of 
 composition, misunderstood and forgotten under the rule of 
 the Medici. 3 
 
 The last troubled days of the Florentine democracy had not 
 proved quite unproductive of art. It was the time of Giotto's 
 undisputed sway. Many works, of which the fifteenth century 
 gets the glory because it finished them, were ordered and 
 begun amidst the confusion and terrible agitation of the dema- 
 gogy. In I 360 the building of Santa Maria del Fiore, so long 
 interrupted, was taken up again. In 1363 the monument of 
 Pier Farnese was raised, from the designs of Agnolo Gaddi. In 
 1366 was begun the silver altar front of the Baptistery, which 
 was only finished in 1 480. In 1 3 7 1 Francesco Volterra executed 
 the frescoes of Job in the Campo Santo of Pisa. In 1374 it 
 was decided to build the loggia of the lanza or lansquenets, 
 
 1 See the work of M. Eug. Miintz, Un Mkbie Italien au X V*. Siecle, in the 
 Revue des Deux Afondes, November 1, 1881. 
 
 2 In a conversation reported by Sacchetti. See our vol. v. p. 466, 467, note I. 
 
 3 See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy, i. 506 ; H. 
 Delaborde, E\tudes sttr les Beaux- Arts en France et en Italie y i. 102 ; A. Bartoli, 
 / Precursori del Pinascimento, Flor., 1874; Fiorillo, Geschichte der zeichnenden 
 Kiinste von ihrer Wiederherstellung bis au/ die neuesten Zeiten, Gottingen, 1789- 
 1808 ; Riepenhausen, Geschichte der Malerei in Italien nach ihrer Entwicklung 
 Ausbildung und Vollendung, Stuttgart, 1810 (unfinished) ; Schnaase, Geschichte 
 der bildenden Kilns <?, Dlisseldorf, 1842-44. 
 
THE TASTE FOR ART. 201 
 
 and on September 22 of the same year the foundation was 
 laid. 1 If the nude was ill seen under ample draperies, the 
 magnificence of the costumes, and the glorious feasts of a city 
 where every one lived in the open air, in the sun, under a blue 
 sky, were food for art. And the nude was not quite absent, as 
 may be thought. In Rome, and probably elsewhere, there were 
 races of naked men, as in the old games of Greece, and ob- 
 scene processions as in the circuses of the Roman empire, 2 
 while the loose morals of the artists hardly induce a belief 
 that they lacked occasions to study the nude. 
 
 A change was promised not so much in art as in the con- 
 dition of the artists. In old Florence an architect, a sculptor, 
 or a painter was a tradesman like any other, and not dis- 
 tinguished from a mechanic : for example, a varnisher was 
 classed with a painter. The only difference between them was 
 the length of their apprenticeship, which in all cases was 
 long ; twelve years in the fourteenth century, according to 
 Cennino Cennini. 3 
 
 Under the oligarchy, in the relative calm that came with 
 oppression, a taste for art as well as for letters began to 
 develop in Florence as elsewhere. Niccold Niccoli, who was 
 so fond of books, 4 also loved pictures, sculpture, and every 
 manifestation of art. His house, like his library, was an 
 open museum. 5 Poggio also admired and collected ancient 
 works of art, above all sculpture, but rather for his own en- 
 joyment than for the delight of others. He adorned with them 
 " his academy in the Val d'Arno, where he hoped to enjoy rest." 6 
 Niccolo of Uzzano, who gave a good deal to the church of Santa 
 
 1 Reumont, Tavole Cronologiche. On the Loggia, see our vol. v. p. 461. 
 
 2 Taine, Philosophic de T Art, i. 170, 178, Paris, 3rd edit., 1881. 
 
 3 " Sappi che non vorrebbe essere men tempo a imparare," &c. Cennino Cen- 
 nini, Libro del? Arte Trattato della Pittura, cap. 104, in Janitschek, Die Gesell- 
 schaft der Penaissance in Italien tmd die Kunst, p. 109, n. 67, Stuttgart, 1879. 
 
 4 See on his library, same chapter, p. 1 78. 
 
 5 Poggii Opera, p. 267, in Roscoe, chap. ix. ; trad. vol. ii. p. 244, n. 2. 
 
 6 Poggio to Niccolo Niccoli in Roscoe, ibid. Roscoe (p. 245) publishes the 
 translation of several passages of a letter by Poggio showing his passion for sculp- 
 ture. 
 
202 LORENZO AND NERI DE' BICCI. 
 
 Lucia, wanted to place there his portrait painted by Lorenzo 
 of Bicci. Giovanni de' Medicis, Cosimo's father, also ordered 
 portraits of this same painter for the old family palace. 1 
 Simultaneously the Pitti and the Pazzi contributed to the 
 progress of art by their handsome commissions. 
 
 Lorenzo of Bicci, architect and painter, the best and most 
 careful of his somewhat unproductive day, 2 carried on the 
 Giottesque tradition in the midst of the new school, just as the 
 Byzantine school had flourished side by side with the Giottesque. 
 His grandson, Neri of Bicci, remained faithful to this tradition 
 when all had forsaken it. 3 Before that time, and with Lorenzo, 
 another painter strove to imitate Giottino, one of the numerous 
 and obscure Lippi who figure in the book of art. 4 
 
 There were many causes for the stagnation of art "under the 
 oligarchy. Chance was niggardly of genius ; the men of learn- 
 ing, given up to their studies and philological squabbles, dis- 
 dained and neglected it ; for Niccoli and Poggio, associating the 
 museum with the library, were exceptions. The others only 
 sought enlightenment in the remains of antiquity, and finding 
 little therein, promptly turned their attention elsewhere. As 
 for the Popes, they never patronised books and art at the same 
 time. 5 But encouragement is not so important as we imagine. 
 From the year 1423 the Medici began to court fame by costly 
 buildings. Almost at their own expense they restored the old 
 
 1 This palace, which fell to Lorenzo, Cosimo's brother, was afterwards called 
 Palazzo Ughi, and then divided into several houses. It was contiguous to the palace, 
 begun by Cosimo and finished by the Riccardi, whose name it still bears. See 
 Milanesi in Vasari, ed. Lemonnier, in- 12, vol. ii. p. 226, n. 1. 
 
 2 1350?— 1420. Vasari, ed. Lemon., in-12, vol. ii. p. 225-234. The dates are 
 given by Milanesi, who warns us that life is a tissue of errors, and proves it in his 
 notes. 
 
 3 Niccol6 of Uzzano applied to Lorenzo of Bicci to build his College of Wisdom. 
 Upon this, see as well Vasari, Ranalli, Storia delle Belle Arti in Italia, p. 121, 
 Flor., 1845; Rosini, Storia della Pittura Italiana, ii. 245, Pisa, 1840; Rio, De 
 VArt Chretien, i. 355, Paris, 1874 ; Delaborde, i. 104. 
 
 4 1354 — towards 1410. Vasari, ed. Lemon., in-12, ii. 205-208; Ranalli, p. 
 122. 
 
 5 See Eug! Miintz, Mkene Italien au XV* Si&le, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 November 1, 1881, p. 178. 
 
THREE GREAT ARTISTS. 203 
 
 basilica of San Lorenzo that was burnt down, and at their 
 bidding the family tombs were set up in 1432. Genius was 
 still inert ; when it began to breathe, the Medici profited by it. 
 They were under obligations to art. Their benefits were still 
 subordinate to caprice or calculation; and, in spite of all that 
 has been said, they were too niggardly to have supported or 
 encouraged talent more than others. 1 
 
 It was the good fortune of the Medici, as well as the glory 
 of Florence, that this period should have been made illustrious 
 by three men of incomparable genius, educated under the 
 oligarchy in a goldsmith's workshop, according to the habit 
 of the times. Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Ghiberti (1378- 
 1455), Donatello (1386— 1468), at first sculptors, were after- 
 wards architects and painters too. 2 In the fifteenth century 
 these branches were not separate ; the one involved the other 
 two. Sculpture, for the second time, regenerated art through 
 the study of the antique — an irresistible stream which carried 
 every one away. By it Christian art was relegated to a second 
 place. Building was continued and churches were decorated, 
 and it is a mistake to imagine that the Medici wanted to turn 
 their compatriots from a religion that teaches submission to 
 the great ; but there were churches everywhere ; what was 
 wanted were palaces, and in palaces pious pictures being out of 
 place, hunting-scenes, tournaments, amorous and mythological 
 adventures, served to recall ancient art, now so long forgotten 
 as to appear quite fresh. 
 
 The education of the apprentices to art in goldsmith's work 
 
 1 Cosimo might very well lock Filippo Lippi up to force him to work (Fabroni, 
 Vita Cosimo, texts, p. 157); but in a letter to Giovanni de' Medicis, who had 
 given him an order for which he had laid aside work undertaken at Prato, Lippi 
 maintained that 100 florins would not be too much. He was only advanced four- 
 teen, and had much difficulty in obtaining any more (July 1457, in Gage, Car- 
 teggio Inedito d' Artisti, i. 175. Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 331). 
 
 2 We know that Ghiberti painted a chamber for Pandolfo Malatesti at Rimini, 
 and it might be doubted, if we were not sure, that he ever held a brush by his 
 sculpture. As for Brunelleschi, if he did not paint, he was able to teach drawing 
 to Masaccio. See Rosini, ii. 246. Brunelleschi was also an engineer. We know 
 the story of his chimerical works in the plain of Lucca, although Vasari, through 
 jealousy of his artistic fame, does not mention it. See our vol. vi. p. 340. 
 
2o 4 FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. 
 
 was important : by it we may explain the similarity of talent 
 and method. The goldsmith was at that time in vogue, 1 as 
 there were many rich men with an intelligent taste for vessels 
 and arms, bedsteads, chimney-pieces, and inlaid furniture. 
 In working stucco, wood, marble, and fine stones, the gold- 
 smith's apprentice learned to accentuate outlines and delicate 
 fillets, and later, turning sculptor or painter, was capable of 
 bringing out muscles when the science of anatomy enabled 
 him, and of entering the road of a healthy realism, the only 
 right one when not pushed to excess. 2 
 
 Having perfected his taste and skill in gold-work, and hav- 
 ing steeped his mind in philosophy and the doctrines of Dante, 
 Filippo Brunelleschi went to Rome. There he studied the old 
 buildings, more numerous then in their rains than in our days, 
 or even in Leo X.'s time, and having discovered the secret of 
 their form and solidity, the various systems of construction, 
 and the ways of working materials, he returned to Florence, 
 where he received the order to continue the gigantic under- 
 taking of Santa Maria del Fiore, begun by Arnolfo of Cambio, 3 
 and only equalled by St. Peter's of Rome. If he imitated 
 ancient art and borrowed the cupola of the Pantheon, Brunel- 
 leschi in doubling it, substituting the pointed for the round 
 arch, and thus increasing the solidity of the vaults, sur- 
 passed his models and showed himself original. A rigorous 
 observer of just proportion, he reduced ornamentation to an 
 accessory, which should accentuate the projections and divisions 
 of a building, He was paid three florins a month for fourteen 
 years, when he finished this work, the possibility of which, as 
 well as its solidity, was passionately contested. Time has an- 
 swered, and the masterpiece still remains as young as on its first 
 day. Michael Angelo, with his eagle glance, judged at once 
 that nothing better could be done, and Cosimo sent Brunel- 
 
 1 Already Niccolo Pisano sculptured statuettes. 
 
 2 See Cicognara Storm delta Scultura, passim, Prato, 1823 ; Vasari, ed. Lem., 
 in-8, ii. 168, n. 1. Cf. Taine, Voyage en Italie, ii. 134, Paris, 1880, 4th edit. 
 
 3 On Arnolfo de Cambio, see our vol. iii. p. 487, 488. 
 
FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. 205 
 
 leschi to Eugene IV., saying lie was courageous enough to 
 turn the course of the world. 1 Among so many doubts and 
 jealousies, we must praise this serene sagacity. 
 
 That Brunelleschi had lost what a few may call the senti- 
 ment of religion, which is only the tradition of the hieratic art 
 of ancient times, we need not doubt. He built churches and 
 palaces upon the same antique models : San Spirito, San 
 Lorenzo, San Marco, the abbey situated at the mountain of 
 Fiesole, 2 the Pitti Palace, which he only lived to finish as far 
 as the first storey, and the Quaratesi palaces ordered by Jacopo 
 des Pazzi, the famous enemy of the Medici. 3 But, like Giotto, 
 he had the taste for natural forms, and the art of selecting 
 the most appropriate ; he loved simplicity in grandeur. We 
 know how he abused Donatelli's ugly Christ, and, defying 
 him to make a better one, compelled his rival to acknow- 
 ledge his superiority. 4 If, as they said, his head was in 
 the clouds, his feet touched solid earth ; he improved the 
 technicalities of his art; he taught the laws of perspective 
 to the mosaicists in wood and marble. 5 He advanced art 
 in the direction of truth and reality, and, in building temples 
 for churches, incurred, like many others, the reproach of being 
 a pagan. 
 
 Not an unjustifiable reproach certainly, but those who flung 
 it at the fifteenth century ought to have included the four- 
 teenth also. Piety and chastity were then not more frequent ; 
 
 1 " Io mando a V. B. un uomo a cui, cosi e grande la sua virtu, basterebbe 
 l'animo a rivolgere il mondo" (Quotation from Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 235, 
 n. 2). On this great work of Brunelleschi, see Metropolitana Fiorentina Illustrata y 
 Flor., 1820; Cesare Guasti, La Cupola di S. M. del Fiore Illustrata, Flor., 1857, 
 and S. M. del Fiore, 1887 \ Ranalli, p. 135-139; Rio, i. 312; Delaborde, i. 104; 
 Geschichte der italienischen Kunst, iii. 24-31, Leipzig, 1870. 
 
 2 Fabroni, Vita Cosimi, text, p. 194. San Spirito, which shows an incom- 
 parable harmony in its whole and in its lines, was begun in 1433 and finished in 
 
 1451- 
 
 3 The Quaratesi Palace, formerly the Pazzi, is situated in the Via del Procon- 
 solo. See Ranalli, p. 133 ; Rio, i. 314. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 198, 246. Brunelleschi's Christ may be seen at 
 S. M. Novella ; Donatello's is at S. Croce. 
 
 5 Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
206 LORENZO GHIBERTI. 
 
 and if the sentiment of religion was less rare, religion itself 
 was wanting in purity. The Scaligeri of Verona, the Estes 
 of Ferrara, the Delia Polentas of Eavenna, the Malatesti of 
 Rimini, the Visconti of Milan, Castruccio, Robert of Naples, 
 and also Clement V. in his lupanar at Avignon, equalled 
 the Medici in their appreciation of the famous mythological 
 nudities which are said to have ruined Christian art. The 
 only difference was that in the fourteenth century commissions 
 for this sort of work were few, as it was not yet the fashion. If 
 Giotto, of joyous and pagan temperament, only painted sacred 
 and serious subjects, it was because he did not solely paint 
 for pleasure, but also for bread. The strong impulsion of the 
 Renaissance was necessary to force artists to free themselves 
 from the prevailing taste by disinterested study, and little by 
 little to transform it. 1 
 
 It was precisely this proud independence that enabled 
 Brunelleschi to widen and enlarge everything he touched. 
 We cannot say the same of Lorenzo Ghiberti, with whom it 
 would be difficult to compare him. In 1420 they were both 
 named architects of the Cupola; three years later Ghiberti 
 retired, confessing thus his inferiority in architecture. 2 His 
 superiority lay in sculpture. His bas-relief for the gates of 
 the Baptistery, better calculated to please the eye, was pre- 
 ferred to Brunelleschi's, which was perhaps more in keeping 
 with the true laws of art. 3 Ghiberti, less emancipated from 
 the goldsmith's tradition, was more skilled in the execution of 
 finished work. 4 
 
 All his talent is seen in his memorable gates. Wishing 
 to imitate Andrea Pisano's gate, conceived and executed 
 
 1 .See, besides the works quoted, Ruhl, Denhnaler der Baukunst in Italien, 
 Darmstadt, 1821 ; Stieglitz, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Ausbildung der Bau- 
 kunst, Leipzig, 1834 ; Lubke, Geschichte der Architektur, Leipzig, 1855 ; Amico 
 Ricci, Storia del? Architettura in Italia, Modena, 1857. 
 
 2 Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
 3 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 273. Both these bas-reliefs, representing the 
 sacrifice of Abraham, are in the Ufnzi Museum, Nos. 391 and 392. 
 
 4 Benvenuto Cellini, introduction to his treatise on gold-work ; Rio, i. 347. 
 
LORENZO GHIBERTI. 207 
 
 upon Byzantine and Italian principles — few details, simple in- 
 dications — he brought to the work the instinct of a painter ; * 
 he sought effect in action rather than in perfection, and, with 
 his father Bartoluccio's help, 2 he confined himself to a few 
 figures sharply detached from the background. But the success 
 of this gate having assured him a commission for another, 3 he 
 obtained at great expense a collection of Greek fragments. 
 These opened his eyes to a new light : he strove for finish in 
 his work, and plastic effect, which he obtained by means of the 
 perspective already introduced into painting, but unknown in 
 sculpture. The small squares of the third gate are so many 
 pictures in relief, a method which has only produced this work 
 of art. Painting and sculpture are apart, and do not gain by 
 union. 4 
 
 Ghiberti clung to his system, pleasing in its novelty ; 5 to 
 it he owed the vogue and popularity 6 to which his solid merits 
 entitled him. If he is not the chief of the great school 
 which does not deem it undignified to look at Nature, at 
 least he marks the new departure : his workshop (for studio is 
 a modern word) sent out masters who headed this movement, 
 
 1 " L'animo mio alia pittura era in grande parte volto " (second comment of 
 Ghiberti, in Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vol. i. p. xxx.). 
 
 2 The second gate, finished in 1424, was placed, April 9th of same year, in 
 front of the Duoma. Afterwards it was put on the north side. It weighed 34,oco 
 pounds, and cost 22,000 gold florins. See Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
 3 The third gate, ordered of Ghiberti January 2, 1425, was only put up June 
 16, 1452. See Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
 4 Baldinucci, Opere> Delle Notizie de' Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qtta, 
 Florence, 1768, Dec. i. part i. sec. 3, p. 1-50; Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. p. 
 100, n. 1 ; Forster, iii. p. 46-65 ; Ranalli, p. 153-159; Perkins, 7 mean Sculpture 
 
 from its Revival to its Decline ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 274-276 ; Rio, i. 343 ; 
 Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen, ii. 230, 243 ; Leo, Hist, d'ltalie, trad. Dauchez, 
 ii. 211. The difference of appreciation of Ghiberti's two gates is the result of this 
 difference between them : Reynolds and Crowe prefer the second, Vasari and 
 Rumohr the third. This latter we know Michael Angelo declared to be worthy to 
 be the gate of Paradise. 
 
 5 This system is found again in the monument of San Zanobi in S. M. del Fiore, 
 for which he received the order in 1439. See Gaye, i. 543. 
 
 6 " Poche cose si sono fatte d'importanza nella nostra terra che non siano state 
 disegnate e ordinate di mia mano " (second comment of Ghiberti, Vasari, ed. Lem. , 
 in-12, i. xxxvii.). 
 
2o8 DONATELLO. 
 
 Donatello in sculpture and Uccello and Masolino in painting. 
 They produced what had never yet been done — profane works 
 distinguished by noble aspirations towards the ideal. 1 
 
 The third in age of this admirable trinity, if a difference 
 of eight years may be counted, but the first in action, was 
 Donato, more commonly called Donatello. 2 No more an archi- 
 tect than Ghiberti, like him, he cannot be, strictly speak 
 ing, compared with Brunelleschi, whom he had nevertheless 
 followed in Rome. The works of the Roman decadence 
 had not developed in him a sense of the beautiful which 
 his rough and powerful genius needed, to help him to 
 discern in Nature what is worthy of reproduction, and he 
 keenly felt his weakness as well as his strength. He once 
 said to Brunelleschi, "The Christs are yours; the peasants 
 are mine." 3 But his worship of Nature was the first and 
 great step in the path of the Renaissance, for it is necessary 
 to understand the value of existing things before we can 
 choose between them. For the rest, he was capable of modera- 
 ting his impetuosity and of representing antique repose, even 
 when a subject like Judith relieved him of restraint. 4 If 
 he were more dexterous than others in sculpturing a figure, 5 
 he could also invent and compose a story : witness the bas- 
 
 1 It is absurd to pretend, as Rio does (i. 347, 354), that Ghiberti's idealism was 
 the reason of his disfavour with the Medici. We read in Fabroni : " Hie quoque 
 a Cosmo liberaliter atque honorifice tractatus multisque in rebus adhibitus fuit " 
 ( Vita Cosmi, text, p. 160). 
 
 8 In the Catasto he figures under this name : Donato de Niccolo de Betto Bardi. 
 Upon Donatello, see the recent work of M. Muntz, Les Artistes Cadres, Dona- 
 tello, Paris, 1885. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iii. 247. 
 
 4 This group of Judith, rescued from the Medici Palace in 1494 upon the fall of 
 that family, was transported to the Place of the Signory with this inscription : 
 Exemplum salutis publica cives posuere. 
 
 5 See on the campanile of S. M. del Fiore his famous Zuccone (bald), which is 
 Barduccio Cherichini's portrait, coarse when viewed close, but splendid from the 
 distance, for he had a perfect sense of the necessary conditions to observe to pro- 
 duce an effect. See also his other works of art, his Shepherd David in the Uffizi, 
 St. George, St. Peter, St. Mark at the Or San Michele. We remember that once 
 Michael Angelo said to the statue of St. Mark, "Why don't you speak to me?" 
 
MICHELOZZO MICHELOZZI. 209 
 
 reliefs of the two pulpits of San Lorenzo executed from his 
 designs. 
 
 Nothing strikes the imagination like boldness. Donatello 
 easily became the favourite of the public and of the Medici, 
 rather an echo than a guide of public feeling. It was under 
 his direction that Cosimo began his collection of antique 
 sculpture, the nucleus of the beautiful gallery that at his death 
 was valued at 28,000 florins. 1 It was he also who orna- 
 mented his palaces and villas so successfully, that, although 
 solicited from abroad, Donatello was obliged to refuse work 
 outside of Florence. Recommended by Cosimo to his son 
 Piero, he became his intimate friend. If he had few pupils, 
 his method, even to his faults, prevailed during the century, 
 and in the next century he had the glory of being followed 
 by Michael Angelo, without appearing visibly his inferior. 
 Upon a collection of the designs of these two men of genius 
 Vincenzo Borghini wrote in Greek : " Either Donatello imitates 
 Buonarroti, or Buonarroti imitates Donatello." 2 
 
 These three very different initiators in their own time found a 
 wise and clever successor, who possessed something of the merits 
 of each while remaining their inferior : Michelozzo de Bartolom- 
 meo Michelozzi (1396?- 147 2). A disciple of Ghiberti, 3 he 
 associated his less powerful chisel with Donatello's, 4 and ended 
 by devoting himself to architecture, a vaster field of work, where 
 his model was Brunelleschi. He spread the reform in that 
 art in Umbria, in Lombardy, and even in Venice, whither he 
 had followed the exiled Medici. Favours and honours were 
 
 1 Fabroni, Vita Cosmi, Doc, p. 231. This document has been reprinted in 
 Roscoe, App. 70, trad. ii. 470. 
 
 2 "H Awards fiovap'p'urrlZei, fj Bovafipurbs duparlfa. See Baldinucci on Dona- 
 tello, Dec. i. part I, sec. 3, vol. iii. p. 73-83 ; Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iii. 243-269, 
 and trad. Jeanron, ii. 228 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 276-282 ; Rio, i. 322-335 ; 
 Rumohr, ii. 243; Leo, ii. 212; Forster, iii. 65-82; Ranalli, p. 150-153; Runge, 
 Der Glockenthurm der Doms zu Florenz, Berlin, 1857; H. Semper, Donatello, 
 seine Zeit und Schule {Quellenschriften zur JZunst, vol. ix., Vienna, 1875). 
 
 3 Gaye, i. 117 sq. ; Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 270, n. 2. 
 
 4 See his St. Matthew at Or San Michele, and his St. John the Baptist at the 
 Uffizi. 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
210 LEONE BATTISTA ALBERTI. 
 
 showered on him much more than on the other three. Cosimo 
 adopted his plans, not because they were more modest, but 
 because they were more promptly executed : having given his 
 order, the epicurean was anxious to enjoy his palaces and villas. 1 
 
 This constant preference was not misplaced. Michelozzo 
 made a notable stride in the great art of architecture. At 
 a time when public taste only relished an impression of 
 strength in buildings, like the Pitti and Strozzi palaces in 
 their foundation, he introduced into his the beautiful and 
 varied arrangement of antique art ; he set the orders one above 
 the other without surrendering his individuality, without sacri- 
 ficing the solidity of the whole, or the commodious distribution 
 of the interior — quite a modern need. 2 While he had settled 
 at least for some years the style of domestic architecture, he 
 endeared himself to the clergy by building convents as com- 
 fortable as his houses and palaces, 3 and he built them by order 
 of the pagan Cosimo. 4 
 
 This new or renewed art found at the same time its theorist. 
 Leone Battista Alberti (1404— 1472) wrote a treatise, De re 
 cedificatoria, which circulated in manuscript during his life- 
 time and was printed after his death. 5 Moreover, he preached 
 by example as well as by precept ; many of his works, still 
 celebrated, have a delicacy and naivete* that give them an 
 original stamp. 6 But this Florentine, an adept in literature 
 
 1 Machiavelli regards the Riccardi Palace, begun in 1430 and finished in 1440, 
 as worthy of a great citizen, and the villas of Cafaggiolo, Careggi, Fiesole, Trebbio, 
 as worthy of a king : " Una nella citta di quello essere che a tanto cittadino si 
 conveniva. . . . Tutti palagi non da privati cittadini, ma regii" {1st. Fior., 1. vii. 
 p. 103 B. Cf. Fabroni, Vita Cosmi, text, p. 152; Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
 2 See the Tornabuoni Palace, the Corsi of to-day, as well as the Riccardi Palace. 
 
 3 The Library of San Giorgio in Venice is by Michelozzo, ordered by Cosimo 
 during his exile, and in Florence the Noviciate of Santa Croce, San Miniato, and 
 La Nunziata. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iii. 270-286; Reumont, Tav. Cron. ; Ranalli, p. 146- 
 147; Rio, i. 316-319; Forster, iii. 32; Leo, ii. 214. 
 
 6 In 1485. This treatise has run into many other editions since. Cosimo 
 Bartoli translated it in 1550, and had many imitators (Reumont, Tav. Cron.). 
 
 6 The Fountain of Trevi, the Ruccellai Palace, the choir and tribune of the 
 Nunziata, San Andrea of Mantua, San Francesco of Rimini. 
 
LUCCA DELLA ROBBIA. 211 
 
 and science ! as well as in art, worked little for Florence. If 
 the gates were re-opened for him by the will of Cosimo, who 
 in his triumph resolved to recall the enemies of the Albizzi, 
 he was quickly obliged to seek a livelihood out of his own 
 country, for the powers could not forget that he was the 
 grandson of Cipriano Alberti, the citizen whose fierce inde- 
 pendence had come into collision with the tyrannical oligarchy. 2 
 A good hound hunts by instinct, thought the chief of the 
 Medici, and the disgrace of this pacific and universal genius 
 reflects no honour upon him. 3 
 
 Like Michelozzo in architecture, Luca della Robbia (1400— 
 1482) might have continued in sculpture the great traditions 
 of these three masters, have even competed with them, if, after 
 having shown the vivacity and grace of youth in bronze, 4 he 
 had not preferred to become the head of a school by creating 
 a new branch in art. In his career of invention he still adhered 
 to Ghiberti, whose pictorial sculpture suggested to him the 
 terra-cotta works that he coloured, as a sort of compromise 
 between real sculpture and antique painting on enamel, and 
 which he employed as a permanent decoration, a purpose they 
 admirably fulfilled. 5 This is only a secondary art ; without 
 touching upon the disputed question of polychromy, petrified 
 earth preserved by a varnish from the blight of the atmosphere 
 
 1 In common tongue. See his book, Delia Famiglia, of which the third book 
 has furnished the matter of the work of Pandolfini ; in Latin, his comedy entitled 
 Philodoxios (1450), and signed Lepidus Comicus, by which Aide Manuzio was 
 taken in, who published it as of an ancient work (Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 52, 
 n. 2, Life of L. B. Alberti). 
 
 2 See our vol. vi. p. 18, 101, 107. 
 
 3 Memorie e Docamenti inediti per sei"vire alia Vita letteraria di L. B. Alberti 
 (anonymous and without date) ; G. B. Niccolini, Elogio di L. B. Alberti, Flor., 
 1819 ; Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iv. 52-66 ; Reumont, Tav. Cron. ; Ranalli, p. 144 ; 
 Capponi, ii. 168 ; Forster, iii. 33-39. 
 
 4 See at S. M. del Fiore the doors of the sacristy, on which he worked after 
 Donatello, Michelozzo, and Maso de Bartolommeo (1464), and a choir of angels 
 above the organ, of a rare perfection. 
 
 5 See his two works which surmount the doors of the two sacristies of S. M. del 
 Fiore, his emblematic medallions on the exterior wall of Or San Michele, his 
 crowning of the Virgin at the Church d'Ognissanti, and a Madonna at the Mercato 
 Vecchio. 
 
212 THE SCHOOL OF DELLA ROBBIA. 
 
 does not show delicacy of workmanship to advantage, though 
 nothing is more suitable for mere ornamentation. The imi- 
 tation of Nature almost deceives the eye, and it is wonderful 
 to see how, under difficult conditions, the correct design of 
 Luca, somewhat cold, like Ghiberti's, and his form and scien- 
 tific modelling, like that of the Florentines generally, reach an 
 expression so true and graceful and so little affected. In a 
 word, he excels in the monumental style. 
 
 It was not he, but his school, that, by exaggerating his 
 system, fell into the error of competition with painting. And 
 yet, when his brothers Ottaviano and Agostino and his nephew 
 Andrea (1437- 1528) worked with him, it is often impossible 
 to distinguish what share each of them contributed. Two 
 of Andrea's sons went to France to create a line of disciples, 
 amongst whom were Leonard Limosin, Pierre Conrtois, and 
 Bernard de Palissy. Though popular in the sixteenth century, 
 this art was without doubt of an inferior order, but it held its 
 place and deserves mention. 1 
 
 The painters hold a much higher place in the history of art. 
 They were legion ; through them we see to what an extent the 
 study of Nature advanced through the study of the antique, 
 and became, even to excess, the rule of a whole generation. 
 This excess, that is to say, a contempt of selection, was then 
 the only novelty. Landino and Alberti were already calling the 
 Giottesque Stefano the monkey of Nature. 2 An old painter, 
 of whom no one speaks now, marks the transition, like the 
 forgotten link of a chain, which seems broken without being 
 broken, for in Nature there are no breaks. 
 
 This painter was Giuliano of Arrigo, called Pesello (1367- 
 1466). In 1390 he worked with Agnolo Gaddi upon the 
 monument of Piero Farnese. In 1 4 1 9 the designs of Brunel- 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 59-75 ; trad. Jeanron, ii. 54; Rumohr, ii. 292 ; 
 Leo, ii. 577 ; Forster, iii. 82-90 ; Rio, i. 427 ; Ranalli, p. 159-161 ; Cavallucci 
 and Molinier, Les Delia Robbia, leur Vie et letcr (Euvre, Paris, 1S84. 
 
 2 See our vol. v. p. 449, and n. 3. 
 
THE PESELLI. 213 
 
 leschi for the cupola of the cathedral were preferred to his ; 1 but 
 in the following year he was named as substitute for his rival, 
 in case the latter should die or give up his work. His name 
 only appears in the book of painters in 1424, and he lived 
 long enough to obtain the favour of the now powerful Cosimo. 2 
 In his work, and in that of his grandson Francesco Pesellino 
 (1422— 1457), who imitated him, traces are to be found of the 
 innovations that younger and more talented men introduced 
 by their side. Portraiture, which the taste of the day so 
 readily tolerated in all paintings, was already seen in Peselli's 
 work, a proof that the painter had substituted the imitation of 
 Nature for the noble but less studied fantasies of the pre- 
 ceding age. Thus it was the Giottesques who were the first to 
 produce in the fifteenth century, though modestly and without 
 genius, the innovation which, inspired by genius and boldly 
 conducted, was destined to transform art. 3 
 
 The first great step after the Peselli was made by Masolino 
 of Panicale (1383— 1447). Truth to say, it was not without 
 a sensible loss. Masolino neglected the great laws of com- 
 position followed by the Giottesques. Less varied than they, 
 he did not, like them, go in for groups, but he was less hard 
 and crude. To simple reality, the conquest of his predecessors, 
 he added chiaroscuro, his own conquest, and a real revolution. 
 He also introduced perspective and understanding of relief, 
 movement, foreshortening, expression, and classical purity, 
 which he learned from the model of Ghiberti, 4 as well as from 
 
 1 See Ces. Guasti, La Cupola, &c, p. 25-26. 
 
 2 Cosimo advanced him money to marry one of his daughters. Giornale Storico 
 degli Archivi Toscani, 1862, p. 31 ; Crowe, ii. 356. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 180-183 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 358, 359, 365. 
 These two English authors, who wrote after the Milanesi, Vasari's editors, correct 
 the errors of this excellent edition on these painters which they carefully studied. 
 Cf. Forster, iii. 135. On Pesellino, see Baldinucci, Dec. vi. part 2, sec. 3, 2, vol. iv. 
 p. 29-31. We shall refer once for all to V Histoire des Peintres de toitles les 
 Ecoles, by Ch. Blanc, principally to the volume entitled Ecole Florentine. 
 
 4 Vasari (ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 135) calls Masolino the pupil of Ghiberti, but 
 criticism contradicts this assertion to-day. See Milanese, ed. in-8 of his Vasari, 
 ii. 264, n. 1. 
 
214 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 the works he saw in Rome. We cannot say whether he was a 
 colourist, as his colours are effaced ; 1 but Stamina, his master 
 in this respect, passed for the greatest colourist of the day ; 2 
 and Parri Spinelli, his pupil, according to Yasari, excelled in 
 this art. 3 Masolino, as w r ell, has a harmony of tone and a 
 bold contrast of light and shade, in which he is the precursor 
 of Leonardo, Giorgione, Caravaggio, and Titian. 4 
 
 More than once already have we written the word per- 
 spective — which is the application of mathematics to art. 
 It was the great interest of the hour, and the aim was to 
 surpass the earlier artists. Brunelleschi had already taught 
 the rudiments. Ghiberti introduced perspective into his bas- 
 reliefs. Masolino did not despise it. An ardent zeal for pro- 
 gress sufficed to transform a simple "shop-boy" of Ghiberti's 
 into an initiator. 5 He was called Paola of Dono, and 
 surnamed Uccello because of his excellent animal and bird 
 painting (139 7—1475). He saw the reform of drawing in 
 perspective, which for him, as well as for the Greeks, was the 
 principal thing in art ; he understood that it meant the exclu- 
 sion of those fixed, expressionless, and glacial faces, those frail 
 and inert limbs, those feet beating the void, to which hitherto 
 art had been a slave. He was not a painter, but a man of 
 science who painted. His contemporaries themselves were 
 only half- satisfied with his works, and scrupled not to make 
 him do them over again. 6 His monochrome pictures were 
 monotonous, and when he essayed polychromy, he painted blue 
 
 1 The only works that we have of Masolino are of 1405. 
 
 8 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 135, n. 2. On Gherardo Stamina (1354-1408?) 
 see Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, ii. 200-204. 
 
 3 " Non si puo desiderar meglio, ed i colori suoi non hanno paragone" (Vasari, 
 ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 145). Cf. Ranalli, p. 163-164; Forster, iii. 141. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 135-143 ; Rosini, ii. 249-251 ; Ranalli, p. 163; 
 Rio, i. 371 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 506 ; Forster, iii. 151. 
 
 6 In 1407. See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 87, n. 1. His reply to his wife, 
 begging him to rest, is well known : " If you knew how delightful perspective is ! " 
 
 6 Thus his equestrian Hawkwood of S. M. del Fiore (1436), "quare non est 
 pictus ut decet" (Gaye, i. 536; Vasari, ed. Lem., in-8, ii. 212, and n. 2). 
 Uccello had promised to give this picture the appearance of an equestrian statue on 
 a pedestal. The illusion did not appear complete. 
 
UCCELLO. 215 
 
 landscapes and red towns. 1 Even his drawing, upon which 
 all his care was concentrated, was wanting in correctness as 
 in elegance and force of Nature. Nothing less Giottesque 
 could be imagined. 2 His faults were overlooked. It was 
 an intoxication to see perspective applied to the ground, 
 figures and foreshortened forms, to see ditches, alleys, and the 
 ridges of a ploughed field vanish in the distance, to measure 
 the distance between two persons, and understand how small 
 a man looks lying head backward. The day was over for 
 symbols and hieroglyphics ; form was demanded in support of 
 ideas ; the reproduction of Nature was wanted, instead of a 
 false embellishment or travestie of life. 3 
 
 Cosimo shared the exaggerated enthusiasm of his contem- 
 poraries. While an obscure merchant, Torino Baldese, was 
 employing Uccello to decorate a public edifice, Santa Maria 
 Novello, with a story from Genesis, he employed this same 
 painter and his friend, Daniello or Dello, a decorator, to 
 adorn the various chambers of a private building, his own 
 palace. 4 Of the two friends, perhaps Dello carried off the 
 honours with the brush ; but how far he is from sharing 
 Uccello's place in the history of art ! This was probably 
 why he was drawn to Spain, where it has never been profit- 
 able to confine oneself. 5 
 
 Uccello did a good deal by his apostolic zeal, but he was 
 
 1 See his story of the Fathers of the Desert at San Miniato. 
 
 2 See the cloisters of S. M. Novella. 
 
 3 Hence the taste for portraits. There is a little picture of Uccello in the 
 Louvre, which represents him with Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Manetti, &c. 
 It was bought in 1847 at the Stevens sale for 1467 frs. Vasari, ed. Lem., in-8, 
 ii. 215, and n. p. 216. 
 
 4 Vasari speaks with admiration of the subjects of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdom with which Uccello decorated Cosimo's palace (ed. Lem., in- 1 2, iii. 91). 
 Cosimo ordered of Dello an entire chamber, with moulded ceiling, framework, and 
 cornices. On this painter, born in 1404, who lived still in 1455, see Vasari, ed. 
 Lem., in-12, iii. 46, 54, 91 ; Rosini, ii. 244; Ranalli, p. 119-121 ; Rio, i. 355. 
 
 5 On Uccello see Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 87-90 ; Baldinucci, Dec. ii. part I, 
 sec. 4, vol. iii. p. 122; Roscoe, c. 9, trans, vol. ii. p. 226; Rosini, ii. 247; 
 Ranalli, p. 123; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, i. 519, ii. 285; Delaborde, i. 104; 
 Taine, Voyage en Italie> ii. 137-140. 
 
216 ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. 
 
 not a single meteor. Others after him followed in the same 
 path, and through them oil-painting took root in Florence. 
 The new process had been known as early as the fourteenth 
 century, since Cennino Cennini mentions it in his treatise on 
 painting, but was disputed until the end of the fifteenth 
 century, as Ghirlandajo still preferred to paint in distemper, 
 and with the white of eggs. Domenico of Venice and Andrea 
 del Castagno remarked that oil is much better for repro- 
 ducing Nature exactly, as well as for making works of art 
 permanent, and by using it they spread the fashion upon 
 the banks of the Arno. 1 Although a Venetian, Domenico 
 may be classed with the Florentine school. His talent and 
 his person were much admired by Cosimo. 2 As for Andrea 
 del Castagno (i 390-1457), called from his Mugello by Ber- 
 nardo de' Medicis, he gained the heart and ducats of Cosimo by 
 painting the chiefs of the defeated oligarchy hanging by their 
 feet, whence his name, Andrea degV impiccati — Andrew of the 
 hanged. 
 
 For this party service he was designed by his matchless 
 talent in faithfully representing the human face. His custom 
 was to insert portraits everywhere. If he painted the apostles, 
 Einaldo des Albizzi, Puccio Pucci, Antonio des Vieri, called 
 Farganaccio, a sensale, or broker in the art of change, who 
 had played a role in Cosimo's captivity, 3 and even himself 
 under the mask of Judas Iscariot — not precisely a flattering 
 portrait — were all recognised. 4 The physiognomies he painted 
 are rough and disagreeable, approaching caricature by their 
 forcible grimace, irregular drawing, and inhumanly livid colour- 
 ing. In this he resembles Pesselino, as he vies with Dona- 
 
 1 It is to be hoped we shall hear no more of the fable of Andrea murdering 
 Domenico, jealous of his secret of oil-painting, no longer a secret, Andrea having 
 died four years before Domenico, as the brothers Milanesi have proved in their 
 last edition of Vasari, ed. Lem., in-8, ii. 688. 
 
 2 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 313, 317; Rosini, iii. 123 ; Forster, iii. 145. 
 
 8 See on the real name of Farganaccio, Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 150 ; on his 
 role, our vol. vi. p. 399. 
 4 Rio, i. 391. 
 
THE NATURALIST SCHOOL. 217 
 
 tello in strength and with Uccello in perspective and boldness 
 of foreshortening. 1 
 
 On the whole, he studied Nature, had style, and was head of 
 a school — a school, it is true, already in its decadence, which 
 abused realism, and brought it down lower than ever Uccello 
 had done, which ignored the art of transforming reality into 
 beauty by varying movement and physiognomy, by graceful 
 curves and ideal proportions, which represented man so humped 
 by muscles that Leonardo found him like a sack of nuts, but 
 which at least showed that it understood the muscles, which 
 Giotto ignored, and that it knew how to attach solid limbs 
 to bodies solidly built. 2 Andrea del Castagno lived in a time 
 when greater masters than he gave better lessons, but his 
 are easier to follow ; this is why Andrea del Verrocchio and 
 the Pollajuoli, copied him after Alesso Baldovinetti, who, in 
 his hard and crude realism, painted the tiniest mosses upon 
 stones, and the various shades of green upon two sides of 
 leaves, the large hands and feet of the peasants that he took 
 for models. An inferior art, no doubt, but we cannot speak 
 contemptuously of it, since Baldovinetti was the master of 
 Ghirlandajo, who in turn taught Michael Angelo. 3 
 
 Parallel with it, and as if by contrast rather than opposi- 
 tion, the old hieratic art, renewed from Byzantium, found re- 
 newed appreciation in the monasteries. The heads of religious 
 orders liked to have painters near them to illuminate their choir 
 books and missals, to decorate the vast and naked walls of 
 their convents and churches. The monks tried their hand at 
 the work, and the best remained devoted to it. These clois- 
 
 1 Baldinucci and Lanzi pretend, the one that Andrea was a pupil, the other an 
 imitator, of Masaccio. There is no other foundation for this assertion than the 
 possibility of his having studied the Brancacci chapel, since he died after Masaccio, 
 who was younger. 
 
 2 On Andrea del Castagno see Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 1 39-151 ; Baldinucci, 
 Dec. iii. part I, sec. 5, vol. iii. p. 195-203 ; Forster, iii. 148. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 101-107 ; Baldinucci, Dec. iii. part I, sec. 5, vol. 
 iii. p. 185-189; Roscoe, c. 9, trans, vol. ii. p. 236; Rosini, iii. 16; Ranalli, p. 
 248 ; Rio, i. p. 424 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 372-374. It is curious enough 
 that Rio (i. 401) wants to connect this realist with the mystic school. 
 
2i8 THE MYSTIC SCHOOL. 
 
 tered illuminators and decorators incessantly reproduced the 
 miniatures of the Middle Ages which they had under their eyes 
 in their sacred manuscripts. The result was an awkward and 
 naive process, a clear and brilliant colouring. If by chance 
 one of them had talent or genius, the miniature system was 
 enlarged and made perfect, but was always recognisable. 
 Though it ceased to be hideous, the art remained Byzantine. 1 
 
 Some see in it a new school, "the mystic," opposed to 
 the " realistic or naturalist school." The mystics in paint- 
 ing are a mystification. They proposed, we are told, to repre- 
 sent the invisible, as if the object of painting was not the 
 visible, as Poussin has said ! However, there is no school 
 without disciples grouped around a master, following his teach- 
 ings and copying his models. In Florence we find ourselves 
 among the " realists ; " in Venice, Milan, Sienna, and in. 
 Umbria, among the "mystics," such as we have never seen, 
 many of whom are anterior to their pretended masters. It was 
 a matter of personal feeling or of trade. The " naturalists," 
 when they received an order for a religious picture, could do it, 
 only they didn't consider themselves obliged to paint their men 
 hideous. Brunelleschi had even dared to paint a handsome 
 Christ. 2 If a cloistered painter introduced beauty into the 
 enlarged miniatures, there was no longer an abyss between the 
 two traditions. This was done in Florence and elsewhere. The 
 old Chelini represented at the Bigallo the Crusade preached in 
 1290 by Peter the Martyr against the Florentines. 3 Lorenzo 
 the Camaldule was a Giottesque miniaturist, except that he 
 did not know how to compose. 4 Gentile de Fabriano made a 
 
 1 See Rumohr, ii. 310; Leo, ii. 579. 
 
 2 It was Rio who in France was the glorifier of the mystic school. Jeanron and 
 Leclanche, in the commentaries of their translation of Vasari, have violently 
 opposed his doctrine. See vol. vii. p. 281-2S7. 
 
 3 Omitted by Vasari. Chelini was mentioned by Rumohr with exaggerated 
 praises. Rio (i. 357-359) avers that that which is most interesting in his paint- 
 ing of Bigallo is the subject. 
 
 4 Lorenzo the Camaldule, of whom it is not known either when he was born 
 or when he died, but who is first mentioned as a painter in 14 10, recalls Agnola 
 
FRA BEATO ANGELICO. 219 
 
 name in his own country. 1 Guido de Fiesole (1387-145 5), 
 in religion Fra Giovanni, and immediately after his death, 
 perhaps even before, Fra Angelico — Fra Beato Angelico — was 
 ahead of them all by a hundred leagues. 2 
 
 Born of an obscure dweller in the Mugello, apprenticed 
 to art in the shadow of the cloister, by an assiduous contem- 
 plation of missals and illuminated manuscripts, and by the 
 advice of a certain Father Giovanni, he hit upon his own style 
 from the first day he held a brush. He only broadened it when 
 the exodus of his order, upon Florence declaring for Alexander 
 V. against Gregory XII., sent him to Foligno (1409), then to 
 Cortona (14 14), to the sanctuary of Assisi, in face of the 
 frescoes of Stefano and Giottino. There he learned to make 
 diptychs and tabernacles, without, however, giving to his 
 figures any other than a touching and religious, if stiff and 
 hieratic, expression, without anatomy or modelling. Why should 
 he want to change, convinced as he was that God directed his 
 brush ? Michael Angelo described him as the painter of the 
 elect of Dante's Paradise, which he must have visited with per- 
 mission to choose his models ; and, of course, he was less at 
 home with sinners, who are sometimes monks, cardinals, and 
 popes. In hell he is greatly the inferior of Luca Signorelli, of 
 Rubens, and, above all, of the grand Buonarroti. 3 Invariably 
 
 Gaddi, Spinelli d'Arezzo. Any of his pictures at the Academy of Fine Arts or 
 at the Uffizi might be attributed to Giotto or Taddeo Gaddi. See Vasari, ed. 
 Lem., in- 1 2, ii. 209-217; Rosini, ii. 242; Rio, ii. 280; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
 i- 551-553; Foster, iii. 137. 
 
 1 Gentile de Fabriano, born about 1370, died about 1450. He was the master of 
 Jacopo Bellini, and must have had some influence on the two sons of the latter, Gio- 
 vanni and Gentile. Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 152-168 ; Rio, ii. 180 ; Ranalli, p. 
 169 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 96. Baldinucci (Dec. iv. part 1, sec. 6, vol. iii. 
 p. 221) calls Gentile de Fabriano a disciple of Angelico, but he adds that he 
 flourished in 1425. 
 
 2 P. Domenico de Corella, Prior of S. M. Novella in 1483, wrote a heroic poem 
 
 in which we read — 
 
 " Angelicus pictor quam finxerat ante, Johannes 
 Nomine, non Jotto, non Cimabove minor." 
 
 Thus he was commonly called Angelico thirty years after his death. See P. 
 Marchese, Memorie dei piu insigni Artefici Domenicani^ i. 199, n. A ; Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, i. 566, n. 2. 
 
 3 See his Last Judgment in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. 
 
2 2o FRA BEATO ANGELICO. 
 
 sweet, in his Massacre of the Innocents he even gives a sweet 
 expression to the faces of the executioners. He lived in his 
 own world, peopled with saints, resembling in nothing his per- 
 fidious and corrupt contemporaries. 1 
 
 But he returned to Fiesole (141 8), and was soon established 
 with his companions, the Dominicans, in the convent of San 
 Marco, by Cosimo, who was anxious to win them over to him 
 (1436); there, though he remained a miniaturist, he soon 
 became Giottesque. Like all Giottesques, he is negligent and 
 incorrect in drawing the extremities of the human body, and, 
 like them, he easily covers vast spaces. 2 He gained light 
 from Giotto and refined on Orcagna. This ascetic, who took 
 up his brush in prayer and shed tears whenever he painted a 
 Christ, nevertheless sought and found in Nature those lovely 
 and living types which he corrected in transmitting. Thus he 
 was balanced to a certain extent between the Giottesques, 
 already belonging to the past, and the naturalists, who 
 belonged to the present and the future. He recalls Masolino 
 while remaining his superior. How could he be other, since 
 he sustains comparison with the greatest names ? If in the 
 Vatican, Michael Angelo is crowned for strength and Raphael 
 for form, Angelico is unrivalled in religious feeling. We can 
 still admire him after admiring these two. The first Medici, 
 who could not make this instructive comparison, at least had 
 the merit, in spite of their taste for naturalism, of not misun- 
 derstanding the great idealist, and they protected him as they 
 protected Andrea del Castagna. 3 
 
 1 Marchese, i. 224-226; Delaborde, i. 104-115; Rio, ii. 288-303; Ranalli, 
 167-169; Rumohr, ii. 257 ; Leo, ii. 212 ; Crowe, i. 573. 
 
 2 See the panels of the Nunziata, which belong to the Academy of Fine Arts 
 (Nos. 11-24), representing scenes from the life of Christ, and his beautiful paint- 
 ings in the Chapter Hall of San Marco, &c. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vi. 25-44; Baldinucci, Dec. ii. part 1, sec. 4, vol. iii. 
 p. 89-101 ; Ranalli, p. 167-169 ; Rosini, ii. 253-258 ; Rio, ii. 288-304, 393 ; Dela- 
 borde, i..l04-H7; Taine, Voyage en Italie, ii. 152; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, i. 
 573—579, 595 ; Rumohr, ii. 257 ; Leo, ii. 212 ; Foster, iii. 188-215 > Marchese, i. 
 247 ; the same, San Marco, Convento dei Padri Predicatori in Firenze, with the life 
 of Angelico, Flor., 1850; E. Breton, Fra Angelico et ses fresques {Revue de ? Art 
 Chretien, October 1859) ; Cartier, Vie de Fra Angelico da Fiesole, Paris, 1857. 
 
MASACCIO. 221 
 
 If they were only realists, as some suggest, would they 
 not have patronised the wonderful Masaccio, who was then the 
 great renovator of art ? On the contrary, they neglected him, 
 although Masaccio, having heard of Cosimo's return to Flor- 
 ence, hastened thither from Rome ; 1 although this provincial 
 from San Giovanni in the Yal d'Arno reformed art materially, 
 as Cimabue and Giotto reformed it morally; although he 
 placed technique as high as the ideal ; although to achieve his 
 aim, which was a return to Nature, he transformed and amelio- 
 rated the method. To speak correctly, he was not a reformer 
 but a collector ; he appropriated the conquests of his predeces- 
 sors ; he took melancholy tenderness from Masolino ; the rare 
 and exquisite power of representing things as they commonly, 
 not exceptionally are, from Brunelleschi, and from Uccello the 
 laws of perspective. But as he was a collector of genius, he 
 made of these various materials a harmonious whole, and ad- 
 vancing on his predecessors, he achieved a definite progress. His 
 perspective skilfully combines lines with the play of light, and 
 gives to foreshortened figures or colonnades lost in the distance 
 a wonderful distinction. His figures are bathed in an atmo- 
 sphere that Uccello did not understand before him, and that 
 Mantegna after him could not render. Into art, already less stiff 
 and more familiar than in the fourteenth century, he introduced 
 a taste for movement and life, without ceasing to belong to the 
 past; he followed Giottino, that is, Giotto's principles. Giot- 
 tesque in the transparency of his colouring as in his poor under- 
 standing of the details of form, he excels disciples and master 
 alike in a happy combination of light and shade, in a judicious 
 choice among the models which Nature offers, and in a deli- 
 cate suppression or subordination of all that is accessory, also 
 in the means he discovered to indicate proportions, distances, 
 and gradation of planes, near or distant, and behind the colours 
 
 1 " Ut Cosmum ab exsilio revocatum audivit, Roma Florentiam rediit " (Fab- 
 roni, Vita Cosmz, text, p. 156). Vasari has written that Masaccio was "molto 
 aiutato e favorito" of Cosimo (ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 158), but that is no longer 
 admitted to-day. See Rio, i. 379. 
 
222 MASACCIO. 
 
 of the surface, depth and plenitude, flesh and bones. A 
 designer of lofty style and a magical colourist, he had the two 
 supreme qualities of the painter. He continued in Giotto's 
 path with Donatello's energy and audacity, but without his 
 exaggeration ; he himself found his successors in Andrea del 
 Sarto and Correggio. In making the chain solid after Giotto 
 and Orcagna, Masaccio certainly accomplished most. Other 
 men of genius came after, undoubtedly greater than he, but it 
 is as certain that the advancement was more marked from 
 Giotto to Masaccio than from Masaccio to Raphael. From 
 Giotto came the Renaissance of painting, with Masaccio its most 
 decided step towards perfection. The latter was no greater 
 than the former, but he did more ; just as the man of whom 
 Pascal writes, who, perched on the shoulders of a taller man, 
 could see farther. 1 
 
 It has often been said that Masaccio remained unap- 
 preciated for half a century. Nothing is less true, except 
 so far as Gosimo is concerned. Leone Battista Alberti places 
 this astonishing genius on a par with Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, 
 Donatello, and Luca della Robbia. 2 When the chapel of the 
 Brancacci in the church of the Carmine was opened, which was 
 decorated chiefly by him, the sensation was immense; Angelico's 
 frescoes were forgotten, and Angelico himself, with the can- 
 dour of a noble nature, was carried away with the torrent, and 
 became a member of his fortunate rival's school — fortunate, if 
 a man can be called so who dies in the middle of his glory at 
 the age of twenty-six — and bringing from this study into 
 his new works more vivacity, independence, and grandeur. 
 However, the injustice of this infatuation did not last long. 
 Vasari, the first to speak in the name of posterity, very soon 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iii. 159- 191 ; Baldinucci, Dec. iii. part I, sec. 5, vol. 
 iii. p. 149; Ranalli, p. 164-168, 268-269; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, i. 519-549; 
 Jeanron et Leclanche, i. 491, ii. 137-142 ; Rio, i. 374 ; Delaborde, i. 96 ; Taine, 
 Philosophic de PArt, i. 16-25 ; Voy. en Italie, ii. 136, 142-146 ; Forster, iii. 151- 
 188. 
 
 2 Traite" de la Peinture. Rio (i. 375) recognises it, though he is one of those 
 who accuse Masaccio of misleading art by his naturalism. 
 
MASACCIO AND ANGELICO. 223 
 
 gave his rightful place to this monk, who equalled Giotto 
 and surpassed Masaccio in grace and elegance, as well as in 
 the exalted expression of religious feeling. Both followers of 
 Giotto, each was superior to the Giottesques in inspiration as 
 in workmanship ; if they could be mixed together, Giotto would 
 be the result, as we imagine he would have been had he lived 
 in the fifteenth century. But there was this difference be- 
 tween them, which belongs to Florentine history, that An- 
 gelico had no disciples except those in Umbria, who occupy 
 a small place in the history of art, and whose works have 
 even disappeared, 1 while all the good painters who followed, 
 and whose talent grew and spread throughout Florence, pro- 
 ceeded from Masaccio, and came from his memorable chapel, 
 the grandest monument of Italian painting until the Stanze 
 of Kaphael, the masterpieces which introduced definitely into 
 religious art the sentiment of the true and the human. 2 
 
 Assuredly Filippo Lippi (1406?— 1469) was not Masaccio's 
 disciple, 3 and as certainly was he Angelico's, who was at least 
 his first model ; 4 but having subsequently abandoned him, 5 
 like many others, he was so quickly mastered by the new 
 method that it was said the soul of Masaccio had entered the 
 body of Fra Filippo. 6 This unfrocked Carmelite did less for 
 the progress of art than the Peselli, Uccello, Domenico of 
 Venice, and Andrea del Castagna, but he avoided the vulgarities 
 
 1 For example, Zanobi Strozzi, Domenico de Michelino. 
 
 2 See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iii. 162; Rio, ii. 132; Delaborde, i. 119, 124; 
 Ranalli, p. 167-169 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, i. 564, 568. 
 
 3 Fra Filippo Lippi appeared only in 1420 as painter in the book of the Car- 
 mine, where he was monk, and in 1432 he disappeared from that book, doubtless 
 because of his adventures. If many of these are disputed (see the proofs in 
 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-8, ii. 615, n. I ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 323), we cannot 
 deny that at the age of fifty he carried off the novice Lucrezia Buti (Vasari, ed. 
 Lem., in-8, ii. 637, and at the end of the commentary of the Milanesi). 
 
 4 His Nativity in the Academy of Fine Arts, No. 26, gallery of small pictures, 
 has been attributed to Angelico. See Rio, i. 383. 
 
 5 Crowe and Cavalcaselle (ii. 335) attributed to Peselli the Nativity which in 
 the Museum of the Louvre is supposed to be a Lippi. This marks the transition 
 of Lippi to his second style. 
 
 6 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iv. 116. 
 
224 F1LIPP0 FILIPPI. 
 
 of the early realists. He came after Masaccio for perfect dis- 
 tribution and arrangement; he supplied what is wanting in 
 movement, life, grace, charm of colouring, sensibility, and at 
 times even greatness, for he was never freer than upon im- 
 mense frescoes that demanded action. 1 He enlarged Masaccio's 
 method. For architectural background and the play of 
 scientific perspective, he substituted a background of land- 
 scape, smiling rustic scenes, perhaps a little too finished, though 
 varied, but always so beautiful that we forget the figures in 
 the foreground, and only see in him the first landscape-painter of 
 the Italian school, the only one who rivalled the Flemish. He 
 pleases the eye and the mind so much, that, not to exaggerate his 
 merit, 2 we must say he had less trouble in improving an already 
 excellent art than Masaccio had in reforming one still defective. 3 
 It is a singular feature in the career of this monk, so ardent 
 in love, so abused for his life, that he never painted the carnival 
 scenes and rustic amusements which the art of the day bor- 
 rowed, to please the public, from Boccaccio's tales and Ovid's 
 Metamorphoses. His subjects were always religious, and he 
 painted more than all the Florentine painters together in con- 
 vents and churches, in the houses of noblemen and burghers, 
 in Florence and Tuscany, in Eome and Padua. This was 
 because his cloisteral life procured him countless commissions, 
 which increased with the success of his first works ; a manifest 
 proof that the paganism of the Renaissance did not exclude a 
 taste for religious pictures. Upon this subject the Medici 
 followed the general feeling. Cosimo used to lock Lippi 
 up to force him to work. 4 
 
 1 See his admirable works at Prato and the tribune of the Cathedral of Spoleto. 
 
 2 This merit has, however, no one knows why, been unrecognised by Vasari and 
 Lanzi. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iv. 1 14-130; trad. Jeanron, iv. 39-41 ; Baldinucci, 
 Dec. iv. part I, sec. 6, vol. iii. p. 212-220 ; Roscoe, c. 9, trans, vol. ii. p. 227 ;, 
 Rosini, iii. 8, 9 ; Ranalli, p. 167 ; Rio, i. 383-388 ; Rumohr, ii. 269 ; Leo, ii. 
 213 ; Foster, iii. 215. 
 
 4 It is known that Lippi, in a thirst for liberty and love, escaped by the window 
 at the peril of his life, and that Cosimo resolved not to restrain him longer. See 
 Vassari, loc. cit. 
 
BENOZZO GOZZOLI. 225 
 
 As violence succeeds ill with a fiery and independent 
 character, and Fra Filippo, flying from creditors and the 
 plague, had retired to Prato, painters became rare after the 
 deaths of Pesellino and Andrea del Castagno, and Cosimo, after 
 1457, showered all his favours 1 upon Benozzo Gozzoli (1424- 
 1485 ?). Following in the footsteps of Lippi, whom he did 
 not equal, Gozzoli was a disciple of the two masters of the 
 times, Angelico and Masaccio. Giottesque in intention at the 
 start, 2 he was only able to paint in the style of the miniaturists. 
 In Rome he followed the suave Dominican of Fiesole, and his 
 fertile imagination, without enabling him to equal his great 
 master, was prodigal of details in a style less original than 
 brilliant, which constituted him the educator of Umbria. After 
 his masterpiece of Montefalco, he went with the tide, seeing that 
 if he meant to grow rich by his trade he must burn incense 
 before the god of the hour. As a practical man, he became 
 a realist, and aimed at charm and life. How many walls were 
 there to decorate in the palace of the Medici ! As a sceptic, he 
 worked either in the religious or profane style. But it was 
 through his great masterpiece in the Campo Santo of Pisa, in 
 which he reproduced the true and invented an artistic compo- 
 sition, that Benozzo Gozzoli became, under Lorenzo, a great 
 master. 3 
 
 Thus we reach the limit of the two periods, for Piero the 
 Gouty, who ruled Florence for such a short time, does not 
 
 1 His real name was Benozzo de Lese de Sandro. Gozzoli was a surname. 
 The brothers Milanesi (Vas., Lem., in- 12, iv. 184, n. 1) do not say if that surname 
 has a sense. Gozzo, in Italian, means throat or goitre. 
 
 2 In the hexagonal choir of Montefalco, where Benozzo placed his masterpiece 
 (1452), was the portrait of Giotto beside those of Dante and Petrarch, with this 
 inscription : Pictorum eximius lottus fundamentum et lux. See Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, ii. 501. 
 
 3 See the chapel of the Palace Riccardi and the twenty-four compartments of the 
 Campo Santo de Pisa, which represent the history of the creation. In the Burn- 
 ing of Sodom he worked without models. This immense work was done in two 
 years. Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 184-203; Baldinucci, Dec. iii. part I, sec. 5, 
 vol. iii. p. 191-194 ; Ranalli, p. 247, 248 ; Rio, ii. 322, 329, 333 ; Rumohr, ii. 
 257 ; Foster, iii. 275 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle (ii. 498, 503) are too severe upon 
 Benozzo Gozzoli. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
226 PARSIMONY OF THE MEDICI. 
 
 count, and he should rather be joined to his father than to 
 his son. Like Cosimo, he was a Maecenas at the lowest 
 price, and we may laugh at his flatterers when they describe 
 his liberalities as a " fruitful dew." He filled his garden 
 with antique statues, and upon the excuse of his disease did not 
 look at the works he had ordered, and criticised them without 
 having seen them, to prepare himself for Rabelais' quarter of 
 an hour. He let Benozzo Gozzoli nearly die of hunger ; he 
 only paid him on account as if it were an alms. If Benozzo, 
 finding his work sufficiently advanced, asked forty florins for 
 his winter provisions, he received no reply. He complained as 
 a famished man, and Piero ended by placing ten florins in 
 his outstretched hand. 1 After having endured four years of 
 misery, and wanting work in Florence (146 1 — 1465), he went 
 to San Gemignano in search of it, and afterwards to Pisa 
 (1468). 2 The same happened to Bernardo Gamberelli de 
 Rossellino (1409— 147 1), and his brother Antonio (1427— 
 1490), 3 who had to wait so long for a meagre salary from 
 Cosimo and Ottaviano de' Medicis, that they were reduced to 
 despair. 4 This niggardliness was the less explicable because 
 it was impolitic, painters being then so few. 
 
 We must renounce this secular legend of the field of art 
 being fertilised by the dew shed upon it by one man or one 
 family. Cosimo de' Medicis had rare good fortune. In his 
 time, and under his rule, capricious chance united at Florence 
 talents as numerous as they were diverse — the universal Brun- 
 elleschi, the polished and elegant Ghiberti, the rough but power- 
 ful Donatello, the suave Angelico, the masculine Masaccio. In 
 the task of regenerating art by the search for truth and the 
 effect of the beautiful, begun by Giotto and continued but com- 
 promised by the Giottesques, these men of incomparable genius 
 accomplished the essential, which Benvenuto Cellini sums up 
 
 1 Gaye, i. 191-194. 3 Rio, ii. 333. 
 
 8 On these two painters, see Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 217-226. 
 
 4 The document in Gaye, i. 188. Cf. Rio, i. 451. 
 
ART UNDER THE MEDICI. 227 
 
 in a word somewhat absolute but worth remembering, namely, 
 that the art of drawing consists in the power to draw a nude 
 man or a nude woman with a masterly hand. Only, Cosimo 
 lived long enough to see the collapse of the admirable talent 
 which flourished upon the banks of the Arno, and soon spread 
 throughout Italy, and to feel the void left by it. It is true 
 his grandson saw a new harvest, but as inferior to that which 
 preceded it, as it was to that which followed it. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PIERO de' medicis. 
 
 1464-1469. 
 
 Piero's rule objected to on principle— Actual resignation— Adhesion of the princes — 
 Sforza's reticence — Piero puts his affairs into order— Numerous failures — Doubts 
 of Piero's solidity and growing opposition — Luca Pitti, Angelo Acciajuoli, Dieti- 
 salvi Neroni, chiefs of the discontented party— Niccol6 Soderini, the active head- 
 Recall of the exiles deferred — Victory of Luca Pitti in the advice and re-estab- 
 lishment of lot-drawing (September 16, 1465)— Niccol6 Soderini, Gonfalonier 
 of Justice (November 1) — His vague and futile projects for reform— Death of 
 Sforza (March 8, 1466)— Opposition of the councils to the alliance with Galeaz 
 Maria— Conspiracy hatched outside by Dietisalvi— Failure of the plot (August 28) 
 — Defection of Luca Pitti — Demonstration of the Duke of Modena in favour of 
 the malcontents— Meeting of parliament (September 2)— Dismay and flight of 
 the principal conspirators— Their condemnation (September 11)— Other severities 
 —Luca Pitti spared— Return to a clement policy (September 15) — The defeated 
 leaders in exile— Their plots— Their captain, Bartolommeo Colleoni— Battle of 
 the Mulinella (July 23)— General desire for peace— Negotiations prevented by 
 Paul II.— Peace concluded (May 26, 1468)— Fresh severities— Piero prepares his 
 son Lorenzo to succeed him— Death of Piero (December 2, 1469). 
 
 Cosimo's death must have been the signal for a crisis in 
 that Florence, which was concentrated in him. He had 
 been desired, accepted, sustained, because in wealth, talent, 
 and prudence he was unequalled ; but a good many objec- 
 tions were raised against his son. The first was one of 
 principle ; the town which preserved and cherished the illu- 
 sion of her freedom could not uuconcernedly witness the son 
 assume his father's place by inheritance. If Piero had equalled 
 Cosimo, perhaps they would have shut their eyes to the 
 scandal ; but he showed no greatness of mind, and he was 
 never known to perform a brilliant action. He was reputed 
 
1464] PIERO DE' MEDICIS. 229 
 
 a miser, haughty, and inexperienced ; besides, at forty-six he 
 was bent by the constitutional miseries that had crippled his 
 father's old age ; he never left his bed or his couch ; he lived 
 as much as possible in the fields and the fresh air. Upon 
 no point was comparison favourable to him. As Comines has 
 written, " L'auctorite* de ses prede'cesseurs nuisoit a Pierre de' 
 Mddicis." ! 
 
 Unfortunately, whatever La Boetie may say, the master who 
 is not supported must fall. If he has been well established, 
 and the people are weary of subjection, he must be overthrown 
 by a serious effort, which is superfluous when it is only a ques- 
 tion of changing a yoke. That an effort was necessary upon 
 Cosimo's death is shown by the root his power had taken, and 
 the growing subjection of the Florentines. It was only later 
 that they felt that by leaving Piero in his inherited greatness 
 they condemned themselves to a slavery without remedy. 2 
 
 In the beginning nothing seemed to have changed ; 3 exile 
 and ruin had reduced their enemies to impotence ; they needed 
 time to revive. As for friends, they obtained the sole benefit 
 of the principle of heredity which it would have been audacious 
 to proclaim. Everywhere in Italy and abroad, the succession 
 from father to son, wherein Florence resembled the other 
 States, was looked upon as natural. The king of France, the 
 eternal ally of the Republic, but a friend of the Medici, counted 
 upon the agreement of Piero and Sforza to " plunge the Vene- 
 tians back into the water." 4 The lords of Piombino and 
 Faenza, the Duke of Modena, the Marquis of Mantua, the 
 Malatesti, and all the principalities were prodigal of protesta- 
 
 1 Comines, 1. vii. cap. vii. vol. ii. p. 338. 
 
 2 Jacopo Pitti, Istoria Fiorentina, 1. i. in Arch. Stor., 1st ser. i. 19. That 
 author (15 19-1589) was nephew to Buonaccorso Pitti, from whose chronicle 
 we have often quoted. See Preface by M. Polidori, p. xx. xxi. 
 
 3 " Da poi mori, le cose si passano dolcemente ; e chi era grande, mi pare che 
 rimanga" (Letter of Bonsi, September 15, 1464, in Lettere di una Gentildonna, 
 
 P- 327)- 
 
 4 Francesco Nori to Piero, Chambery, March 30, 1465, in Buser, Appendix, 
 
 P- 431. 
 
2 3 o RESERVE OF SFORZA. [1464 
 
 tions of friendship. 1 Pope Pius II. declared that having always 
 found a father in Cosimo, he would look upon Piero as a 
 brother, towards whom he would act in everything as if they 
 were born of the same body. 2 
 
 These protestations and flattering proposals intoxicated 
 Cosimo's gouty heir. Pius II. died August 15, 1464. He 
 spoke indifferently of the chances of election, and with disdain 
 of the Holy See. " Faith," he said, " has greatly declined since 
 Martin V., through the pomp and license of the popes and their 
 court ; it will quite be lost with their consideration if matters 
 are not improved." 8 Paul II., elected within a fortnight 
 (August 30), was a Venetian, and a possible enemy of the 
 Medici. 4 If he were displeased with them, he showed no dis- 
 quietude ; 5 the new pope was profuse in protestations. 6 But 
 there was one black spot on the horizon ; the faithful Sforza, 
 for the moment deprived of his ducats, and uncertain of Piero's 
 stability, held himself in sulky and prudent reserve. " Either 
 your lord lives no longer," Piero said to Nicodemo, " or he 
 has forgotten his own affairs and ours. Does he not remember 
 that we can do him much good ? Is he quite indifferent to 
 us ? or has anything strange been reported to him ? For us 
 there is but one God in heaven, and on earth but His Sub- 
 limity." 7 In spite of these abject protestations, Nicodemo, who 
 was a close observer of facts, did not press his master to change 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, September 7, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 391. 
 
 2 Proposals reported by Giovanni Tornabuoni, "chief of the Medicis' bank," 
 in a letter to Piero, and by Nicodemo to Sforza, August II, 1464, Orig., 1590, 
 f. 342. 
 
 3 Nicod. to Sforza, August 23, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 361. The faith was lost 
 much more by violence. Simoneto de Camerino, of the Hermit Brothers of St. 
 Augustine, wrote to Sforza, " Come el focho l'auro, cussi la inquisition purifica 
 lo homo" (Padua, October 15, 1464, ibid., f. 450). 
 
 4 Pietro Barbo, Bishop of Cervia, Cardinal of St. Mark, Pope under the name 
 of Paul II. See the details of his election in Sismondi, vi. 410 (November 16, 
 1464). 
 
 6 " Et non dubito che la brigata qui ne restara di mala voglia. Io non me ne 
 voglio amazare " (Nicod. to Sforza, August 31, 1464, ibid., f. 373). 
 
 8 Nicod. to Sforza, September 7, 1464, ibid., f. 391. 
 
 7 " Come alias me havia decto, vole uno Dio in celo, et in terra vostra sub- 
 limata" (Nicod. to Sforza, December 15, 1464, ibid., f. 530). 
 
1464] FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF PIERO. 231 
 
 his attitude, for he wrote him, " These people have served you 
 more in appearance than in reality." 1 Black ingratitude 
 surely ; but who is grateful to an instrument, especially when 
 it appears to withhold its services ? 
 
 Such was the case. Following his father's and uncle's 
 example, Piero, at his grandfather's death, had ordered his 
 associates and agents, and all employed in his numerous offices, 
 not to traffic until the following 25 th of March, so as to give 
 him time to see " in how many feet of water he was standing." 2 
 He wished to look into his affairs ; establish the difficult 
 balances of his wealth which was so widely distributed, adminis- 
 tered by so many hands, aud embarrassed by so many expenses 
 and liberalities. And this was quite natural ; but in following 
 his miserly impulse and the advice of Dietisalvi Neroni, and 
 speaking of gathering in the returns, he went beyond the 
 limits. Cosimo never claimed any reimbursement. His debtors 
 slept in the pleasant consciousness that their debts were for- 
 gotten. Hence the discontent of the awakening at home and 
 abroad — a great perturbation in business, and innumerable 
 failures in Florence, Venice, Avignon, and everywhere. 3 Such 
 a financial crisis had not been known since 1339. 4 Piero 
 asserted that he was ready to assist the bankrupts, 5 but it 
 would have been wiser not to have made them bankrupt. 
 
 There were scandals too. One of the most compromised of 
 the bankrupts, a certain Lorenzo Larioni, who failed for 
 160,000 florins, 6 conceived the ingenious idea of making the 
 author of his ruin settle his affairs. His creditors obtained 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, September 7, 1464, ibid., f. 391. 
 
 2 Nicod. to Sforza, August 16, 1464, ibid., f. 349. 
 
 8 Cron. Bol., xviii. 761 ; Machiavelli, vii. 106; M. Bruto, 1. ii., in Burmann, 
 vol. viii. part I, p. 28. Machiavelli does not hesitate to see in the claims made 
 by Piero the cause of the failures. The enumeration may be found in Alam. 
 Rinuccini, p. 94. 
 
 4 Letter of Angelo Acciajuoli, December 22, 1464, in Letter e di una Genti/d, 
 
 P- 350- 
 
 6 " Dato qualche buono assesto a questi falliti " (Nicod. to Sforza, December 
 15, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 530). 
 
 6 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 95. 
 
232 UNPOPULARITY OF PIERO. [1464 
 
 not more than a few halfpence in the pound, and the bank- 
 rupt came out of the matter richer than he had been for ten 
 years, but at the expense of his honour. 1 Another, Giovan 
 Francesco Strozzi, an exile, and son of Palla Strozzi, who had 
 been so harshly treated, though he deserved a better fate, 
 brought his rancour and political passion to bear upon the pay- 
 ment of his debts. Having indemnified such of his creditors as 
 were not his compatriots, he invited the Florentines to his table, 
 feasted them, and displayed jewels, pearls, and silver, saying 
 afterwards, " I will not retrench any of this to pay you." 3 
 
 Through his own fault Piero had made it impossible for him 
 to ask his dissatisfied people for money. 4 He had become so un- 
 popular that nobody dared advise him to seek, as his father had 
 done, the eminent post of Gonfalonier of Justice. 5 Doubts in- 
 creased about the stability of his power. One of the intriguers 
 of the time, Angelo Acciajuoli, said, " The poor want bread, 
 the rich want brains, the wise want wisdom." 6 Riding with 
 Nicodemo, he said, " This land is spoiled ; it cannot last." 
 Nicodemo thought the contrary, 7 without certainty, however ; 
 for we read in one of his despatches to Sforza, " Piero will not 
 fall if you support him." 8 But the question was, would Sforza 
 
 1 Letter from Alessandra Macinghi, No. 41, Lettere di una Gentild., p. 358. 
 
 2 See the Life of Palla Strozzi, by Vespasiano, in Spicil. Rom., vol. i., and in 
 Arch. Stor., istser., vol. iv. p. 362. 
 
 3 Letter from Bernardo Salviati to Filippo Strozzi, March 30, 1465, in Lettere di 
 una Gentild., p. 351. 
 
 4 ' ' Molti de questi principali de lo stato hano rasonato meco che quantum che 
 questa cita stia meglio che may, tamen quando questi che governano cercassero 
 de metter questo popolo in spesa, se metteriano a pericolo de irritarsi el popolo 
 contra, ex consequenti de perdere lo stato" (Nicod. to Sforza, August 31, 1464, 
 Orig., 1590, f. 374)- 
 
 5 They advised Piero to become Gonfalonier in January 1465 (he was not that 
 then, nor since). Nicodemo did not urge him too much: "Non gli ne fo gran 
 calcha, perhoche cognosco anche del amaro, et che giovaria piii a la reputatione 
 de fora che ad quella de qui, che e Vopposito del bisogno suo" (December 2 1, 
 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 538). 
 
 6 Letter to Fil. Strozzi, December 22, 1464, in Lettere di una Gentild., p. 3,0. 
 
 7 "Questa terra se guasta et che non durara, &c. Io credo l'opposito" 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, August 21, 1464, Orig., 1590, f. 354). 
 
 8 " Ne po perire finche V. Cels. el risguarda cum gli ochii pari " (December 21, 
 1464, ibid., f. 538). But the doubt still remained four months later. 
 
14^41 LUC A PITTI. 233 
 
 support him, knowing him to be dishonest, and in no way a 
 slave to his word ? * and would Piero be able to defend 
 himself against his friends, who regarded him as a good- 
 natured person ? 2 — a confused assortment of presumptuous 
 and ambitious men, who recognised in him neither the 
 authority nor reputation nor sense of his father, and dragged 
 him down to suit their views, in order that they themselves 
 should rise. 3 
 
 Assuredly less dangerous were his enemies, a party whose 
 numbers daily diminished, who had ill endured the father's 
 yoke, and felt themselves superior to the son in age, health, 
 services, and talent. Lacking frankness, like everybody in 
 their time, tbey did not openly attack him ; they masked 
 their intention behind a time-serving friendship, but were ready 
 to lead the chorus in an underhand opposition. 
 
 The principal was Luca Pitti. For a long time reduced to 
 the level of a useful instrument, he privately aspired, thanks 
 to his large fortune, even in Cosimo's lifetime, to play a leading 
 part. How much greater reason had he not to flatter himself 
 with the hope of relegating Piero to a second rank ! In the 
 beginning he appeared to act with him " as one and the same 
 person ; " but no one was duped by him ; he was suspected of 
 " acting the courtesan," and of seeking partisans everywhere. 4 
 From that time there were two factions in Florence, the one 
 il poggio or hillock, because Luca had built his palace upon 
 
 1 " Io dixi . . . che havesse advertencia quando me faceva scrivere a V. Subl. 
 ch'io non scrivessi una cosa, poy ne fosse un altra, che seria toglier credito prin- 
 cipalmente a luy poy ad me, et che in questo haveva a benedicere la memoria del 
 patre, che may me havia facto scrivere cosa che poy non l'havesse observata " 
 (Nicod. to Sforza, February 4, 1465, Orig., 1591, f. 16). 
 
 2 " Per rispecto a la bonta del M co Piero " (Nicod. to Galeaz Maria, September 
 5, 1466, ibid., f. 369). Example : the affair of two coiners. The one is a Jew, 
 and they burn him ; the other found more mercy (Nicod. to Sforza, December 29, 
 1465, ibid., p. 228). We may believe that no one was shocked by so slight a 
 matter. Cf. on Piero, Reumont, Loi\ de' Med., 1. ii. cap. i. vol. i. p. 195-209. 
 
 3 Nicod. to Sforza, September 3, 1465, ibid., f. 143. 
 
 4 " Piero e M. Luca sono una medesima cosa . . . M. Luca puttaneggia, ma 
 con Piero si strigne ; questa e vangelo" (Lettre de Lor. Strozzi, February 14, 
 1465, in Lettere di una Gentild,, p. 382). 
 
234 ANGELO ACCIAJUOLI. 1464 
 
 the hill of San Giorgio ; the other the plain, by opposition, that 
 is to say, Piero and his friends. 1 
 
 Less wealthy than these two rivals, Angelo Acciajuoli was 
 more capable, and yet not a genius. Cosimo's intimate friend, 
 and an ally of the family, 2 he had been flung by Cosimo's exile 
 into a life of adventure. Relegated to Cephalonia, and 
 falling on his way into the power of the Turks, he escaped 
 almost at once from them, in 1434, and shared the triumphs 
 of return. His distinguished manners marking him out for an 
 ambassador, he was sent on most important missions to Venice 
 and France, where he represented the Duke of Milan as well 
 as the Florentine Signory. 3 Louis XL 4 pronounced him light 
 and loquacious, but he was nevertheless a man of influence 
 and well esteemed, who preferred the life of courts to life 
 in his own country. 5 There were various reasons why he 
 became a secret enemy. One of the Medici had been preferred 
 to his son for the archbishopric of Pisa, and the bishopric of 
 Arezzo was an insufficient compensation. 6 Cosimo had not lent 
 himself to the proposal of an alliance between the two families, 7 
 and called upon to arbitrate in a domestic difference, he had pro- 
 nounced between another of Acciajuoli's sons and his daughter- 
 in-law, who had quarrelled, by ordering the restitution of 
 
 1 Nerli. 1. iii. p. 50 ; Machiavelli, vii. 106 B ; Ammirato, xxiii. 93 ; Jacopo Am- 
 manati, Rerum tempore suo gestarum commentarii ; Reumont, Lor. de' Med. , 1. ii. 
 cap. ii. vol. i. p. 23 1 . Divisions in the two parties appear in the letters of Angelo, 
 Dietisalvi, &c, published by Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, p. 28-38. 
 
 3 Laudomia, Angelo's sister, married our Pie* Francesco de' Medicis, Cosimo's 
 nephew and son of his brother Lorenzo. See in Desjardins, i. 55, a notice on 
 Ang. Acciajuoli. 
 
 3 Set passim the despatches of Nicodemo. That of May 3, 1453, notably shows 
 that Angelo was one of the principal friends of Cosimo (Orig., 1586, f. 203). 
 
 4 "Angelo Acciajoli del quale pero non prendeva tropo admiratione per la 
 solita legierezza e volubilita quale dice sempre cognobbe in lui " (Panigarola a 
 Galeaz Maria, October 8, 1466, in Buser, Append., p. 434). 
 
 6 Alam. Rinuccini, ann. 1466, p. 104. 
 
 6 See on this Filippo Medici a notice of M. Desjardins (i. 102), who confuses 
 between the Archbishop and the Bishop, which is evident by what he says at th 
 end of this notice and on p. 57. 
 
 7 Desjardins, i. 57. 
 
1464] DIETISALVI NERONI. 235 
 
 her splendid dowry. 1 Enmities have been excited for less 
 cause. 
 
 Like Angelo Acciajuoli, Dietisalvi Neroni had been one of 
 Cosimo's great friends : 2 even on his deathbed Cosimo recom- 
 mended his son to follow the advice of so far-seeing a man, 
 and Piero took him as a secretary. 3 We know less the hidden 
 motives that drove him to hostility, and since nobody knows 
 them, he is held up as a champion of freedom, in spite 
 of a character unfitted to carry away the multitude. It is 
 said that twice, while he was Gonfalonier of Justice, he 
 attempted to restore liberty. 4 But his contemporary Nerli 
 quite understood that this bye-word was then nothing but a 
 cover of ambition. 5 Was Dietisalvi sincere in giving Piero 
 economical advice, fit only to ruin him in the estimation of 
 those he ruined ? We may doubt it, since he joined Pitti, his 
 inferior, and soon acknowledged him as chief. By his rash 
 ardour, his great riches, his numerous adherents, as well as by 
 his age and mediocrity, Luca Pitti was a desirable chief, easy 
 to overthrow, according to all appearance, when he had drawn 
 the chestnuts out of the fire. 
 
 But at his age was he fit to be the figure-head of the move- 
 ment ? The malcontents had a better chief at hand. A 
 stranger to fear, quick in word and action rather than suited 
 for the council, Niccolo Soderini was popular; he had ever 
 upon his tongue words of justice and equity. Gonfalonier of 
 Justice, he had wedded action to speech by reducing the tax 
 on wine to fourteen pence ! 6 By his faults, as by his qualities, 
 he resembled Giano della Bella. 7 If he had succeeded in 
 overthrowing Piero to the profit of Luca, whose adherent 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vi. 106; M. Bruto, 1. ii., in Burmann, vol. viii. part I, p. 32. 
 
 2 See the despatch from Nicodemo, May 3, 1453, Orig., 1586, f. 203. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vii. 106 a ; Ammirato, xxiii. 93. 
 
 4 In September 1449 and May 1454. See Alam. Rinuccini, ann. 1466, p. 104. 
 
 5 " Ricoprendosi col mantello della liberta, sotto il quale hanno usato di 
 ricoprire la loro ambizione tutti quelli . . . hanno gridato questo nome " (Nerli, 
 1. iii. p. 50). 
 
 6 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 5. Luca adds : " Fu benedetto dal popolo." 
 
 7 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 104; Comment. Jacobi card. Papiensis, after Pit II. com- 
 
236 POLICY OF THE OPPOSITION. [1464 
 
 he was, 1 and at whose house the conferences were held, 2 perhaps 
 this short-sighted individual would have innocently believed 
 that he restored liberty. He was of the infinitely small 
 number of those who in the past wanted to go beyond the 
 despotic Albizzi. His good intentions were unquestionable, 
 his judgment alone was doubtful. He should have known that 
 his generous and disinterested aspirations were not shared by 
 the ambitious schemers with whom he associated. 
 
 The beginning of the task was the common work of the 
 party. It was only a question of cutting the ground from 
 under Piero's feet, and of depriving him at home and abroad 
 of all support ; the Duke of Milan's especially, 8 and even the 
 new Pope's, whom they warned not to place confidence in 
 Cosimo's son. 4 Then it was necessary to watch for an oppor- 
 tunity to push Luca Pitti into the exalted position of Gon- 
 falonier, to reconstruct the bourses, according to the tradi- 
 tional tactics, and also to renew the alliance with Venice, 
 which had been broken by the Medici. 5 
 
 Piero's policy was to treat his enemies as they wanted to 
 treat him. 6 He was satisfied with striking a few as an 
 
 ment, p. 381 ; Machiavelli, vii. 108 A; Ammirato, xxiii. 94; M. Bruto, 1. iii., 
 in Burmann, vol. viii. part I, p. 51. 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxiii. 94. 
 
 2 "Fatto capo di questa parte M. Luca Pitti, si facevano nelle sue case tutti 
 quanti i consigli " (J. Pitti, 1. i., Arch. Stor., ist ser., i. 20). Jacopo Pitti is duped 
 by the words : " Convennero molti gelosi della liberta della patria con costoro, 
 quantunque e' detestassero l'usata da loro tirannia ; ma pero giudicavano ottimo 
 cosa servirsi di quella potenza per la depressione de' Medici." But from this text 
 it is seen at least that the opposition was formed by two currents. 
 
 3 "Da poco in qua instigati da M. Dietisalvi se son conjurati contro de lui, 
 sopra tucto de meterlo in vostra disgracia et de questo popolo : in la vostra cum 
 metervi a vedere chel non po quel che credete, et che se havete a reputarlo como 
 havete facto el patre et luy, ve perderete l'universale de la cita ; ma che quando el 
 lassiate redure al pare del altri o piu basso, venite ad essere libero del debito 
 havete cum luy et che de loro ve porete altramente aiutare che de luy " (Nicod. 
 to Sforza, September 14, 1465, Orig., 1591, f. 151, and in Buser, Append., 
 p. 432). 
 
 4 "Alcuni cittadini de qui gli dicono (to the Pope) et mandano a dire che no se 
 fidi de esso Piero" (Nicod. to Sforza, December 15, 1464, Orig., 1590. f. 530). 
 
 8 Nicod. to Sforza, ibid. 
 
 6 " Dicono che Piero l'ha facto perche M. Luca el volia fare" (Ibid.). 
 
1464] POLICY OF PIERO. 237 
 
 example, 1 because their courage had become so weakened. Id 
 awaiting a favourable hour, he denounced those he presumed 
 to be chiefs of the conspiracy : Luca Pitti, a mediocre person- 
 age, corrupted every department of the State ; he filled his 
 house with the exiled, the condemned, and the guilty ; under 
 the handsome appearance of liberality and courtesy, he robbed 
 both the public and private individuals. He confounded things 
 human and divine, and neither prayed to God nor the saints. 2 
 Whether truth or calumny, these reports turned the public 
 against Luca, and, by a rebound, inclined it towards Piero, 
 whom they believed less dangerous, 3 and who entertained 
 largely. 4 They forgave him for being pitiless to the exiles 
 who solicited their pardon through intercession. 5 It mattered 
 not how powerful the intercessors were — one of them was no 
 less a personage than the King of Naples 6 — what use was it 
 for Piero at so critical a time to recall a host of quarrelsome 
 enemies? He made them vague promises 7 instead, on which 
 the far-sighted declined to count. 8 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, ibid. 
 
 a G. Capponi, Stor. di Fir., ii. 80. 
 
 * "La brigata pur ne viene a sapere grado a Piero, perch e intendono che M. 
 Luca se ne aiutava longe magis che Piero" (Nicod. to Sforza, September 14, 1465, 
 Orig., 1 59 1, f. 151). 
 
 4 Machiavelli, vii. 107 A. 
 
 6 "Estimo che siate piutosto in migliore che piggiore" (Aless. Macinghi to her 
 exiled sons, September 15, 1464, Letter 36; Lettei-e di una Gentild., p. 325). 
 On the difficulties of a recall, see Letters 42 and 43, 5th and 7th February 
 1465, pp. 366 and 374, and that of Marco Parenti of July 27 following, ibid., 
 p. 447. They well knew that it was to Piero alone that they must address them- 
 selves : M E signoria che ha fare la volonta di chi governa, e cosi sono tutte, che 
 fanno quello e ordinato loro " (Al. Macinghi, January 26, 1465, Letter 41, p. 360). 
 
 6 Letter of Lorenzo Strozzi, February 14, 1465, Lettere di una Gentild., p. 384. 
 Piero thought of sending his son Lorenzo to the King (July 20, 1465, ibid., p. 456) ; 
 he sent him, with courteous intent, a galley that this prince desired to buy, and 
 in this negotiation one of the exiles served him as an intermediary, Filippo 
 Strozzi (Letter from Piero to Filippo, May 4, 1465, ibid., p. 412). 
 
 7 "II Re vuole due cose da me : l'una e cotesta, l'altra e il fatto di Filippo. 
 Questo posso fare io e farollo ; quest'altro, cioe il vostro, bisogna che faccia anche 
 quest'altri, e farassi quando fia tempo" (Piero's words, reported in a letter of 
 Marco Parenti, June 22, 1465, ibid., p. 426). 
 
 8 "Domanda grande" (Letter 39, ibid., p. 431. See the commentary of this, 
 word in the notes, p. 349). 
 
238 NICCOLO SODERINI, GONFALON. 
 
 The morning of 16th September 1465 saw the splendid, 
 peaceful, and popular victory of Luca Pitti. A petition, that 
 had passed the preceding day through the usual course, would 
 have been voted unanimously in the council of the Commons 
 but for six white beans, and this final vote gave it the force of 
 the law. The balie was then closed without further delay, 
 though it should not have closed until the month of September, 
 and though its renewal seemed assured. They then returned to 
 the old method, so dear to the people — the nomination of public 
 officers by the drawing of lots. Piero, who followed his 
 father's practices, 1 had in vain induced his supporters to combat 
 this motion ; amongst them, Antonio de Puccio, Otto Nicco- 
 lini, Luigi Guicciardini, and Tommaso Soderini, who did not 
 side with his brother Niccolo. 2 Joy was universal. " The 
 entire country," wrote Angelo Acciajuoli, "desires that the 
 government should return to the way of our fathers." 8 This 
 political personage was full of the illusions of a conspirator. 
 
 Destiny, however, bestows singular favours. On the 1st of 
 November the Signory accepted as Gonfalonier of Justice 
 that same Niccolo Soderini, who was one of the chiefs of the 
 conspiracy, and, we might add, its flag-bearer. The enchanted 
 crowd accompanied him to the palace, and on the way 
 placed a crown of laurels upon his head. 4 But, as Machiavelli 
 remarks, it was another proof how undesirable it is to take 
 possession of a principality or a magistracy with extraordinary 
 expectations. 5 Soderini entered upon the office with the air of 
 
 1 See an example of Cosimo's intrigues, suppressing the divieto of his friends 
 when it embarrassed him, in one of Nicodemo's despatches, May 3, 1453, Orig., 
 1586, f. 203, and Buser, Append., p. 382. 
 
 2 Tommaso Soderini had been ambassador and three times Gonfalonier of 
 Justice. Machiavelli (vii. 108 a) and Ammirato (xxiii. 94) called him wise. 
 Michele Bruto, while an enemy of the Medici, said the same of him : " Vir aeque 
 moderatus ac gravis" (L. iii. in Burm., vol. viii. part I, p. 51). 
 
 3 Letter of Ang. Acciaj. to his son Jacopo, October 21, 1465, in Lettere di una 
 Gentild., p. 484. On this affair see again Alam. Rinuccini, p. 96 ; Morelli, De/., 
 xix. 181 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 94. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, viii. 107 b ; Mich. Bruto, 1. iii. p. 51. 
 6 Machiavelli, vii. 107 B. 
 
1465] FUTILE PROJECTS OF REFORM. 239 
 
 a death-dealer, loudly asserting his intention of banishing 
 Piero's partisans, 1 perhaps Piero himself; 2 but even among 
 his friends he found adversaries. Luca Pitti and Dietisalvi 
 Neroni, if they no longer wanted the government of the 
 Medici, were still less anxious for popular government. Angelo 
 Acciajuoli, notwithstanding his fine speeches, thought the same, 
 and his sole aim was vengeance. 
 
 On the fourth day of his office, Soderini assembled a council 
 of 500 citizens, and eight days after another of 300. To both 
 he demonstrated, in eloquent discourses, the disorder of the 
 situation ; and instead of proposing a remedy, which was his 
 business, he begged all those who had anything to propose 
 to mount the tribune. Various opinions were given and cir- 
 culated, it is certain, and as certainly nothing was decided. 
 With his personal friends the courageous Gonfalonier really tried 
 to put matters in order. The opposition of Luca Pitti, whose 
 wealth was ill-gotten, upset his plans. He wished to suppress 
 the Council of the One Hundred ; Piero's faction again suc- 
 cessfully opposed him. He was soon looked upon as powerless. 
 After the first fortnight, the Florentines, who were expelled 
 from the bourses in 1458, and who had flattered themselves 
 they would return through him, had already lost all hope. 3 To 
 furnish a harmless relief for the itch of reform which consumed 
 his brother, Tommaso Soderini advised him to reconstitute the 
 bourses, a long and laborious operation, which might employ 
 his activity during his second month of power. The innocent 
 man fell into the trap. He called 530 citizens together for this 
 great operation. The democracy loves large assemblies, but too 
 many cooks spoil the broth. The bourses wanted reform in 
 
 1 Letter from Al. Macinghi, January 25, 1466 ; Lettere di una Gentild., p. 556, 
 and note 1. 
 
 2 " Dictogli (to Piero) essere avisato de bon loco chel confaloniero Nic. Sod. 
 devia levare la terra a romore et confinar Piero et de l'altri " (Nicod. to Sforza, 
 December 9, 1465, Orig., 1591, f. 220). 
 
 3 Letter of Aless. Macinghi, November 15, 1465 ; Lettere di una Gentild., p. 512, 
 -and note 1. 
 
240 FAILURE OF SODERINI. [1465 
 
 every department, but they were only reformed in the Signory, 1 
 and even Ammirato accuses Soderini of partiality. 2 During 
 his term of office he only succeeded in carrying a provision , 
 voted for the time his brother was Gonfalonier, which granted 
 a reward to whoever should kill a rebel, 3 — a human return to 
 an inhuman party law, which must have irritated Tommaso, 
 as he said disdainfully of this new Giano della Bella, " He 
 entered like a lion, he will go out like a lamb." 4 Less pas- 
 sionate, because she was only a witness and not an actor, Ales* 
 sandra Macinghi Strozzi speaks in the same terms : " Proud at 
 the start, he humbled himself; he began to humiliate himself 
 when he found that the beans were not in his favour. I do 
 not know what will become of him ; but those who believed 
 he would reach his aim have suffered a blow." 5 
 
 As early as the first half of December, a reconciliation was 
 accomplished between Piero and the malcontents, uneasy in the 
 path in which this great reformer would drag them. 6 There was 
 only one point upon which they still disagreed ; they preferred 
 the alliance with Venice, in spite of their grounds of complaint, 7 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 97. He was one of the squittinanti or trustees of that 
 operation. Cf. Machiavelli, vii. 108. 
 a Ammirato, xxiii. 95. 
 
 * Machiavelli, vii. 108 a; Guicciardini, Stor. Fior. % Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 20; 
 Nerli, 1. iii. p. 51 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 94, 95. 
 
 * Letter of Al. Macinghi, January II, 1466; Lettere di una Genti/d., p. 550. 
 Having sounded him, they knew what to expect: " Molti homini da bene . . . 
 forono al confalonero, al quale parve essere in mal loco et scursossi assay . . » 
 parendomi essere certo che questa popolata fosse proceduta da M. Angelo et da 
 M. Detesalvi per intendere se luy inviliva o non, et forse per trovar meglior con- 
 dicione con lui, mostrandogli che non fossero in dispositione de consentir verun 
 suo mancamento" (Nicod. to Sforza, December 9, 1465, Orig., 1591, f. 220). 
 
 8 Letters of January 11, 1466, and December 21, 1465, Lettere di una Gentild. t 
 p. 550 and 527. 
 
 e "Questo busbu ha dato animo a Francesco de Nerone et a de l'altri a tirar 
 inanti nova reconciliatione fra costoro" (Nicod. to Sforza, December 9, 1465, 
 Orig., 1 59 1, f. 220). " Piero me disse che M. Detesalvi era stato questa matina a 
 luy et usatogli le meglior parole del mondo, mostrando che questo loro discidio e- 
 in tuto sopito, et che delibera essere suo. ..." (December 16, f. 223). 
 
 7 In 1463, Venice opposed the Florentines, who wanted to send galleys to the 
 Levant for the protection of their traffic, under pretext that the Turks, if they 
 seized them, would use them against Christianity, and warned them, if they passed 
 Venice, the commander of the Venetian fleet had full power, and that the Senate 
 
M66] DEATH OF SFORZA. 241 
 
 to one with Sforza, who had sucked the marrow of Florence 
 without having done anything for her, and had even pretended 
 to govern her ; 1 but when personal interests are at stake at 
 home, little is recked of foreign policy, in which they are less 
 engaged. Thus little by little Soderini was forsaken by every- 
 body. His ancient popularity could not defend him from the 
 enemies he had made. When he resigned the gonfalon of 
 justice to his successor, he did not dare to show himself in the 
 streets unescorted by five or six men, armed to the teeth. 2 
 
 Futile precaution ! Piero easily gained for himself a repu- 
 tation for clemency towards this poor " lion," who had allowed 
 his claws to be cut. Neither Soderini nor Pitti were inter- 
 fered with. As Guicciardini said, " They had lost their plumes." 3 
 Soderini even took pride in showing a serene bearing, in offer- 
 ing black beans, that is, favourable votes, openly in the Common 
 Council for the projects proposed by Piero, and in inviting 
 his neighbours to do likewise. With such adversaries, accord 
 and consistency were no longer compulsory for the victors. 
 They could, " like children," change their intentions every day, 
 and turn " like the leaves blown by the wind." 4 
 
 As soon as Florence was put into order at home, foreign matters 
 re-arose for discussion. Sforza's death (March 8, 1 466) renewed 
 the problem of alliances. 5 Would his son and successor, 6 Galeaz 
 
 would not trouble about the action of the Admiral with regard to the galleys 
 (Alam. Rinuccini, p. 91). 
 
 1 Nicod. to Sforza, December 16, f. 223. Needless to say that Nicodemo re- 
 futed these accusations, and that Piero did likewise. 
 
 2 Letter of Al. Macinghi, January IX, 1466 ; Lettere di una Gentild., p. 550. 
 
 3 Star. Fior.y Op. ined., vol. ii. p. 20. 
 
 4 Letter of Al. Macinghi, January 25 and 30, 1466, p. 555, 568. 
 
 6 Letters of the Venetians to the King of Naples, March II, 1466 ; Arch. Sforz., 
 Orig., 1591, f. 282. The 7th, they recalled the absent Galeaz in haste, because 
 of " certo accidente che e sopravenuto da heri in qua allTll S. tuo padre, el quale 
 non e senza gran periculo de la sua salute " (ibid., f. 279). Machiavelli dates the 
 death of Sforza before the affair of Soderini, but Ammirato (xxiii. 95) finds him so 
 full of errors regarding this period that he renounces the task of pointing them out. 
 
 8 Trollope (iii. 229) remarks that the name of Sforza belongs to the Visconti ; 
 that no one in Sforza's family had ever borne it, and that in giving it to his son 
 six years before being Duke, Sforza seemed to have indicated his ambition to 
 become one. 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
242 GALEAZ MARIA. [1466 
 
 Maria, prove a solid support ? He was only twenty years 
 old, and had grown up in the indolence of a luxurious court, 
 without having learned the use of arms, and nothing gave 
 evidence in him of natural talents. 1 But he was brother-in-law 
 of Louis XI., and it might be hoped he would be supported 
 by the powerful arm of France. 2 Piero was so convinced of 
 this that he offered him 40,000 ducats. Naturally, Galeaz 
 accepted ; but, like his father's son, he was dissatisfied, 3 thought 
 it little, and claimed more. 4 It was hardly probable that he 
 would obtain more ; even upon this petty subject opposition 
 broke out in the councils. Luca Pitti and his two acolytes, 
 Angelo Acciajuoli and Detisalvi Neroni, looked upon this sub- 
 sidy as the continuation of the alliance ; and the engagement 
 only was with Sforza, whose talents and military power were 
 certainly worth the money to the Medici. Those around 
 Piero replied, in his name, that if Florence abandoned Milan, 
 Venice would win over the young and unintelligent prince, 
 so that his very incapacity was another reason for succouring 
 him. But the stern councils refused to vote the required sum, 
 without which the alliance was in peril. 5 
 
 The opponents were so far successful. Would this success 
 be followed up ? Would they, as Alamanno Rinuccini says, 
 " suppress the Council of the Hundred, freedom's enemy, and 
 give liberty to the people ?" 6 Men rapid of action and capable 
 
 1 Simoneta, xxi. 775, 780. This author finishes here. 1st. Bresc, xxi. "905 ; 
 Ann. Placent., xx. 916. 
 
 2 April 8, 1466, the Signory wrote to Louis XI. on the subject of this death, 
 and in notifying their grief, Louis XI. exhorted Florence to remain Galeaz's 
 friend ; and the 1st of the following July they replied to him that such was the 
 intention of the Republic. See Desjardins, i. 136, 138, 140. 
 
 3 " Delle parole referte ad Fiorenza che V. S. et mi non portiamo quello amore 
 ad quella signoria per li 40 mila ducati come facevamo inanzi . . . me pare che 
 S. M. ricorda bene" (Galeaz to his mother, July 15, 1466, Orig., 1591, f. 357). 
 
 4 July 1466. Guicciardini, Stor. Fior., Op. ined., iii. 19 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 95. 
 This embassy must not be confounded with that of mere formality, which had in 
 April notified Galeaz's succession, and of which Rinuccini speaks, p. 99. 
 
 6 Guicciardini, Stor. Fior., Op. ined., iii. 20 ; Machiavelli, vii. 107 A ; M. Bruto, 
 1. ii., in Burm., vol. viii. part I, p. 38; Ammirato, xxiii. 95. 
 6 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 100. 
 
H66] DIETISALVrS INTRIGUE. 243 
 
 of union were the necessary agents of the enterprise, and in the 
 Signory they could only count on four friars as well as the Gon- 
 falonier ; * and with five votes out of nine, it was impossible to 
 reach the legal majority of two-thirds. Perhaps the drawing 
 of lots would be more favourable on another occasion, and 
 permit the renewal of the unsuccessful campaign and relieve 
 Piero of the handling of public funds, thus ruining his credit 
 in trade and his power in the State ; but the time was long, 
 and Dietisalvi was impatient. Turning against the son the 
 ability which the father wished to assure his race, he tried to 
 concert outside a vast conspiracy, not with the exiles, but 
 with the princes. The attempt did not succeed ; the King of 
 Naples preferred to remain neutral ; a blunder of Luca Pitti 
 had offended the Pope ; 2 Venice, engaged with the Turks, 
 contented herself with giving the conspirators the condottiere 
 Bartolommeo Colleoni of Bergamo, whose condotta had expired. 
 For want of better, Dietisalvi intended to pit Colleoni against 
 Galeaz, the Duke of Anjou against King Ferrante, should the 
 latter take part. Acciajuoli had an undertaking from Borso 
 of Este, Duke of Modena, that he would send his brother 
 Ercole with an army to support the revolt within, and make 
 him captain-general of freed Florence. 3 Niccolo Soderini was 
 charged to provoke and accomplish the revolt. With three hun- 
 dred German soldiers he had engaged, he was to expel Piero, or 
 better still, to kill him, remembering the bitter repentance of the 
 Albizzi for having spared Cosimo. 4 The conspirators were bound 
 by a solemn and secret oath before God and men. 5 In arming 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxiii. 97. 
 
 2 See the detail in G. Capponi, ii. 84. 
 
 3 Interrogation of Francesco Neroni, Dietisalvi's brother, September 10, 1466, 
 and letter of a certain Ser Luca, September 6, in Fabroni, Vita Lanrentii 
 Magnifici, Doc, p. 28-32. This Luca is not Luca Pitti, of whom mention is made 
 in this same letter. 
 
 4 Comment. Jacobi Card. Papiensis, 1. hi., after the Comm. Pii II, p. 381 ; 
 Machiavelli, vii. 107 ; M. Bruto, 1. ii. p. 50 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 95. Cf. Luca Lan- 
 ducci, Diario, p. 9 ; "el quale vollono amazzare, venendo da Careggi." 
 
 5 Angelo Acciajuoli to his son Jacopo, without date, in Fabroni, Vita Laur., 
 Doc, p. 29. 
 
244 FEEBLE CONSPIRATORS. [1466 
 
 themselves, they flatly accused the Medici of creating the Sig- 
 nories, and of governing them according to their fancy ; of 
 bringing 500 cavaliers from Milan to Imola, and nearer still, 
 to assemble parliament and expel the hostile citizens. 1 
 
 The accusation was not without foundation. On both sides 
 the iron was in the fire. It was the interest, above all, of the 
 conspirators to draw theirs out promptly, so that daylight 
 should not penetrate the mystery ; they did not do so quickly 
 enough. From far Bologna, Giovanni Bentivoglio had time to 
 warn Piero that Ercole of Este with his army was at Fium- 
 albo, on the borders of Pistoia. Helpless as he was, Piero had 
 himself hurriedly transported from Careggi on August 27. 2 
 If he had attacked during the night, a contemporary says, he 
 might have made small work of his adversaries, who were not 
 ready ; but he deemed it wiser to wait until the morrow, when 
 he should be surrounded by those he had called to his aid. 3 
 
 It was the day for drawing lots for the new Signory, and it 
 was known that, according to custom, the Gonfalonier would 
 be taken from the quarter of Santa Croce, almost entirely 
 devoted to the Medici. Eoberto Lioni's name, turned up in 
 the special bourse. His colleagues followed him into Piero's 
 camp. 4 The rumour ran that the bourses had been privately 
 cleared ; 5 for it is well known that drawing by lot is not a 
 conclusive impediment to jobbing. Hardly named, the mem- 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 100. 
 
 3 Cron. BcL, xviii. 763. Al. Rinuccini (p. 101) believes the letters of Benti- 
 voglio to be forged by Piero. A very improbable and hostile supposition. We 
 must regard as a fable the danger which Piero is supposed to have run of 
 being killed in this short passage by an ambuscade at Sant' Antonio del Vescovo, 
 and the devotion of his son Lorenzo, who, galloping in advance, saved him 
 by making him take another road. No contemporary hints a word about the 
 adventure. It was reported for the first time by Nic. Valori (Lattrentii Media's 
 Vita, p. 10, ed. of Flor., 1740), probably to commence the legend of the Magni- 
 ficent, reproduced since by all authors, except by M. Bruto, who has denied it 
 (1. iii. p. 55). 
 
 3 Alam. Rinuccini, p. ior. 
 
 4 "Uomo sensato e buon popolano ; ma l'ambizione lo volse alia parte di Piero. 
 Gli altri signori altresi " (J. Pitti, 1. i. Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 22). 
 
 6 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 101 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 97. 
 
1466] ACTION OF PIERO. 245 
 
 bers of the future Signory went to the palace to take their cue 
 from the signors leaving office, and once entered, they refused 
 to go out again, although their installation was due only on 
 the 1st September. They had to be put out by force. 1 Thus 
 for the wielders of real power the old institutions and old 
 customs, even in appearance, no longer commanded respect. 
 
 Warned in this way, the conspirators ought to have made up 
 for lost time, but a body of many heads is incapable of decisive 
 movement. They had arranged everything for attack, and 
 nothing at all for defence. In the presence of courageous 
 enemies, Soderini and Pitti wasted time in mutual reproaches, 2 
 and disputed expenses which neither wished to pay. 3 Piero, 
 whom nobody thought so clever, profited by these delays to force 
 the timid, who were numerous, to compromise themselves in 
 his favour. He circulated leaves upon which his adherents 
 inscribed their names. With the zealous were inscribed many 
 of the indifferent, and a goodly number even of the conspirators, 
 some in good faith, and these were friends gained, and others 
 insincerely, who were henceforth lost in the eyes of their 
 accomplices who had remained firm. 4 Assuredly, the firmest 
 was Soderini, a man of immovable convictions, and certain, 
 besides, that Piero would never forgive him for not having 
 been the first to join him. Counting upon two hundred 
 friends and three German regiments, he begged Luca Pitti 
 finally to consent to take up arms, " to run through the town ;" 
 according to Rinuccini, salvation lay therein. 5 Luca refused ; 
 he alleged his respect for Cosimo's family, and his desire 
 to spare his own from popular fury. 6 These late reflections 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 101. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiii. 97. 
 
 3 " I quali divisi e non concordi alle spese, attendendo ciascuno che l'altro som- 
 ministrasse alia bisogna denari " (J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 22). He who spoke in this way 
 was a descendant of Luca Pitti, favourable to the conspirators, and who stated 
 that they all obeyed the Signory in laying down their arms, whilst only a portion 
 of Piero's partisans did likewise. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxiii. 97. 
 
 6 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 104. 
 
 6 Comment. Jacobi Card. PapiensiSy 1. iii., after Comm. FUJI,, p. 381, 
 
246 DEFECTION OF LUCA P1TTI. [1466 
 
 were shared by Dietisalvi Neroni ; he perceived that his 
 house, being close to Piero's, might be burned or sacked at 
 the same time. 1 But Luca made one step farther, and a 
 decisive one. On the 29th he visited Piero, still moaning in 
 bed. Both embraced and kissed each other on the lips. It 
 was believed that, with the help of Antonio Puccio, they had 
 already agreed to become friends. The intermediary dazzled 
 the eyes of the conspirator with all sorts of seductions and 
 advantages, notably his daughter's marriage with one of Piero's 
 dearest relatives. By this he seemed to mean Lorenzo, the 
 heir-apparent ; but by not pronouncing any name he left it 
 open afterwards to say that he had never thought of such an 
 alliance. 2 This Luca did not fear ; it is so easy to believe 
 what we desire. 
 
 To private agreements succeeded next day (August 30) a 
 public agreement. The departing signors and those entering 
 office met, and had presented to them the chiefs of both parties. 
 Luca Pitti came unarmed ; Piero excused himself on the plea 
 of his gout, which had not prevented him from coming from 
 Careggi when his own interest called him to Florence. He 
 sent his two sons, bearing letters from Bentivoglio, which 
 announced the approach of Ercole d'Este. The lords having 
 forbidden the latter to advance farther, and commanded the 
 citizens to lay down their arms within twenty-four hours, 
 presented the conditions of peace, which were accepted and 
 signed on the one side by Luca Pitti, and on the other by 
 Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medicis. 
 
 But here burst out in all its candour the bad faith of this 
 
 1 J. Pitti, 1. i., Arch. Stor., istser., i. 21. 
 
 2 Later, in fact, instead of Lorenzo, Piero substituted a Tornabuoni, his son's 
 uncle (J. Pitti, loc. cit., p. 22-24 J Nerli, 1. iii. p. 52 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 97 ; Jacopo 
 Nardi, Istorie delta Citta di Firenze, p. 21, Flor., 1842). J. Pitti ascribes different 
 motives to his ancestor ; remembrance of his old friendship with Cosimo ; distrust 
 of his companions ; desire to continue the construction of his palace ; to finish his 
 days in peace, being already more than seventy-two ; a promise to be made accop- 
 piatore, and his brother Luigi to create the Eight, as well as the prospective 
 marriage. m ^ l 
 
1466] PRECAUTIONS OF PIERO. 247 
 
 family of aspirants to the principality. When the conspirators 
 were disarmed, Piero mysteriously gathered together in his 
 house a band of armed men — some say as many as six 
 thousand 1 — at the very time he bade the agents of Galeaz send 
 back to Milan the troops which the young Duke had sent to 
 his assistance. 2 
 
 He knew that he had nothing more to fear from his enemies 
 at home, and we may hesitate to believe that he feared much 
 from those without. However, having learned that six thou- 
 sand infantry and eight hundred horse were bearing down 
 from Modena to San Marcello in the mountains of Pistoia, he 
 produced without delay his hidden satellites to guard the place 
 in spite of the counter-orders of the Signory, and he recalled 
 the Milanese contingent, that was not far off. His pretext, 
 which he might have thought of earlier, was that the morrow 
 was the day of installation of the new signors, and that nobody 
 knew " if among the wicked, without faith or love of God, 
 some irreparable mischief might not happen." 8 
 
 Nothing happened. 4 Without waiting any longer, Piero, 
 finding the sails well filled, on the 2nd of September shut the 
 gates of San Gallo against an improbable surprise from with- 
 out. Then he garrisoned the place with a thousand armed men 
 under the command of two members of the Bardi family, to 
 which his mother belonged. 5 All was ready now for the 
 assembling of the public. The bell having rung out its call, 
 those who had anything to fear in this display of force rushed 
 thither unarmed, and even a good many of the important people, 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 101 ; J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 23 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 98. 
 
 2 ' ' Hieri sera vi mandammo a dire per Sagramore de Arimino, poy ve habiamo 
 scripto per tre nostre lettere che devessino recondure inderetto quelle gente d'arme 
 duchesche, et questo parendoci havere bene assettate le cose de qui " (Piero and 
 Nicodemo to Orfeo de Ricavo and Antonio de Pesaro, intimates of the Duke of 
 Milan, August 31, 1466, Orig., 1591, f. 364. 
 
 3 Ibid. ; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 102 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 99. 
 
 4 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 9, says, however, that the meeting of parliament 
 was held September 1. 
 
 5 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 103 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 99 ; Letter from Ser Luca, Sep- 
 tember 6, 1466, in Fabroni, Vita Lata:, Doc, p. 31. 
 
248 MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. [146 
 
 who saw the end, and did not wish to be ranked with the 
 defeated. Among these were not only Luca Pitti, already 
 reconciled, but Dietisalvi Neroni. The greater number held 
 themselves in reserve. Luca Landucci, whose chronicle has 
 lately been published, says that the town was in commotion, 
 and that all the shops, to escape sacking, were several times 
 closed. 1 
 
 The public meeting had a natural result. Balie was granted 
 for four months — until the end of September — to the lords 
 and colleges of this period — conjointly with all those who 
 had been Gonfaloniers of Justice from 1434, and with a 
 hundred citizens to be elected by the lords and colleges in 
 power. This commission of three hundred members had equal 
 rights with the people in reforming the town and punishing 
 the guilty. 2 The trick was played without much difficulty, but 
 not without a good deal of indignation. " We are in Piero's 
 power," we read in a letter of the time ; " he can do what he 
 likes, but I do not think he will do wrong." And, heedless of 
 contradiction, a little farther on : " You should see now what 
 his intention is. God be praised, but not for that. Show the 
 best countenance you can. As for me, I sweat with anger in 
 writing this letter, though it is morning and very cold." 3 
 
 In truth, the defeated could not show a bold countenance. 
 It was obvious that Florence would have gained nothing in their 
 triumph. Angelo Acciajuoli, who had extolled the alliance with 
 Venice against Milan, swore by all his gods to Nicodemo that 
 his triumph would not have injured Milan. 4 Trembling, he 
 took his hands, adjured him to say if there were anything to 
 
 1 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 9. 
 
 3 Pietro of Landriano to Bianca and Galeaz. Sent to Naples, and passing 
 through Florence, he relates what passed, September 13, 1466, Orig., 1591, 
 
 f. 374- 
 
 8 Letter of Ser Luca, September 6, 1466, in Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, 
 P. 31, 32. 
 
 4 " Quando gli fosse facta alcuna novita sotto el caldo vostro, non se seria 
 l'honore vostro" (Nicod. to Bianca and Galeaz, September 5, 1466, Orig., 1591, 
 i- 369). 
 
1466] SUBMISSION OF THE CONSPIRATORS. 249 
 
 fear, and he was only half reassured by the reply that " Piero 
 was good, and that they had used him in a strange way." 1 He 
 solicited a fresh interview with his interlocutor, and obtained 
 it for the morrow in the Church of Santa Trinita, whither he 
 went with Dietisalvi. There they both bluntly asked the im- 
 portant Nicodemo if they ought to go to the devil, 2 seeing that 
 the town threatened them with banishment. The Milanese 
 ambassador replied laughingly, " Quod nemo leditur nisi ab se 
 ipso," but that he did not believe that Piero was treating them 
 as he would have been treated himself had they gained the 
 day. Then Angelo called for his mule, and the three went off 
 together to Piero. There the two defeated friends rivalled each 
 other in submission and abjection. They promised to be the 
 first at the palace to advise the making of the bourses a mano, 
 and asserted that the villains who had not understood their 
 duty would remain in the mire. 3 
 
 It was impossible to wriggle out of a scrape more coolly. 
 But this was not all. The Archbishop of Florence, Dietisalvi's 
 brother, kept at home by gout, entreated Nicodemo to come to 
 him, and with tears in his eyes recommended his family to him, 
 though many of them hardly deserved indulgence. Nicodemo 
 protested his master Galeaz's goodwill, but therein he pro- 
 bably went too far, and perhaps lied. 4 The prelate, he thought, 
 should recommend his brothers to show themselves grateful — 
 " to ask no more than a part of this world." Keturning to Piero, 
 he found Dietisalvi again, backed by two of his brothers, who 
 
 1 "Mi prese la mano et me scongiuro ch'io gli dicessi quel credevo certamente 
 se gli doveva essere facta novita veruna, respondendoli ch'io credevo di no per 
 rispecto a la bonta del M co Piero, etiam che luy havesse tenuti stranii modi " 
 {Ibid.). 
 
 a It must not be forgotten that the Italians, religious in form, said, "to go away 
 with God ; " but this phrase has the same sense as the opposite phrase, in which 
 we replace God by the devil. 
 
 3 "Che questi gaglioffi che non havevano saputo cognoscere el partito loro, 
 remanessero ne la feza " {Ibid.). 
 
 4 September 4, 1466, Bianca Maria and Galeaz Maria wrote to Nicodemo to 
 show their joy in Piero's victory, and to exhort him to arrange now, while he could, 
 that such movements would not recur, for they injured all Italy. "Non bisogna 
 fidarsi piu de costoro ne de loro belle parole" (Orig., 1591, f. 367). 
 
25o SUCCESS OF PIERO. [1466 
 
 renewed their concert of protested devotion ; and Luca Pitti, 
 who thought it a great thing to raise the bourses a mano for 
 ten years, and who approved of everything else that could 
 contribute to the strength of the Medici. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day, the barefaced trick was 
 accomplished in the palace. The balie decided as well that 
 the complaisant Council of One Hundred should be main- 
 tained : l "all violent and tyrannical things," writes Einuccini, 
 " and already resolved upon for several months, for I had heard 
 them spoken of." 2 An inimical assertion, it will be said ; but 
 here is the statement of a friend, of a compromising friend : " It 
 is certain," we read in one of Nicodemo's despatches, "that 
 having the bourses a mano, and in consequence the palace at 
 our disposition, it will not be so easy to conspire as before." 3 
 
 All the same, Piero, who had played his stakes, was less 
 assured. He saw the Duke of Milan ready to withdraw 
 his troops from Eomagna ; the Duke of Modena disposed to 
 support the malcontents ; Soderini, Dietisalvi, and the latter's 
 two sons advancing towards the states of this ruler ; Accia- 
 juoli and his friends seeking refuge in Sienna, that is, among 
 his enemies. 4 It was prudent ; if a few believed Piero's hand 
 struck lightly, 5 others feared it would be too heavy, 6 and those 
 proved in the right. 
 
 Before the 10th September, Francesco Neroni, one of 
 Dietisalvi's brothers, was put to torture, and pain forced him 
 to confess that assistance had been asked of the Duke of 
 
 1 Nicod. to Bianca and Galeaz, September 5, 1466, Orig., 1591, f. 369; Alam. 
 Rinuccini, p. 103 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 99 ; Letter of Ser Luca, September 6, 1466, 
 in Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, p. 31. 
 
 3 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 103. " Per modo che Piero ha quel che chiede a pontino n 
 (Nicod. to Bianca and Galeaz, September 5, 1466, f. 369). 
 
 8 Nicod. to Bianca and Galeaz, September 5, 1466, f. 369. 
 
 4 Nicod., September 10, f. 371; Pietro Landriano, September 13, f. 374; 
 J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 23, 24. They had left Soderini on the 5th, the two others on 
 the 6th. 
 
 5 "Disposto a menare le mane molto leggiere" (Nicod., September 5, f. 369). 
 " Parmi occelli a la gratia del populo" (Nicod., September 10, f. 371). 
 
 6 Vespasiano, Vita di Agn. Acciajuoli, c. 12 ; Spirit. Rom., i. 473. 
 
1466] PUNISHMENT OF CONSPIRATORS. 251 
 
 Modena, and that this prince had advised Piero's death, after 
 which he would mediate between the triumphant conspirators 
 and the Venetians. Twenty other citizens were incarcerated 
 at the same time. On the same day the delay accorded 
 the summoned fugitives expired. 1 On the morrow, the I ith, 
 they were condemned to twenty years' exile, "for having 
 sought to introduce armed force and for acting against free- 
 dom : " Dietisalvi and his family to Sicily ; Acciajuoli and 
 his son to the kingdom beyond the Barletta ; 2 Soderini to 
 Provence. For twenty years also were their partisans de- 
 prived of office, and severely mulcted of fines, which went as high 
 as 1 2,000 ducats. 3 On the following Sunday (September 14), 
 while a grand procession was in preparation, and the Priors 
 with the other public officers were hearing mass in the 
 cathedral, the Eight of guard seized the persons of other 
 suspects, and even in the church arrested a certain Salvestro 
 Nardi, who had been one of them. A relation of the Gon- 
 falonier of Justice, Salvestro sought a refuge near him ; but 
 this high protection did not save him from perpetual exile. 4 
 Guido Bonciani, one of the captains of the Guelph party, 
 once so redoubtable, was seized in the midst of his colleagues 
 and conducted to prison. 5 Other less important families 
 suffered like penalties. 6 Such was the rage of the balie and 
 the people, that a hunt was made in the town. The most 
 innocent, examining their conscience, anxiously questioned 
 themselves lest by chance they should have spoken against 
 
 1 Nicod., September 10, f. 371 ; Pietro Landriano, September 13, f. 374. 
 
 3 Acciajuoli begged Nicodemo to obtain for him the permission to live in any 
 part of the kingdom ; but the matter was too recent for any chance of success 
 (Nicod., September 15, f. 376). 
 
 3 Pietro Landriano, September 13, f. 374 ; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 104 ; J. Pilti, 
 1. i. p. 20; 1st. Bresc, xxi. 1012 ; Nerli, 1. iii. p. 52; Ammirato, xxiii. 100. 
 Morelli (Del., xix. 182) dates these proscriptions January 29, 1467. The unpub- 
 lished documents agree with the other writers. 
 
 4 J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 24 ; Nardi, 1. i. vol. i. p. 21. 
 
 5 J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 24. 
 
 8 Guernieri Bernio (Storia d'Agobbio, xxi. 1012) gives a long list of the con- 
 demned. Cf. Coj/wient. Card. Papiens., after Comm. Pit II., 1. iii. p. 382 ; Machia- 
 velli, vii. 109 A ; M. Bruto, 1. iii. p. 67 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 99, 100. 
 
252 RECALL OF OLD EXILES. [1466 
 
 Piero the year before. 1 Even Luca Pitti would have been 
 imprisoned, if Cosimo had not defended him as a relation ; 2 
 but this mercy was the final blow. Accused of having given 
 the names of his friends, the aged Luca ended his long life 
 in universal contempt, without a soul to work for him in his 
 palace. 3 History has not even cared to give us the date of 
 his last day. 4 
 
 After this first step, Piero made many another. On 
 September 1 5 he decided to put an end to the severities. 
 u This was the best means he could have found to cut the 
 nails of a ^ew of those animals who cannot and do not know 
 how to live otherwise than by brigandage. I believe," adds the 
 inexorable Nicodemo, " that it is wishing the impossible, for 
 we have never known a popular state in which the strong have 
 not endeavoured to raise themselves at the expense of the 
 weak. However, Piero hoped to teach them to lick instead 
 of to bite." 5 He went farther ; he granted what he had 
 hitherto always refused — the recall of a certain number of 
 the old exiles. They had prostrated themselves at his feet. 
 "God," the Strozzi wrote to him, "has assured you victory 
 against bad citizens ; to recall the exiles is to thank God." 6 
 On September 20 they received the reward of their platitudes, 7 
 and if they have an excuse, it is in the delight they exhibited 
 on their return. "Try to arrange," Filippo Strozzi writes, 
 
 1 J. Pitti, 1. i. p. 24. 
 
 2 Luca Pitti married one of his daughters to Giovanni Tornabuoni. See Luca 
 Landucci, Diario, p. 9. 
 
 3 The Pitti Palace remained unfinished until the Medici, become princes, 
 bought it and made it their residence. 
 
 4 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 104 ; letter of Ser Luca, September 6, 1466, in Fabroni, 
 Vita Laur., Doc, p. 31 ; Nardi, L i. vol. i. p. 22 ; Nerli, 1. iii. p. 52 ; Machiavelli, 
 vii. 109 B ; Ammirato, xxiii. 99, 100. 
 
 5 Nicod. to Bianca and Galeaz, September 15, 1466, Orig., 1591, f. 376. 
 September 4, Bianca and Galeaz exhorted Piero to be severe (f. 367) ; on 13th 
 they rejoiced in what had happened, since every one could now sleep in peace 
 
 it 374). 
 
 6 See Lettere di una Genti/d., p. 581, 582. 
 
 7 The text of the decision is to be found in the registers of the Balie, p. 16-18. 
 M. Guasti has published it in Lettere di una Genti/d., p. 581. 
 
1466] THE STROZZI. 253 
 
 announcing his arrival, "that we shall sup upon something 
 else besides sausages." * 
 
 But the Strozzi were old exiles, and an effort of memory 
 was necessary to discover the cause of their disgrace. The 
 proscribed of yesterday could not hope for like mercy. They 
 had to make up their minds to live in exile for a time at 
 least. The Signory, despatching the account of their defeat to 
 Louis XI., lent them the blackest intentions, and held them 
 up as wild beasts, whose criminal fury the people had repressed 
 " by establishing liberty." 2 It would have been bette/to have 
 compared them to vile and crawling beasts, for they had no 
 dignity in their exile, and they had not the Strozzi's excuse of 
 having pined in a long absence from their hearths. The only 
 pretext they could plead, if indeed it be one, was the discom- 
 fort of meeting in foreign towns the sons of those they had 
 themselves persecuted when they expelled the factors of the 
 oligarchy. Angelo Acciajuoli, who had been one of these 
 persecutors, flattered himself with the hope of recall in memory 
 of his services. In high-flown terms, that ill concealed the 
 baseness of his thoughts, he wrote to Piero from Sienna on 
 17th September — he was one of those who do not know how 
 to wait — that the honour of the Medici was involved in his 
 disgrace. To which Piero made reply in a tone of haughty 
 mildness, that he himself was willing to forgive, but that the 
 Republic, which had full and free power over him, " could 
 not, and, for example's sake, should not " pardon. 3 Dietisalvi, 
 having less in his past to boast of than Angelo, did not recall 
 his services, but he sought to offer them to deserve his pardon ; 
 
 1 November 27, 1466. Ibid., p. 582. 
 
 2 " Inflati superbia atque avaritia, et pessimis occecati libidinibus . . . immanis- 
 simarum ferarum ritu. . . . Populus arma sumens brevi eorum perditissimum 
 furorem penitus reprensit, libertatem constituit. . . . Firmata et corroborata 
 undique libertas est " (Text in Desjardins, i. p. 141, 142 ; Louis XL's reply, 
 January 14, 1467, p. 143, is only a paraphrase). 
 
 3 See text of these two letters in Fabroni, Vita Law:, Doc, p. 36. Cf. Ves- 
 pasiano, Vita di Agn. Acciajuoli, c. 12, Spirit. Rom., i. 473, who formally states 
 that Piero wanted to recall Agnolo. 
 
254 ABASEMENT OF FLORENCE. [1466 
 
 he revealed the projects of the exiles, and promised, if allowed 
 to return, to find a remedy and uphold Piero actively. The 
 spirit of evil-doing was so rooted in him that he prayed the 
 friend to whom he intrusted his confidence to breathe it only 
 u to the Madonna and to the lord." 1 This is the first time 
 in Florence we find the word lord used in speaking of a 
 citizen, or even to a citizen. Until then it had only been 
 used in the singular in reference to the Italian tyrants, and out 
 of courtesy in the plural to the Priors. This was then another 
 step in public debasement. It is a degradation of the mind 
 that dubs Piero lord 2 the day after a victory like one of 
 Cosimo's. 
 
 It is a pleasure to find one self-respecting man among so 
 many vile creatures, a man of mediocre intelligence, but of 
 much character. Niccolo Soderini showed more firmness, and 
 his example was followed — far away from the master, it is 
 true. Rather than accept the narrow and isolated life in the 
 places assigned to them, a large number of the proscribed 
 followed Niccolo to Venice, where they were out of reach, and 
 where they enjoyed liberty of speech and action in the midst 
 of older exiles, once their enemies, and now their allies. 
 Soderini, whose honourable poverty was well known, even 
 obtained from the Most Serene Republic a monthly allowance 
 of a hundred ducats. 3 By this he was recognised and pro- 
 claimed as the chief of the exiles. 
 
 In exile, and in the plenitude of recovered freedom, what 
 
 1 " Ti priego di questo non parli se non con Madonna e col Signore " (De 
 Pigello, October 8, 1466, in Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, p. 35). Dietisalvi's 
 epitaph, who died in 1482 at the age of eighty-one, may be read in Reumont, 
 Lor. de' Med., 1. ii. c. iii. vol. i. p. 259. It can be said that perfidy and bad faith 
 were the curse of the times ; but the Italians everywhere were regarded as worse 
 than any other race. "E dicevano che nuy Italiani non servano may fede." 
 The ambassador Maletta, who reported this comment from Louis XL's court to 
 his master, Sforza, was not indignant, and made no protest (December 20, 1493, 
 in Buser, Append., p. 418). 
 
 2 This progress in public abasement is proved by the courtier, Nerli, 1. iii. p. 52. 
 
 3 Roumain, Stor. di Venez., 1. xi. c. i. p. 326, n. 1, from the Venetian archives, 
 Seer., xxiii. 69. 
 
1466] BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI. 255 
 
 could these embittered Florentines do ? Naturally they con- 
 spired. Would they succeed in pressing Venice into a new 
 adventure ? This was the question. Hostilities against the 
 Turks absorbed the strength and the attention of the Council 
 of Ten. But insistently solicited, in anticipated Machiavellism, 
 the Council pointed out a middle path. The most renowned 
 captain of the peninsula since the death of his rivals, the 
 lettered condottiere, Bartolommeo Colleoni, free for the moment, 
 desired an engagement for his old age, to die, like Sforza, with 
 the dignity of a duke and a lord. Without brilliant actions 
 to his credit, his brain was haunted by the thought of them, 
 and he pondered strange designs. 1 The malcontents of every 
 nationality paid court to him. Those of Milan persuaded him 
 that he could do anything with that incapable lad, Galeaz Maria. 
 Those of Florence murmured that he might become the arbi- 
 trator of all Italy ; he only had to overthrow the established 
 authority of the town, which alone was mighty enough to break 
 Milan's alliance with Naples, who served as a check upon 
 Venice. Under these conditions, if the struggle began, Venice 
 promised secret supplies, and was ready to profit by events if 
 they turned out well, and to disown them if things turned out 
 badly. This was easy enough, for she could always insist and 
 prove that Colleoni was not in her pay. 2 
 
 The orators of Florence followed the facts closely, and re- 
 ported to their Government all the secret projects, the suspicious 
 goings and comings, and the frequent negotiations. " Every 
 day Dietisalvi is to be seen in the Council of the Pregadi or in 
 Colleoni's camp," they wrote. Henceforth there was no reason 
 to spare these exiles, themselves ready to cancel their sentence 
 of banishment. They were declared rebels, their lands and 
 
 1 See his biographer, who lived with him at Malpaga, Antonii Cornazzani vatis 
 placentini de vita et gestis Bartholomcei Colei principis bello invictissimi commen- 
 tariorum libri sex, in Burmann, vol. ix. part 7, p. 1-38 : Malipieri, Annali Veneti, 
 in Arch. Sior., 1st ser., vii. 211 ; Ricotti, iii. 120-126, 205-207 ; Reumont, Lor. 
 df Med., 1. ii. c. iii. vol. i. p. 236. 
 
 3 Malpieri, Ann. Ven., loc. cit., p. 211. 
 
256 PROJECTS OF THE EXILES. [1466 
 
 goods were confiscated, and whoever liked was at liberty to take 
 their lives (December 1466 — January 1467). At the same 
 time the Signory wrote to the princes that the intrigues of the 
 exiles would probably force Florence into war, although her 
 own desire was for peace. 1 
 
 But these sentences of contumacy struck no terror home. 
 Even confiscation, the only effectual one, but half succeeded, 
 thanks to the habit, universal among Florentine traders, of 
 spreading their offices and capital. This left them still rich 
 enough to pay Colleoni, to treat with the Italian princes as a 
 state would have done, and offer a salary to Ercole of Este, 
 with fourteen hundred horse, 2 and the same afterwards to 
 the lords of Carpi, of Mirandola, of Forli, of Anguillara, and 
 Faenza. The latter, Astorgio Manfredi, had promised Piero to 
 keep the pass of the valley of Lamona ; his defection placed 
 the Florentine army, that he had received into his dominions, 
 in great peril. 3 Even Alessandro Sforza, the late Duke of 
 Milan's brother, and an ancient ally of Florence, sent his son 
 Costanzo to the army of the exiles. To their side leant all 
 the old friends of the Florentine Republic, as if the growing 
 power of the Medici inspired every one with fear and repulsion. 
 
 So, when Colleoni crossed the Po (May 10), the army under 
 his command counted no less than eight thousand horse and six 
 thousand old and well-tried infantry troops. Not since Picci- 
 nino's time had a condottiere headed such a splendid army in 
 Italy. 4 Unfortunately, the aged captain manoeuvred with senile 
 dilatoriness, and Florence had time to take a defensive atti- 
 tude. She had leisure to strengthen her alliance with Galeaz 
 Maria, the Pope, 5 and the King of Naples; she formed and 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxiii. 100. 
 
 3 1st. Bresc, xxi. 908 ; Pigna, Stor. d£ Principi (fEste, 1. viii. p. 730. 
 
 8 Comment. Card. Papiens., 1. iii. p. 384 ; M. Bruto, L iv. p. 82, 83 ; Ricotti, 
 iii. 207 ; Sismondi, vi. 459. 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxiii. 100 ; Ricotti, iii. 207 ; G. Capponi, ii. 90 ; Sismondi, vi. 
 
 459. 
 
 5 June 11, 1467, Florence thanked Louis XI. for having procured her the good- 
 will of Paul II. Text in Desjardins, i. 149. 
 
1467] INEFFECTUAL HOSTILITIES. 257 
 
 enlarged her army, until, by reinforcements, it nearly equalled 
 that of the exiles ; the command was given to Federigo 
 of Montefeltro. The balance was kept by the fact that 
 Montefeltro also was old and incapable of the enthusiasm 
 which would have triumphed over an obstinate temporising. 
 Machiavelli calls the excessive prudence of these two captains 
 " marvellous cowardice." x 
 
 Thus the war dragged a ruinous and useless length. On 
 the 6th November, after six months' ineffectual and aimless 
 manoeuvring, Colleoni finally reached Dovadola, upon the 
 territory of Imola, with Dietisalvi, Soderini, and other rebels, 
 indicating thus his intention to enter Tuscany by Bomagna. 
 At this news the Ten of War were elected, and among them 
 Piero himself. 2 Three of Dietisalvi's brothers were flung into 
 the Stinche* But the brainless Galeaz Maria had to be counted 
 upon, an ally more dangerous than useful, whose presump- 
 tion and ignorance compromised everything. In abuse of his 
 princely authority, he had twice stupidly forced the Captain- 
 General Montefeltro to fight at the wrong moment, and 
 twice run away, panic-stricken at the hour of action. Had 
 Colleoni been more enterprising, he might have destroyed the 
 Florentine army. Upon Montefeltro' s request Galeaz was 
 summoned to Florence, under the pretext of conferring with 
 the Council of Ten. 4 The young prince came at once (July 
 24), bearing, fastened to the sleeve of his doublet, an open 
 and empty purse, fit symbol of his begging race. This time 
 the people of Florence received him coldly ; not aware of the 
 
 1 Comment. Card. Papiens., 1. iii. p. 387 ; Machiavelli, vii. no B. 
 * 2 Ammirato, xxiii. 10 r. 
 
 3 Morelli, Del., xix. 184. On the following 19th February, two other brothers 
 of the same Dietisalvi were declared rebels. They were released from prison in 
 July 1468 {Ibid. p. 184-185). 
 
 4 Comment Card. Papiens., 1. iii. p. 387 ; Machiavelli, vii. HOB; Ammirato, 
 xxiii. 101. Sismondi (vi. 460) wrongly believes, through an exaggerated inter- 
 pretation of some of the Cardinal's words, that Galeaz's rank forced him to leave 
 the command to the King of Naples' son, who was also in the camp ; but he had 
 his share of authority. 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
258 BATTLE OF MULINELLA. [1467 
 
 motive of his coming, they regarded him as a cowardly 
 defaulter from the field of battle. 1 
 
 In his absence the camp prepared for battle. The armies 
 were face to face. Montefeltro near Imola, Colleoni at the 
 Mulinella, where he had fortified himself. In the afternoon of 
 the 23 rd July, 2 Montefeltro gave the signal for attack. They 
 say there never was so fierce a fight in those times, 3 but every- 
 thing is relative. The espingardes, used then for the first time, 
 except at sieges, were more noisy than dangerous. Colleoni 
 was regarded as barbarous and cruel, 4 because he had them 
 carried on small chariots which the soldiers only exposed as they 
 fired them off. As for those who accused him of cruelty, they 
 shouted, in obedience to their chiefs, " Came ! came ! no quar- 
 ter ! " Night did not separate the combatants ; they continued 
 their manoeuvres and their harmless attacks in torchlight, like 
 a tournament. Then, finally, one condottiere having invited 
 the other to rest, the soldiers and captains advanced into the 
 space between both armies, and shook hands heartily while they 
 exchanged congratulations upon the preservation of their lives. 5 
 
 When, on the 27 th, everything was over, Galeaz w r as per- 
 mitted to return to the camp. 6 But hurt that he had been 
 prevented from making a fool of himself, he recrossed the Po 
 
 1 Morelli, Del., xix. 183 ; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 107, 108. 
 
 2 This date is given by Diario Ferrarese, xxiv. 21 1. Most authors say the 
 25th, and Cron. d'Agobbio, xxi. 1013, the 24th. In Morelli {Del., xix. 183) 
 we see that news of the battle reached Florence on the 25th. The combat 
 beginning in the afternoon, the date of the 25th is put aside, and the 24th 
 becomes even improbable. 
 
 3 Sabellico, Dec. hi. 1. viii. p. 733. Machiavelli (vii. no b) also says for the 
 third time in his History that nobody was killed. A few authors give the number 
 of the dead and prisoners. Pigna (1. viii. p. 731) says a thousand of the one, and 
 as many of the others ; Ammirato (xxiii. 102) says on the Venetian side alone from 
 300 to 800. 
 
 4 P. Jove, FJogia, iii. 237, Bale, 1571. Text reported in Fabroni, Vita Lanr., 
 Doc, p. 38, and Ricotti, iii. 208. 
 
 5 Baldi, Vita di Federico d'Urbino, 1. viii. p. 99, Bologna, 1826, quoted by 
 Ricotti, iii. 209. On this battle see, besides the authors already quoted, Comment. 
 Card. Papiens., 1. iii. p. 389; Cornazzani, Vita Colei, 1. iv., in Burm., vol. ix. 
 part 7, p. 18-24; Marin Sanuto, xxii. 1184. 
 
 6 Morelli, Del., xix. 163. 
 
1467] DESIRE FOR PEACE. 259 
 
 upon his own account to beat back Philip of Bresse, the 
 Duke of Savoy's brother-in-law, who menaced Milan. A truce 
 of twenty days was concluded — not a magnificent result for 
 such a mighty effort. Venice, in her repose, none the less 
 seized all Florentine merchant vessels with their merchandise 
 on the high seas, and at the same time provoked the Genoese 
 Eiviera to revolt against Milan. 
 
 But finding all Italy opposed to her, 1 she inclined to peace 
 so long as she was left elbow-room upon sea, and she proved 
 her policy by making restitution of the confiscated merchan- 
 dise. 2 The feeling was general. The King of Naples advised 
 a defensive attitude, and remarked that Colleoni was not a 
 thunderbolt. 3 Colleoni would gladly have given up Dovadola 
 to the Florentine exiles ; but he did not want to fan the 
 flame. Tommaso Soderini, Piero's ambassador in Venice, was 
 anxious for the honour of signing peace there. Indeed, the 
 exiles were no longer to be feared ; short of money, they were 
 despised ; still worse, they were abandoned. Three of Dieti- 
 salvi's brothers and his nephew, who had stirred up Prato and 
 the Mugello, were brought to Florence, while his wife, in her 
 own country, provoked a rising of friends and relations. 4 
 " Every one is dissatisfied," wrote Niccolo Boberti to his master, 
 Borso d'Este, Duke of Modena ; " few of the people work, and 
 each day another shop is shut up. If Venice opposes peace, 
 nothing less is spoken of than an attack in her own gulf in 
 spite of the risk that Piero will seize the proceeds of the taxes. 
 The load is so heavy that, if the war continues, each one 
 will walk off, or accomplish something out of the way." 5 
 
 1 Malipieri, Ann. Ven. in the Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. vii. p. 216-218 and 
 221-224, gives Galeaz's speeches upon this subject to the Venetian ambassadors, 
 and G. Capponi republishes them (ii. 91-93). 
 
 2 G. Capponi, ii. 93. 
 
 3 " Non erit hie Coleo is qui uno morsu devoret tot robustissima quot illi oppo- 
 suimus presidia" (The King of Naples to the Florentines, May 23, 1467, Arch. 
 Stor., 1st ser., xv. 1 86, 189). 
 
 4 November 22, the captain of the balie expelled this woman beyond the con- 
 tado. See Ammirato, xxiii. 103. 
 
 5 Desp. in cipher, Niccolo Roberti to Duke Borso d'Este, Florence, January 12, 
 
26o NEGOTIATIONS OF THE POPE. [1468 
 
 It was a wise step on Piero's side to solicit the intervention 
 of Borso d'Este, Duke of Modena : to pacify Italy had been, 
 from the beginning of the century, the traditional vow of his 
 family. The obstacle was the Pope, who did his best to pre- 
 vent it. Paul II. persuaded Borso that the safety of the 
 small powers lay in the discords of the great, and that they 
 increased the importance of the Holy See, and told the Flor- 
 entines that he might join them against Venice. 1 Then all 
 at once he turned round most unexpectedly ; he wanted to 
 change places with Borso as a mediator. But he was want- 
 ing in tact ; he could not make Florence agree with him, her 
 only wish being for universal peace, or persuade Piero, who 
 intended to exclude the exiles from it. So he lost patience, 
 and abandoning the Florentines to their fate, forced an agree- 
 ment by excommunication (February 2, 1468). 
 
 This was easy enough, since, nobody having gained any- 
 thing, there was nothing to give up. But he upset the 
 matter by an unexpected clause; he demanded an annual 
 payment of 100,000 ducats 2 for Colleoni, the elected general 
 of Christianity against the Turks in Albania, and each party 
 dreaded the employment of this gold by the captain to enslave 
 the peninsula. The Duke of Milan and the King of Naples 
 made imperious protest, threatening to take up arms, and to 
 make appeal against the Papal sentence at the next council. 
 Piero, more modest, had already decided that Florence would 
 only pay her part when Colleoni was upon Turkish territory. 
 In the meantime he taxed the Eepublic 1,200,000 florins, to 
 
 1468. Atti e memorie delle deputazioni di storia patria per le provincie modenesi 
 e parmensi, vol. i. p. 249, Modena, 1863. 
 
 1 Pigna, 1. viii. p. 732, 734. This author gives or inserts Francesco Naselli's 
 speech, the ambassador of Ferrara, who tried to haffle the Pope's manoeuvres 
 without offending him. Cf. Sismondi, vi. 462. 
 
 2 The contribution of each State was fixed, and the figures are curious. The 
 Holy See, Naples, Venice, and Milan give each 19,000 ducats ; Florence, 15,000; 
 Sienna, 4000 ; Modena, 3000 ; Mantua and Lucca, 1000 each. The decree is to 
 be found in Ann. Eccl., 1468, sec. 15-20, vol. xix. p. 454, and in Malipieri, Ann. 
 
 Ven., Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 231. Cf. Comment. Card. Papiens,, 1. iv. p. 392 ; 
 Navagero, xxii. 1185; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 109; Ammirato, xxiii. 103. 
 
1468] PEACE CONCLUDED. 261 
 
 be raised in three years, and his letters, sent all over Italy, 
 declared the high position of Colleoni intolerable, since, having 
 caused the war, he had not been able to triumph. 
 
 Paul II. treated the aged condottiere as he had treated the 
 proscribed Florentines ; he cut out of his bull the clause per- 
 taining to his creature (April 25), and at this price peace was 
 concluded. The treaty was published in Florence, May 26} 
 Piero had no reason to be dissatisfied. He had lost no ground, 
 but had triumphed over his victims, who were destined hence- 
 forth to live a hopeless life abroad. 2 Quite recently (February 
 28) he had bought of Luigi de Campofregoso, for 37,000 
 florins, 3 Sarzana and its fortress, Sarzanell, as well as Castel- 
 nuovo of Lunigiana, places situated upon the roads to Genoa 
 and the valley of Taro, much frequented by Lombard invaders. 4 
 But a nightmare pursued him, as it had pursued Cosimo. 
 Greedy of popularity, he wanted to grasp Lucca, the eternal 
 and misleading mirage that filled him with despair, as it did 
 all of his family. 
 
 Failing in popularity, at least, he would be redoubtable. 
 He was less bloodthirsty than has been stated, but still fond 
 enough of blood. He had Papi Orlandi's son beheaded upon 
 the charge of wishing to give up Pescia to the exiles. 5 Out 
 of sixteen citizens who, pressed, we are told, by the exiles, 
 conspired to open to them the gates of Castiglionchio, upon the 
 territory of Marradi, fifteen were seized and executed. 6 The 
 
 1 Morelli, Del., xix. 184; Alam. Rinuccini, p. in. Ammirato (xxiii. 104) con- 
 fuses the publication and the conclusion. For these facts see as well 1st. Bresc, 
 xxi. 910; Malipieri, Ann. Veil., Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 236; Pigna, 1. viii. p. 
 742, 743. 747- 
 
 2 Dietisalvi retreated to Ferrara, where the Duke Borso d'Este supplied his 
 wants. Soderini lived for many years at Ravenna upon the small pension the 
 Venetians allowed him, and died there (Machiavelli, viii. hob). 
 
 3 Alam. Rinuccini, p. no; Morelli, Del., xix. p. 184, give this figure. Ammi- 
 rato (xxiii. 104) reduces it to thirty thousand. 
 
 4 Sarzana had been yielded up in fief to the Fregosi, November 2, 142 1, by a 
 treaty concluded between the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Milan. See 
 Morelli, Del, xix. 184 ; Ricordi di Lorenzo, Roscoe, Life, Sec, Append., xii. p. 96. 
 
 5 May-June, 1468 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 104. 
 
 6 September-October, 1468; ibid. 
 
262 POLITICS OF THE MEDICI. [1468 
 
 following year two of the Nardi were executed, charged 
 with attempting to take possession of Prato. 1 To imagine 
 conspiracies and strike down those incriminated is a way to 
 prevent real ones and to satisfy both cupidity and hate. In 
 the old families, henceforth divided, a few, anxious for their 
 lives, saved themselves by flight ; they were declared rebels, 
 that is, given up to their enemies, and ruined by confiscation. 2 
 One of the fundamental principles in the politics of the Medici 
 was unceasing and unscrupulous persecution, in every form and 
 in every degree. 3 We cannot say that Piero was irresponsible 
 because of the gout that kept him often out of Florence upon 
 a bed of suffering, since he was able to return upon a litter 
 the moment he found his power in danger. His villas of 
 Careggi and Cafaggiolo were near at hand. And then it is 
 not necessary to get out of bed and stand upright to give 
 orders. Piero may have ignored certain abuses and certain 
 excesses in detail, but he was always the soul of the govern- 
 ment. His sons were too young to replace him. 
 
 Xot that he made no effort to ripen Lorenzo, his most 
 promising son. He sent him at the age of eighteen to the 
 courts of princes, to Bologna, Ferrara, Milan, Eome, Naples, 
 and even Venice. 4 From afar he followed him with advice, 
 and kept him acquainted with the affairs of the day, often 
 soliciting his opinion. 5 So much care was not thrown away. 
 The praises of King Ferrante were probably only Italian com- 
 pliments, 6 like those in which Nicodemo shamelessly deluged 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vii. 112 B. The eulogies of Guicciardini {Op. ined., iii. 24), who 
 praises " his facile and clement nature, in whom everything inclined to good, who 
 only punished when necessity urged, and often more than he wished," prove that 
 the celebrated historian had words and legends for occasions. 
 
 2 March-April 1468. See the names in Ammirato, xxiii. 104. 
 a Morelli, Del., xix. 184-185. 
 
 4 On Lorenzo's start, see Reumont, Lor. di Medici, 1. ii. c. 2 and 4, vol. i. p. 
 211, 261. 
 
 6 See several of Piero's letters to Lorenzo in Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, p. 47- 
 53. G. Capponi (ii. 96) gives two quotations from these letters. 
 
 6 " Con quanta prudentia, virilita e animo vi siate portato in la reformatione del 
 novo reggimento. . . . congratulomene etiam al populo fior., che habia si notabile 
 
1468] LORENZO DE' MEDICIS. 263 
 
 the brainless Galeaz, but everything leads us to believe that 
 already to a certain extent they were deserved. Gentile 
 d'Urbino and the Greek Argyropoulos were Lorenzo's first 
 masters. His mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, without being 
 precisely a literary woman, was something of a poet ; she has 
 left some religious poetry, and Lorenzo, formed in her school, 
 composed love-songs at a very young age. At twenty he was 
 married to Clarissa Orsini, the daughter of a Eoinan prince. 1 
 This was a mistake, for the Florentines should have been flattered 
 at a time when they were being transformed into subjects, and 
 in their narrow patriotism they disliked foreign wives for 
 their masters. They swallowed the pill, thanks to the bril- 
 liant jousts in Lorenzo's honour ; but in marrying Piero to a 
 Florentine it is incontestable that Cosimo showed a juster 
 conception of the situation and of his own interests. 
 
 Only in the art of war, so neglected by a nation of mer- 
 chants, had Lorenzo's education been forgotten. Perhaps his 
 father regretted it, for in his latter days he was full of fear 
 of the future. To reassure himself, he bethought at a late 
 hour of recalling the exiles ; he sent for Angelo Acciajuoli 
 while at Cafaggiolo, and spoke with him at length upon the 
 state of their common country. 3 What his design was no 
 one can say. In any case he had not the time to accomplish 
 it. His days were counted. On the 1st December 1469, 
 Lorenzo announced the approaching death of his father to the 
 
 difensore de la sua liberta" (D. Ferrante to Lorenzo, September 28, 1466, in 
 Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc, p. 38). 
 
 1 June 4, 1469. " Io tolsi Donna Clarice, ovvero mi fu data " {Ricordi di Lor., 
 in Roscoe, Life, &c, Append. 12, vol. iii. p. 96). See on this marriage Tre Lettere 
 di Litcrezia Tornabuoni a Piero de* Medici ed altre Lettere di vari Concementi al 
 Matrimonio di Lorenzo il Magnifico con Clarice Orsini, published from MS. in the 
 Archives Flor. by Ces. Guasti, Flor., 1859, and on Clarissa, Reumont, 1. ii. c. 4, 
 vol. i. p. 270 sq. 
 
 2 These jousts cost 10,000 florins Ric. di Lor., Roscoe, toe. cit., vol. iii. p. 97 ; 
 Morelli, Del, xix. 185. Luca Pulci celebrated these exploits with the minute 
 care of a biographer rather than the art of a poet. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, vii. in 6; G. Capponi, ii. 96, who misquotes Vespasiano. The 
 fact of the interview at Cafaggiolo is mentioned in a footnote in this Life that was 
 published by the Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. iv. part I, p. 358, note I. 
 
264 DEATH OF PIERO. [1469 
 
 young Duke of Milan. " You," he wrote to him, " who in the 
 past have ever supported our state and greatness, deign in the 
 present to take me under your protection for my safety." l 
 By this we see that, if his sorrow prevented him from remem- 
 bering a brother whose rights of inheritance equalled his 
 own, if we ignore those of primogeniture, it did not prevent 
 him from remembering his own personal interests. On the 
 next day, December 2, Piero died. 2 He left behind him for 
 his contemporaries an indifferent memory, which withheld him 
 from all comparison with his father. For posterity it is still 
 less by comparison with his son. 
 
 Of a certainty it is not his shabby government that can 
 claim from history indulgence for the rule of the Medici. The 
 best that can be said in Piero's favour is that he did not 
 overthrow the edifice that abler hands than his had built. 
 But what would he have done had he enjoyed health to live 
 and rule longer ? This nobody can say. His apologists 
 allege, in spite of wind and tide, that under him matters 
 became simplified ; and as the most ardent of them add that 
 they were so in a degree scarcely favourable, it is difficult to 
 learn upon what basis they make the assertion that Florence 
 was not then unhappy. 3 Perhaps she was not sensibly worse 
 off than in the past, since she had lost the feeling of liberty, 
 and we know that sick people are relieved when they are 
 turned upon their bed of suffering. All the same, fresh 
 miseries were added to the old ones rather than replaced 
 
 1 " Pregarla che come per il passato sempre (V. 111. Sign.) e stata fautrice dello 
 stato et grandezza nostra, cosi al presente voglia pigliare la protectione et conser- 
 vation mia" (Lorenzo to Galeaz, December I, 1469). 
 
 2 This date is given by Lorenzo himself in his Ricordi (Roscoe, loc. cit., p. 97), 
 and confirmed by two documents published by M. Guasti, Lettere di una Genti/d, 
 p. 607, 610, and as well by Rinuccini, p. 112. The date commonly accepted is 
 the 3rd (Reumont, i. 209 ; Cipolla, p. 560 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 106). That of the 
 13th, given by Morelli {Del., xix. 185), is perhaps a printer's error. Upon Piero's 
 funeral see one of Marco Parenti's letters in Lettere di una Gentild., p. 607. On 
 December 4, Lorenzo and Giuliano wrote to Galeaz to announce to him their 
 father's death (Buser, Append., p. 442). 
 
 3 See Leo, L vii. c. 4, vol. ii. p. 226. 
 
1469] INFLUENCE OF THE MEDICI. 265 
 
 them ; violence was complicated by perfidy, and civil hatreds 
 by prevarication — prevarication, not, as of old, in the shade, 
 but henceforth in open daylight. From all ages, gold had 
 ever been one of the gods of Florence ; thanks to the Medici, 
 it became her chief deity. Even the worship of arts and 
 letters yielded to the worship of the golden calf. That this 
 family of merchants should have presided at the miserable 
 evolution, and have hastened and completed it, is not the 
 least of posterity's complaints against it. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS THE CONSPIRACY OF THE PAZZI. 
 
 I469-I478. 
 
 Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici succeed their father — Their authority is recognised 
 at a meeting of the principal citizens (December 2, 1469) — Outside adhesion — 
 Galeaz Maria in Florence (March 15, 1471) — Lorenzo's character — His peaceful 
 policy— Attempt at a rising in Prato (April 6, 1470) — Difference with Volterra 
 (1472) — Rising of the people of Volterra (April 26)— Campaign against them (May) 
 Their submission (June 18) — Pillage of Volterra — Unsatisfactory relations with 
 Sixtus IV. — The affairs of Imola and Citta di Castello (1474) — Home policy — 
 Creation of the accoppiatori (July 3, 1471) — Attempted coup d'itat — Creation of a 
 permanent balie (November 1471) — Altering the offices — Squandering of the public 
 funds — Hypocritical despotism of Lorenzo — Conspiracy of the Pazzi (1477) — Its 
 formation in Rome — The Pazzi — Misunderstanding between them and the Medici 
 — The Archbishop Salviati — Jacopo de' Pazzi inveigled into the plot — Their 
 exterior support — Assassination (April 26, 1478) — Salviati's attempt upon the 
 palace — Defeat without fighting— The punishments— Lorenzo's increased power. 
 
 The two sons that Piero left 1 were too young to assert themselves 
 in a town that would not hear of the word hereditary. Lorenzo 
 was only twenty-one, and Giuliano sixteen. Would men of 
 ripe years submit to the yoke of two children ? It was hardly 
 to be believed, and the general attitude was an expectation 
 of a change in the State. 2 Lorenzo's first proof of cleverness 
 was the dissimulation of his uneasiness : even before his father 
 had breathed his last, he declared to the Milanese ambassador, 
 Filippo Sacramoro, that he had settled everything with the 
 chief citizens, and that he felt himself well in the saddle. An 
 assertion meant to deceive, for he had called for armed help 
 from Parma and Bologna, and Jiad promised not to bear him- 
 
 1 Piero had four sons and three daughters, two of which he had married. See 
 Ricorai di Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Vita Laur., Doc., p. 9. On Lorenzo's start, see 
 Reumont, 1. ii. c. 2, vol. i. p. 211-213. 
 
 2 " Dubitossi non partorisse novita o scandolo nella citta " (Alam. Rinuccini, 
 
 p. 112). 
 
 266 
 
1469] THE SUCCESSION OF PIERO. 267 
 
 self so insolently as his father had done. But this promise 
 he did not keep, for from the very start he assumed his 
 father's manners, saying " that he would not allow any one to 
 place a foot upon his throat." 1 
 
 It is none the less true that the succession of Lorenzo and 
 Giuliano to Piero, as Piero had succeeded Cosimo, was, in the 
 eyes of the Florentines, a " novelty " and a " scandal." To secure 
 the acceptance of this novelty hardly novel, and this scandal 
 already tolerated, the connivance of the most important citi- 
 zens was needed, and notably that of Tommaso Soderini, whose 
 age, talents, and services placed him in the front rank. 2 He 
 might have worked for his own end, but he lacked ambition 
 and confidence. Perhaps he secretly hoped to govern both 
 these young men, whose brother-in-law he was through his 
 wife, Dianora Tornabuoni, or to enjoy power without respon- 
 sibility. 3 On the very evening of the death and burial of 
 Piero, five or six hundred citizens, him amongst them, all the 
 Medici's friends, met in the Church of Sant' Antonio. He 
 spoke first, and was soon followed by Eidolfo Pandolfini. 
 They recalled the benefits of the house of Cosimo, " who, for 
 this reason, had been invested in the chief dignity of the 
 land ; " 4 they pointed out the dangers of the action of the 
 exiles, and exhorted the popolani, who had always enjoyed the 
 favours of the Medici, to remain closely united under the good 
 seed left by Cosimo and Piero. 5 A few others, Manno, the 
 
 1 Filippo Sacramoro to Galeaz Maria, December I, 1469. Arch. Sforz., in 
 Buser, App., p. 443. The despatches of the successor of Nicodemo, sent to Ales- 
 sandria, are generally insignificant, and relatively few. 
 
 - Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., Op. itied.,iii. 25 ; Machiavelli, vii. 1 12 A ; Ammirato, 
 xxiii. 106 ; Reumont, 1. ii. c. 5, vol. i. p. 292. 
 
 3 This is Guicciardini's explanation (ibid.) of Tommaso's behaviour upon this 
 occasion. 
 
 4 Niccolo Roberti to Duke Borso d'Este, December 4, T469. Atti e memorie 
 delle KR. deputation* di Storia patria per le provincie modenesi e parmensi, vol. i. 
 p. 250. 
 
 6 Marco Parenti's letter, December 3, 1496, in Lettere diuna Gentild., p. 609. 
 Cf. Guicciardini. (loc. cit., p. 24-25), who does not know if the meeting took place 
 the same day or the day after. Machiavelli (vii. 112 A.) makes a graver error in 
 
268 ITALIAN PUBLIC LIFE. [1469 
 
 absent Luca Pitti's son-in-law, Giannozzo Pitti, and Domenico 
 Martelli added " that it was necessary to recognise a superior 
 lord, who would treat all matters concerning the state of this 
 high signory." l Finally the veil was torn asunder, and all 
 fiction destroyed. 
 
 The enemies of the Medici laughed at this convention, which 
 had no importance in their eyes. 2 They believed that in a few 
 days all business would be brought back to the public palace, 
 but watchful diplomacy, on the contrary, thought that Lorenzo, 
 " holding in his hands the government and the bourses, would 
 conduct the bark to whatever port he wished, seeing that, 
 according to the philosopher, principium est plus quam dimi- 
 dium totius" s This was accurate foresight. However nume- 
 rous the adversaries were — and Tommaso Soderini, after his 
 decisive step, seemed to add to the number, such was his 
 impenetrable reserve and silence 4 — Panurge's sheep were far 
 more numerous, and these were carried away by the resolutions 
 of the convention, and by the irresistible impulsion that flung 
 all Italy at the feet of her chance masters. No one took the 
 initiative ; there was no desire, as of old, to take part in public 
 life. Agnolo Pandolfini describes political life as a life of 
 " insults, envy, disdain, and suspicion." 5 Every moment spared 
 from the cares of trade was devoted to the joys of wealth, 
 letters, and arts, and these give the importance which was 
 once the privilege belonging to public office. As for the lower 
 classes, which could not aspire to wealth, broken by defeat and 
 degraded by contempt, they only asked to live by their work : 
 they were avenged by the prevailing power of a family who 
 
 the date, and makes Lorenzo speak at the meeting, who was not there. See 
 Ammirato, xxiii. 106. 
 
 1 Niccolo Roberti to Duke Borso d'Este, Florence, December 4, 1469. Atti e 
 mem , i. 250. 
 
 2 "Fu una cerimonia e stimasi atto di poco pondo. ... II che non seguito" 
 (Alam. Rinuccini, p. 112). 
 
 3 N. Roberti, loc. cit. % p. 250. 
 
 4 Fil. Sacramoro to Galeaz Maria, Florence, May 4, 1476. Arch. Sforz., 
 Orig., 1592, f. 74 ; and in Buser, App., p. 456. 
 
 5 In his Trattato del governo dellafamiglia, p. 21, ed. of Venice, 1841. 
 
1469] ADHESION TO THE SUCCESSION. 269 
 
 could be open-handed, and whose rule, all said and done, was 
 for them less harsh than that of the oligarchy. 
 
 Two days after the convention, those who flung themselves 
 into slavery with closed eyes invited " the chiefs of the State," 
 as they began to call them, 1 to take care of it after their father 
 and grandfather. The good apostle Lorenzo declared that " he 
 resigned himself to the task unwillingly, and only for the sake 
 of his friends, to preserve their wealth ; for in Florence it is 
 difficult for the wealthy to live without the protection of the 
 State." 2 He pretended to resign himself to be master, and he 
 played the game with general acquiescence. 
 
 There was even less ado made abroad. Adhesion was 
 unanimous. Venice herself, the last of the important Repub- 
 lics, had to yield hers. The rulers of Italy sent ambassadors 
 with letters of condolence, of congratulation, and protestations 
 of friendship and devotion. Foreign monarchs and princes 
 followed their example. Louis XL, who in May 1465 granted 
 Piero the privilege of adding three fleurs-de-lis to his arms, 
 and pronounced himself honoured in their acceptance by his 
 fair cousin, 3 complimented Lorenzo in a flattering missive, 4 
 and, naming him his chamberlain and councillor, granted him 
 honours, city freedoms, pensions, and the emoluments belong- 
 ing to these offices. 5 With his nearer neighbour, the Duke of 
 Milan, everything presaged neighbourly and friendly relations. 
 During his father's lifetime, Lorenzo had gone in his stead 
 to Lombardy, to stand sponsor for Galeaz Maria's eldest son 
 
 1 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., Op. ined., iii. 34. 
 
 2 " Perch e a Firenze si puo mal vivere ricco senza lo Stato" {Ric. di Lor., in 
 P'abroni, Doc, p. 42; and Roscoe, Life, &c, Append., iii. 97). Concerning 
 Lorenzo's different relations, see Reumont, Lorenzo il Magnifico, 1. ii. c. 3, vol. i. 
 p. 232-260. 
 
 3 Fabroni, Doc, p. 1 17. " Mio bello cusino Piero di Cosimo si he degnato farmi 
 honore grande cum acceptare le arme mie " (Louis XL's words to the ambassador 
 Panigarola, who reported them to Galeaz Maria, October 8,. 1466, in Buser, 
 Append., p. 436). 
 
 4 June 8, in Buser, Append., p. 445. 
 
 5 " Consiliarium et cambellanum nostrum ad honores, prominentias, libertates, 
 vadia, pensiones et alia jura, utilitates et emolumenta consueta retinuimus ac 
 retinemus" (Letter of August 10, 1470, Fabroni, Doc, p. 119). 
 
270 GALEAZ MARIA AT FLORENCE. [1471 
 
 (1469), and on this occasion gave proof of the luxurious taste, 
 not yet a personal habit, but soon to become one, which pos- 
 terity wrongly connects with his surname of " the Magnifi- 
 cent." This has quite another and a perfectly trivial meaning, 
 having also been borne by his father and grandfather, and by 
 many generations of ancestors. 1 He presented the Duchess 
 with a collar of gold and diamonds, worth three thousand ducats, 
 which won from Galeaz the na'ive assertion that he wanted no 
 other godfather for the rest of his children. 2 Piero, who still 
 lived, would, have chosen a less expensive gift for one who 
 was not an ambassador; 3 but this is another proof of the 
 truth of the proverb, " A miserly father, a prodigal son." 
 
 But the young Duke would not let himself be eclipsed in 
 prodigality and politeness. He came to Florence with his 
 wife Bonne of Savoy (March 15, 147 1). Twelve cars covered 
 with cloth of gold were transported on mule-back over the 
 steeps of the Apennines, which at that time had no carriage 
 roads. Fifty hacks followed, hand-led, for the Duchess's use, 
 and fifty horses, richly caparisoned, for the Duke's use. The 
 body-guard of the princely couple consisted of a hundred cava- 
 liers and a hundred foot-soldiers, fifty armed retainers, clothed 
 in cloth of silver and silk — in all 2000 men at least, without 
 counting 500 couples of dogs for the chase, and a large number 
 
 1 We may not doubt that posterity quibbled with the word. In the despatches 
 of the times Cosimo and Piero were constantly called vestra magnificentia. See 
 above all Nicodemo's letters. Even in Sweden this very common title was given 
 to simple senators. See Agardh, La Suede, trans, by Mile. R. du Puget, Paris, 
 undated, about 1879. Sismondi seized this point clearly. See vol. vii. p. 170, 
 note. Reumont imagines that the title designated the high birth and position of 
 Lorenzo. See Gcerres-Gescllschaft, historischcs Jahrbuch, Bd. v. Heft I, Munich, 
 1884. 
 
 2 Ric. di Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 53 ; and Roscoe, Life, &c, iii. 96, Ap- 
 pend. Upon this voyage Fabroni also quotes from the private letters Lorenzo 
 wrote his wife through Gentile Becchi d'Urbino, afterwards Bishop of Arezzo, who 
 had been his tutor and his brother's. 
 
 3 " Tu sai che mal volentieri decti licentia a Lorenzo per molti rispecti et 
 maxime per non fare dimostratione di questa mandata. . . . Di a Lorenzo che 
 non esca dello ordine in cosa alcuna, e non faccia tante melarancie, non essendo 
 imbasciadore, ch'io non determino che paperi menino a bere l'oche " (Letter of 
 Piero to his wife, Careggi, July 13, Arch. Medic). 
 
i47i] MYSTERY PLAYS. 
 
 271 
 
 of falcons and greyhounds. This stupid display cost 200,000 
 golden florins. 1 With half the sum, Sismondi writes, the 
 island of Negroponte might have been defended, and saved 
 from falling into the hands of the Turks, as it did a few 
 months later. 2 
 
 A guest of the Medici, Galeaz was introduced to a splen- 
 dour more dainty and refined than his own or that of Milan : 
 sculptures and paintings of renowned masters living in Flo- 
 rence, antique masterpieces gathered at great expense in Italy 
 and in Greece, which he confidently admired less for their 
 beauty than for their value. The Cisalpines in his suite were 
 equally astonished by the private houses, of old so simple, in 
 which they were billeted at the expense of the town. They 
 were entertained with three sacred " representations " in the 
 shape of mystery plays : in the Church of San Felice, the 
 Annunciation was given ; at the Carmine, the Ascension ; at 
 San Spirito, the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, 
 a feast celebrated there every year. On this occasion a fire 
 broke out the day after that involved the rebuilding of the 
 edifice, and was the cause of the introduction of the exquisite 
 elegance that to-day is so much admired. This accident dis- 
 persed the superstitious Lombards ; they went away two days 
 afterwards. 3 The Florentines, like them, recognised in it a 
 sign of celestial anger against their guests, against this 
 Northern race, so emasculated that it shocked even Floren- 
 tine effeminacy, so corrupt that it shamed their corruption, 
 and so irreligious that in Lent it observed no fasts. 4 A 
 sceptical but church-going people was scandalised. 
 
 Its new chief, on the contrary, was indifferent. Pagan to 
 
 1 Ant. de Ripalta, Ann. Placent., xx. 929 ; Tommasi, Sommario della Storia di 
 Lucca, Flor., 1847, p. 336; L. Pulci, Lettere, March 19, p. 51, Naples; Ammi- 
 rato, xxiii. 108 ; Corio, part vi. c. 2, vol. iii. p. 260 ; Reunion t, 1. ii. c. 6, vol. i. p. 315. 
 
 2 Sismondi, vii. 50. 
 
 3 Alam. Rinuccini, 115-116 ; Machiavelli, vii. 113 b ; Ammirato, xxiii. p. 108. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, vii. 113 B. Sismondi has singular ideas upon Florence. He 
 seems to imagine that this passing invasion of the Lombards corrupted a town 
 hitherto virtuous. 
 
272 CHARACTER OF LORENZO. [1471 
 
 the marrow, his heart was given to the things of this world, 
 and to his own interests. For the moment he had no fear of 
 his brother's rivalry, who was young, soft-hearted, and wholly 
 given up to pleasure ; but he felt himself too young to com- 
 mence master at once. With the qualities of a politician and a 
 chief of State, he preserved the modest appearance which had 
 succeeded so well with his two predecessors. He said that much 
 listening to the advice of others and taking it into account was 
 adding their brains to one's own. 1 Thus he took counsel with 
 Tommaso Soderini, Giovanni Canigiani, Antonio Pucci, Luigi 
 Guicciardini, Matteo Palmieri, and Paolo Minerbetti. 2 But he 
 consulted them privately and apart ; and to his important 
 advisers, upheld by numerous followers, he preferred the more 
 modest ones, whom he could contradict and worry without 
 unpleasant consequences. 3 Already he was resolved to rely 
 on himself; his deference was only a pretence, a relic of 
 atavism from which he soon freed himself. 4 
 
 What sort of young man was this before whom degraded 
 Florence bowed ? Nature had not made him to captivate. 
 Tall, broad-shouldered, ugly, and dark-visaged, with a dispro- 
 portionately large mouth and a narrow nose, hardly with the 
 sense of smell, rough-voiced, and so near-sighted as to be 
 nearly blind. His bearing may have been majestic, but he 
 made it common by his exuberant gestures, and did not mend 
 it by his magnificent clothes. 5 Mentally he was versatile and 
 
 1 Nic. Valori, Laurentii Medicei Vita, p. 15, Flor., 1740, work dedicated to 
 Leo X. The author, disciple of Marsilio Ficino, was a member of the Platonic 
 Academy. 
 
 2 G. Capponi, ii. 98 ; Sismondi, vii. 48. 
 
 3 After Tommaso Soderini, Lorenzo himself names, as the most trustworthy, 
 Antonio Pucci, Bernardo Bonhieronymo, Roberto Leone, Hieronymo Morelli, 
 "quali havea per certi fidatissimi et de bon judicio" (Fil. Sacramoro to Galeaz, 
 Flor., May 4, 1476, Orig., 1592, f. 74). Concerning Soderini, we have seen above 
 he was only assured later (p. 268). 
 
 4 M. Bruto, 1. vii., in Burmann, viii. part I, col. 143 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di 
 Fir., c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 34. 
 
 5 Nic. Valori, Laur. Med. Vita, p. 15 ; Bart. Cerretani, Storia, 1. iii. Ranke 
 has published long extracts to his work entitled Savonarola und die jlorentinische 
 Republik, in his Historische-biographische Studien, Leipzig, 1877, p. 335 sq. 
 
i47i] PEACE POLICY OF LORENZO. 273 
 
 eager, drawn by education to literary study, to erudition and 
 poetry. He shared his grandfather's zeal in hunting and 
 acquiring manuscripts, and he was filled with joy by the dis- 
 covery of a portrait of Plato that he, upon questionable grounds, 
 regarded as authentic. 1 
 
 He was too much of a lover of the arts of peace to care 
 for those of war, and here he thought and felt as did his 
 compatriots and contemporaries. Niccolo Bendedei, orator of 
 Ferrara in Florence, wrote these significant words to Ercole 
 d'Este in 1474: "There is so much leisure in Italy, that for 
 want of incidents you'll have us writing upon the battles of 
 dogs and birds instead of the battles of men, and I fervently 
 believe that the glory of those who govern Italy so peacefully 
 will not be less than that of those who were warlike." 2 In 
 the year 1466 the Florentine Signory wrote to Louis XL 
 to acquaint him with their sorrow upon the death of Fran- 
 cesco Sforza, and protested their unanimous desire for peace, 
 and their intention to crush whoever should trouble it. 
 When, in 1470, the Cardinal of Eouen wrote to Pier Fran- 
 cesco de' Medicis, that if the war continued the fault would lie 
 with the Florentines, 4 it was because, so far off, it was im- 
 possible to guess the real intentions of Lorenzo ; but there 
 was no mistaking for the close observers ; in this respect he 
 would not be an obstacle to the general wish. It is true, war 
 was necessary against the Turks, who, from Constantinople, 
 their latest conquest, after that of Negroponte, had advanced to 
 the borders of Albania, where they were a permanent menace 
 to Italy ; but neither Florence, which was absorbed in the 
 establishment of a new power, nor Genoa, which had just lost 
 
 1 Nic. Valori, Laur. Med. Vita, p. 18. 
 
 2 Desp. of January 22, 1474. Atti e mem., i. 251. 
 
 3 "Summus pontifex, Rex neapolitanus, ceteri principes et populi Italiae paci 
 student, et vim omnem turbatoribus minantur quietudinis tranquillitatisque Italise " 
 (April 8, 1466, in Desjardins, i. 137). 
 
 4 "Fu scritto per il Card. Roano a Pietro Francesco de' Medici, come, non 
 seguendo la pace, non e cagione, altro che Fiorentini " (Nic. Roberti to Alberto 
 d'Este, Florence, March 24, 1470, Atti e mem., i. 251). 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
274 FOREIGN RELATIONS OF LORENZO. [1471 
 
 her possessions in the Levant, nor the King of Naples, who 
 was content with placing himself on the defensive, although 
 more directly threatened than any one, nor yet the Pope, who 
 should have set the example, supported Venice in this struggle, 
 in which her mercantile interest had involved her. 1 It might 
 well be said that Christianity no longer existed. 
 
 Each one thought of himself. Providing against possible 
 dangers, Piero de' Medicis had negotiated with Louis XL for 
 French assistance. 2 When Piero died, Louis sought Lorenzo's 
 friendship, and even his mediation in betrothing the Dauphin, 
 then four years old, to Don Ferrante's eldest daughter. Will- 
 ingly would he have yielded to this prince the pretensions of 
 the House of Anjou to Naples in exchange for a substantial 
 support against the House of Aragon, and for this important 
 affair he wanted a Florentine ambassador at his court who 
 would only communicate with himself. 3 He wheedled the 
 Eepublic by granting it reparation for commercial damage to 
 the extent of 29,626 crowns; 4 but Naples was not to be 
 wheedled : she feigned repugnance to make war upon her 
 uncle of Aragon ; at heart she dreaded the aggrandisement of 
 France, allied with all the Italian states except Venice. 5 As 
 for Lorenzo, he laughed at the threats of Charles the Bold ; 6 
 but he did not laugh at the suggestion of an expedition of 
 Louis XL and the Duke of Burgundy against Galeaz, a fan- 
 tastical nightmare, of which he was reassured at last by the 
 
 1 See Sismondi, vii. 65. 
 
 2 Instructions to Francesco Nori, March 1476, in Desjardins, i. 147. 
 
 3 " Hunc vellemus prsemonitum ne alicui se committat ex magnatibus et dominis 
 de sanguine nostro, sed nobis tantum " (Louis XI. to Lorenzo, June 19, 1473, m 
 Desjardins, i. 161, and Fabroni, Doc, p. 66). In this letter we first scent the 
 intention, carried out in 1476, to abandon Rene. Concluding, Louis begs a 
 dog of Lorenzo. We know that this king filled his court with dogs. See Chas- 
 tellain, quoted by Desjardins, p. 163, n. I. There are only fragments of this 
 author published here and there. See Biogr. Hoefer-Didot. 
 
 4 Letters of Louis XI., April 20, 1475, in JBuser, Append., p. 452. 
 
 5 Letters of D. Ferrando to Lorenzo, August 9, 1473, in Desjardins, i. 163, and 
 Fabroni, Doc, p. 68. 
 
 6 Charles the Bold to the Florentines, December 7, 1473, in Buser, App., p. 448. 
 
1471] OUTBREAK AT PRATO. 275 
 
 thoughtless character of the Duke, and by what he called " the 
 King's cowardice." 1 He had still more serious reasons for con- 
 fidence. Without prejudicing the general league concluded at 
 Lodi in 1454, and renewed in 147 1, a private league between 
 Florence, Milan, and Venice was formed to consolidate the stabi- 
 lity of Italy (November 1474). 2 The Florentines cared little for 
 this agreement, but they did not oppose it, because, framed for 
 the future, it exacted no immediate sacrifice. Besides, Lorenzo 
 would have made short work of their opposition. His own 
 interest lay in the peace outside, which circumstances assured 
 him. 3 This left him time to look nearer home into the state 
 of Tuscany : the exiles and the subjects of the Eepublic were 
 not yet quieted. 
 
 Although henceforth perfectly harmless, the intrigues of the 
 exiles continued to keep the Medici upon the alert. On April 
 6, 1470, pushed by poverty and the miseries of a homeless life, 
 Bernardo Nardi, son of Andrea Nardi, Gonfalonier of Justice 
 in 1446, banished in 1466, had profited by the local discontent 
 at Prato and its understanding with the Panciatichi to attempt 
 to raise the cry, " Long live the people of Florence and liberty ! " 
 If he could hold the place for fifteen days, Dietisalvi Neroni 
 promised him aid from Bologna and Ferrara. But the plot 
 was so thin that a single man of action was able to ex- 
 plode it. Giorgio Ginori, a Florentine and knight of Ehodes, 
 with a handful of compatriots then at Prato, restored order 
 without even waiting for reinforcement. Bernardo, already a 
 prisoner, was carried to Florence and beheaded. Out of the 
 thirty conspirators who had stirred up this feeble scuffle, 
 eighteen paid for it with their lives. This severity was unex- 
 
 1 " La vilta del Re da uno canto et il grande e poco considerato animo di 
 Borgogna me ne fanno dubitare" (Lorenzo to J. Guicciardini, at Milan, May 2-4, 
 1476. Arch. Sforz., Orig., 1592, f. 74; and Buser, App., p. 452). 
 
 2 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., iii. 32 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 1 13. See 
 Cipolla, p. 572 et seq., on general affairs of Italy of the time. 
 
 3 In six years, Ammirato, so minute in all foreign matters, has only material to 
 fill four pages. See xxiii. iu-i 14. 
 
276 THE MINES OF VOLTERRA. ['47* 
 
 ampled. Decidedly the Medici usurped their reputation for 
 clemency. 1 
 
 Much more serious upon another ground, and redounding 
 much less to their honour, was the affair of Volterra. The 
 Florentines feigned surprise, as if a bolt had been shot from 
 the summer blue ; 2 but they lied, according to their habit. 
 Their project for a long time had been to reduce the Volterrans 
 to the state of subjects. The occasion was wanting ; Lorenzo 
 created it, or perfidiously seized it. The disgraceful prelimi- 
 naries were long enough ; honest Morelli declared that he pre- 
 ferred not to speak of them. 3 
 
 Benuccio Capacci of Sienna had obtained in Volterra, always 
 mistress of her internal government, 4 the ground-lease of an 
 alum-mine situated at Castelnuovo in Maremma. The un- 
 hoped-for profits made him fear that he would be forced to 
 give up the ground, or pay a much larger rent. 5 Out of five 
 associates, he took three Florentines to assure himself, as well 
 as increased capital — a valuable protection. 6 Lorenzo was 
 anxious to have a share in this lucrative business. As part of 
 his inheritance, he already owned the alum-mines of La Tolfa, 
 also in the territory of Volterra : Piero had obtained them from 
 Pope Sixtus IV. at the time of his elevation. 7 Joined to those 
 of Castelnuovo, they defied competition, secured a monopoly, 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 112 ; M. Bruto, 1. v., in Burmann, viii. part I, p. 107 ; 
 Nerli, 1. iii. p. 53 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 107 ; Carlo Livi, Tumulto di Bernardo Nardi 
 in the Calendario Pratese, 1846 ; Reumont, 1. ii. c. 7, vol. i. p. 331. 
 
 2 "Repentina res volaterrana fuit" (Letter to Louis XL, July 30, 1472, in 
 Desjardins, i. 160). 
 
 3 Morelli, Del., xix. 189. 
 
 4 See Ant. Ivani on this government, De Bello Volalerrano, R.I.S., xxiii. 6. 
 " Suis legibus vivunt. . . ." 
 
 5 " Egli arieno voluto l'utile in comune loro che venne in privati cittadini qui 
 della citta" (Morelli, Del, xix. 189). 
 
 6 The names of these Florentines are in Cecina, Notizie di Volterra, p. 235. 
 
 7 "Non so quello harete eseguito dipoi circa la depositaria dello allume, la 
 quale son contento che accepti in mio nome" (Piero to Lorenzo, March 22, 1466, 
 in Fabroni, Doc, p. 50.) " Desiderando Lorenzo di ottenerle per se" (Guicciar- 
 dini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 29). Cf. Tabarrani's notes to a 
 Chronicle of Volterra, Arch. Stor., Append., iii* 331. 
 
1472] AGITATION AT VOLTERRA. 277 
 
 and rendered their owner master of the price of alum. Did 
 the wily Medicis stir up the difference between Volterra and 
 the shareholders ? This was suspected, though not proved. 
 At any rate, he received a part of the profits, 1 and he had the 
 good fortune, doubtless arranged beforehand, to be accepted 
 as arbitrator. He had no scruple in pronouncing in favour 
 of the Florentine treasury (January 8, 1472), for was not 
 Florence the real lord of the soil, since Volterra was under her 
 protection ? 2 
 
 But the protected Volterrans regarded themselves as free, 
 having only consented to receive in their midst a podesta or 
 captain, and to pay an annual tribute of a thousand florins. 
 They rejected the arbitrary decision, and even withdrew the 
 concession. The captain, Bernardo Corbinelli, tried to calm 
 the growing agitation by sending to Florence a few of the 
 leaders. In vain : the negotiations set going between the two 
 towns were ineffectual At the end of their patience, the 
 Volterrans rose up to put to death one of their compatriots, 
 one of the shareholders, Paolo Inghirami, a violent man, and 
 named a council of six citizens to govern (April 26). This 
 was only a straw-fire, which was extinguished as by a bucket of 
 water by the news that Lorenzo, and behind him the Floren- 
 tines, were very angry. An embassy was sent off with humble 
 offers of submission. 
 
 In Florence, the moderate party, led by Tommaso Soderini, 
 
 1 " Benedetto Riccobaldi et Paolo Inghirami non volendo esser d'accordo con 
 la loro communita di Volterra, s'accostarono a Lorenzo . . . e questo messono per 
 compagno e parziale del guadagno di detta lumiera " (Notes of Zaccharia Zacchi 
 of Volterra, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 62). Lorenzo's name does not appear in the 
 contract in which are named the members of the company, but Zacchi is an 
 authority, and nothing is more probable than dissimulation. We can see how 
 the beginning of the conflict is presented by Stan. Gatteschi, trans, by Bruto, 1. 6, 
 vol. ii. p. 190, Flor., 1838, 2 vol. in 4. The source from which this author draws, 
 is the confession of Montesecco, which the translator gives in a note (p. 190). Being 
 "delle scuole pie," he endeavours to exculpate the Pope from all complication 
 (notes, p. 188, 196, 199). He seems to understand the text that he reads. 
 
 2 There is a provision " quidquid pertinebat ad com. Volaterrarum et praesertim 
 alumen, ses, sulphur, salina et omne id quod foditur transiisse sub gubernatione et 
 mero et mixto imperio com. Flor " (In Fabroni, Doc, p. 63). 
 
278 REVOLT AT VOLTERRA. [1472 
 
 counselled the preference of " a profitless agreement to an ex- 
 pensive victory." 1 Lorenzo would not consent. His personal 
 interests were engaged ; he took a high hand, offered humiliat- 
 ing conditions, exacted a formal demand of pardon and the 
 death of the two criminals. It was too much. Volterra at 
 once broke away, and turned to the enemies of her enemy for 
 help. She believed she could count upon the Florentine exiles 
 from Sienna and Venice, 2 upon all the Italian princes except 
 Galeaz, 3 and even on the King of Naples, who was dissatisfied 
 by a recent step of the Florentines towards Piombino. 4 As for 
 the Pope, he openly espoused Lorenzo's cause, and sent him 
 some horses. 5 
 
 This was only a petty war. Lorenzo pressed on as vigorously 
 as if it had been a great one ; the enterprise was easy, and 
 his pocket depended on it. The Ten of War were doubled, 
 and in the twenty named were included the principal citi- 
 zens : Luca Pitti, Antonio Pucci, Tommaso Soderini, Eoberto 
 Leoni, Giovanni Canigiani — all followers and friends of the 
 master — and the master himself. 6 The sum of a hundred 
 thousand florins was voted, which was raised upon the monte. 7 
 Federigo of Montefeltro was in command of the army. He 
 was old, but considered clever, being besides in the pay of the 
 King of Naples. If the King of Naples gave him up, it was a 
 
 1 Machiavelli, vii. 114 a. 
 
 2 " Questo successo (the last defeat of the Volterrans) ha dispiaciuto alia sig- 
 noria, perche continuando la guerra tra Volterra e Firenze, se podeva solevar 
 qualche novita in quella terra, e fuorusciti alcuni da Volterra saria entrati in 
 Firenze" (Malipiero in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 238); Ivani, De Bello Volat., 
 R.I.S., xxiii. 15 ; Cron. Volt., in Arch. Stor., App. iii. 330; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 
 116 ; Cipolla, p. 564. 
 
 3 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., iii. 29. 
 
 4 March 147 1 ; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 116. 
 
 5 Vespasiano, Vita di Federico, Duca d'Urbino, c. 12, Spicil. Rom., i. 109. 
 Malipieri enters even into details tending to establish that D. Ferrando must 
 have acted underhandedly in favour of the Florentines {Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. 
 vii. p. 238. Cf. Luca Landucci, Diario, p. n, 1.2). 
 
 6 Ammirato, xxiii. no. 
 
 7 Letter of Lorenzo without date, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 62 ; Al. Rinuccini, 
 p. 120. 
 
H72] SUBJUGATION OF VOLTERRA. 279 
 
 sign that the rebels had nothing to expect from the south 
 (May 10). Lorenzo, on the contrary, expected reinforce- 
 ments from the Duke of Milan as well as the Pope, 1 and 
 even Louis XL, who promised sumptibus nostris ; 2 but he did 
 not wait for them. 
 
 On the 20th of May, thanks to the forces spread over the 
 territory of Pisa, Montefeltro became master of all the castles 
 upon the Volterran territory without drawing his sword. 
 Eeinforced by the auxiliaries of Lorn bar dy and Eome, he 
 soon laid siege to the rebel town. Communication with the 
 besieged was still free ; but nobody came to their assistance, 
 not even their neighbour Sienna, whom Donato Acciajuoli 
 severely ordered to remain neutral, and even in Volterra the 
 party of peace gained the upper hand. Composed of men of 
 low condition, the party of war had to rely on the adventurers 
 in its pay, and these, uninterested in the strife, became insolent 
 to those who paid them badly, and who, in a short time, could 
 not pay them at all. On the 18 th of June Volterra sur- 
 rendered, 3 on condition that life and property should be re- 
 spected. She was none the less sacked ; her churches were 
 pillaged, her citizens imprisoned, and her women dishonoured. 
 Nothing could restrain the unbridled army. 4 
 
 It was just to grant a compensation to this people, de- 
 feated, despoiled, and outraged. The Florentines had shown 
 mercy to their ancestors two hundred years before, when their 
 town had been attacked ; but everything now was changed. 
 Liberty was suppressed. From the rank of ally, unfortunate 
 
 1 Letter to Louis XL, July I, in Desjardins, i. 159. 
 
 2 Letter of Louis XI. to the Florentines, June 30, ibid., i. 158. 
 
 a The 16th according to Morelli (Del., xix. 189), and the 17th according to 
 Rinuccini (p. 120). The date of the 18th is given by a Volterran contemporary, 
 Zaccheria Zacchi, cited by Fabroni, Doc, p. 62. 
 
 4 Lorenzo's perfidy was regarded as the cause of this pillage. His interest was, 
 on the contrary, to receive Volterra entire and rich as before the rebellion. This 
 was recognised by Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., iii. 30. Luca Lan- 
 ducci {Diario, p. 12) says that it was a Venetian constable who first cried pillage, 
 and that he thus influenced the army. The Venetian and a Siennese were hung 
 by order of Count d'Urbino. 
 
280 POPULARITY OF LORENZO. [1472 
 
 Volterra was reduced to that of subject, and a fortress was 
 constructed upon the site of the episcopal palace, which 
 was razed for the purpose. 1 After the execution Lorenzo 
 went to visit his victims. What he may have done to 
 heal the wounds, the responsibility of which lay with 
 him, we cannot say; but this we know, that nine months 
 after the sack of Volterra, the Volterran Antonio Inghirami 
 wrote to thank the magnificent conqueror for his visit, 
 letting us see in his courtier phrases the sad condition of his 
 country. 2 
 
 This facile and odious success rendered Lorenzo popular in 
 Florence, and strengthened his power without proving that 
 he was a great politician, and we must admit that his other 
 actions at this time give no more proof of it. Thus he was 
 not able to continue the friendly relations with Sixtus IV. 
 which had been established before that friar sat in St. Peter's 
 chair. It was at Santa Oroce in Florence that Francesco de la 
 Rovere 3 was elected General of his Order in 1467. 4 In Sep- 
 tember 1 47 1 Lorenzo was one of the six ambassadors sent to 
 congratulate him on his elevation, and bring back as a reward 
 the title of Depositary of the Apostolic Chamber, as well as 
 
 1 See on these facts Ant. Ivani (R.I.S., xxiii. 5-20); Cron. Volt. {Arch. Stor., 
 App., iii. 330); Vespasiano, Vita di Federigo, Duca d'Urbino, c. 13, 14 {Spicil. 
 Rom., i. 109-112); Al. Rinuccini, p. 120; Guicciardini, c. 3 {Op. ined., iii. 29); 
 Machiavelli, vii. 114 ; Ammirato, xxiii. ill; Cecina, Notizie di Volterra, p. 235- 
 240 ; Reumont, 1. ii. c. 7, vol. i. p. 338. We must read with caution the two first 
 authors quoted. Ivani de Sarzane, chancellor of Volterra since 1446, was in the 
 pay of Florence. He accuses the Volterrans. See Pref. of Muratori. Moreover, 
 he was a prevaricator. A provision of October 147 1, cited by Cecina (p. 238), 
 mentions "falsitates et fraudes quae facta? fuerant in actis cancellarioe communis." 
 These frauds should be judged advisedly. Chron. Volt., published by Tabarrini in 
 the Arch. Stor., glides over the pillage, and ascribes it to the bad organisation of 
 the balie, declaring that it had taken place in spite of the Florentine commis- 
 sioners, and adds nothing to Ivani. 
 
 - Letter of March 10, 1473, m Fabroni, Doc, p. 63. 
 
 3 The Delia Rovere were a branch of the ancient family of Roure, originally of 
 Vienna, and who, after having established themselves at Gevaudan and at Vivarais 
 in the twelfth century, had passed into Italy. We must not confound them with 
 the Piedmont family of the same name, which is more illustrious. 
 
 4 See the Ricordi of Rinuccini, p. 73 and 107, on the two general chapters of 
 the order held in 1449 and 1467 at Santa Croce. 
 
1472] LORENZO AND SIXTUS IV. 281 
 
 some beautiful antique sculptures. " He had gained a trea- 
 sure.'' 1 Meanwhile, his uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni, and other 
 Florentines living in Eome to watch over the interests of the 
 Medici, had made good bargains in buying from Sixtus IV. 
 for a song the jewels paid so dearly for by Paul II. 2 These 
 friendly relations were well known, for Louis XL addressed 
 himself to Lorenzo to beg the Pope not to release the Duke 
 de Berri, his brother, from the oath of allegiance. 3 
 
 Overwhelmed with benefits, Lorenzo was still unsatisfied. 
 It was his ambition to obtain for his brother Giuliano a 
 cardinal's hat, which, by paving an ecclesiastical way for 
 this associate and possible rival in civil power, would have 
 freed the lay brother from all fear, have increased the glory of 
 their house, and in Church matters have broadened the policy 
 of the Medici. 4 But he did not know how to flatter the 
 Pope, and neglected his dominant passion, nepotism. The 
 nephews and sons of Sixtus IV., who were supposed to have 
 been his favourites or the children of his incest, and perhaps 
 were, 5 found no favour with Lorenzo. One of them, Girolamo, 
 become Count by his marriage with an illegitimate daughter of 
 Galeaz, made the Pope buy for him the Signory of Imola 6 from 
 Taddeo Manfredi of Faenza, which Lorenzo hoped to attach 
 
 1 Ricordi de Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 57. " Lorenzo, tra gli altri benefizi 
 che ha ricevuti da S. B. ha guadagnato con quella un tesoro " (Instructions of 
 the Ward to Ant. Crivelli, sent to the king, D. Ferrando). There is no date, but 
 this document is subsequent to the affair of Citta di Castello, of which we will treat 
 farther on. This document, taken from the library of Gino Capponi, has been 
 published by him in Append, ii. of his second volume. The passage quoted is 
 on p. 508. 
 
 2 Nic. Valori, Vita Laurentii, p. 20. 
 
 3 " Pour ce que avons este adverty que estes bien amy de notre sainct Pere" 
 <Letter of August 20, in Desjardins, i. 155). The year is missing. M. Desjardins 
 believed that it was 1470 ; but in another note of the same page he says that the 
 Pope was then Sixtus IV., who was elected only in 1471. 
 
 4 The demand is in one of Lorenzo's letters to the Pope, November 21, 1472. 
 See Fabroni, Doc, p. 61. In two letters to Lorenzo, of April 25 and May 15, 1473, 
 Jacopo Ammanati, Cardinal of Pavia, a true courtier, discourses the chances of the 
 candidateship and the means of terminating it with Lorenzo. See Fabroni, Doc, 
 p. 58-61. 5 See Sismondi, vii. 57. 
 
 6 Burselli, Ann. Bonon., R.I.S., xxiii. 901 ; Vita Rom. Pontif., vol. iii. part 2, 
 
282 RELATIONS OF ROME AND FLORENCE. [1472 
 
 to the Florentine territory. Vexed by this competition, 
 Lorenzo would not give in. He tried to prevent his com- 
 patriot, the merchant Francesco de' Pazzi, now established at 
 Kome, from offering himself as a guarantee for the price of the 
 sale. 1 At a blow he made himself three implacable enemies. 
 
 In hostilities, as in everything else, it is the first step 
 that costs ; the others are made by impulse or logic. The 
 aggressor imagines he is avenging himself, and excellent 
 reasons are found for a bad policy. The relations between 
 Rome and Florence easily increased in venom, and one diffi- 
 culty seemed to lead to another. Sixtus IV. wanted to bring 
 back the rebel pontifical towns to obedience to the Church. 
 One of his nephews, Cardinal Giuliano de la Rovere, charged 
 with the mission, and already conqueror at Todi and Spoleta, 
 where he had given proof of the good captainship which he 
 displayed later under the tiara, had only to besiege Citta di 
 Castello. Here the Vitelli ruled, and as they were his repre- 
 sentatives, the Pope wanted to reduce them to an effectual 
 subjection. 2 Lorenzo could not, without disquietude, see the 
 Holy See transformed into a military power. What would 
 become of its neighbour, Borgo San Sepolcro, if Citta di 
 Castello fell altogether into the hands of the Church ? Rome, 
 having given it up, would doubtless want it back again. 
 
 Through interest, and as if by instinct, the Medici had 
 renewed friendly relations with Mccold Vitelli, whom they 
 
 p. 1060. Sismondi (vi. 59-62) points out other sources. Fabroni {Doc, p. 106) 
 cites several letters from Manfredi to Lorenzo, dated from Milan, afterwards from 
 Venice. 
 
 1 Nic. Valori, Vita Laurentii, p. 21 ; Onofrio Panvinio, Vita Xysti IV, after 
 result of Platina, p. 319. 
 
 2 G. Capponi (ii. 105) pretends that Sixtus only wanted Niccolo, the head of the 
 family, to yield homage to the Church, and recognise his vassalship by comjng in 
 person to Rome. He tries to prove it by a document published at length in 
 Appendix ii. of his vol. ii. p. 507. These are the instructions to Ant. Crivelli, 
 in which we read, ' ' Mostrare obedienza . . . saltern con il segno di venire a far 
 riverenza a S. B." But the same document shows the pontifical exactions still 
 more broadly: "Quod pejus est, i governatori mandati per S.S. fuerunt potius 
 gubernati quam gubernatores (p. 507). Et percio sta in fermo et constante pro- 
 posito di voler la vera obedienza da M. Nicolo et da quella citta (p. 509)." 
 
1472] DISSATISFACTION OF THE POPE. 283 
 
 did not fear. Piero Nasi, in their name, went to him, and 
 secretly promised help ; l not so secretly, however, that Sixtus 
 IV. did not get wind of it, and was cruelly wounded thereby. 
 Unaware of the egregious folly of counting on the gratitude of 
 nations and princes, he could not understand this ingratitude 
 towards himself, who had not bargained in offering help for the 
 repression of Volterra, though it had been favoured by his pre- 
 decessor, towards him who, above all, had paid all the expenses 
 of his contingent. 2 He regarded the Florentines, as the 
 Milanese, obliged by feelings of gratitude, honesty, and justice 
 to second him in his designs, 3 and deceived in his expec- 
 tations, he declared them strangers to these sentiments. He 
 had to compound with Niccolo Vitelli, and content himself 
 with his reception of 200 pontifical soldiers (September I, 
 1474), an inexcusable weakness in the eyes of the Sacred 
 College ; 4 a relative, but to his wishes an insufficient success 
 for Lorenzo, which in him, as in the Pope, was incapable of 
 appeasing a resentment big with consequences. The purchase 
 of Imola and the war of Citta di Castello contained the germs 
 of the conspiracy of the Pazzi. That the ground upon which 
 the seed fell was well prepared to receive it we will show by 
 casting a rapid glance on the interior life of Florence. 
 
 Solely occupied, like his father and grandfather, in strength- 
 ening his power, Lorenzo strove to suppress every vestige of 
 liberty, though he kept up a hypocritical appearance. In 
 May 1 47 1, Bardo Corsi, Gonfalonier of Justice, furnished him 
 with a pretext. The writers of the time aver that this two- 
 months official was all for the freedom of the people, which 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxiii. 113. 
 
 2 Sixtus IV. returns twice to this point, the expedition at his expense, in the 
 instructions to Ant. Crivelli. See G. Capponi, Append, ii. vol. iii. p. 508. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 509. 
 
 4 Nic. Valori, Vila laur., p. 21 ; Card. Papiens, Epist., 570, at the end of 
 Comment Pit II, p. 833; Ann. Eccl., 1474, § 17, vol. xxix. p. 555; Litta t 
 Famiglia Vitelli; Fabretti, Capitani Venturieri delP Umbria ; Roberto Orsi r 
 De Obsidione Tifernatiim, Citta di Castello, 1538; Reumont, 1. ii. c. 8, vol. i. 
 p. 348. 
 
284 FLORENCE UNDER LORENZO. . [1472 
 
 simply means that he was hostile to the Medici. As a fact, 
 he tried to upset their policy by binding the Eepublic to the 
 King of Naples through a money loan. If the clamours of 
 the powerful prevented him from carrying out this intention, 
 and if he only achieved disgrace, ammonizione, and privation of 
 office, 1 the very intention was a lesson for Lorenzo : nothing 
 more was wanted than a Gonfalonier of Justice sufficiently 
 •emancipated. Without delay the new Signory was ordered to 
 make provision for it. 
 
 The Signory was scarcely installed (July 3, 1471), 2 when 
 Lorenzo induced it to propose, and the councils unanimously to 
 agree to, the creation of five accoppiatorif a convenient office, 
 which, not being conferred by lot, had, ever since Cosimo's 
 return and rule, been filled by the family's creatures. It was 
 they who named according to their liking, that is to say, their 
 master's liking, the Lords and the Gonfalonier of Justice, and 
 who transmitted to them, as if coming from themselves, occult 
 but imperious orders. 4 The accoppiatori on this occasion received 
 the right to elect, at the same time with the members of the 
 Signory, forty other citizens, who, in turn, were to name two 
 hundred to form a Consiglio Maggiore, or Grand Council. Upon 
 this assembly devolved all the powers of the Florentine people, 
 •except that of fixing the catasto and raising the decimal The 
 opposition of the councils, the people, and the commons to an 
 institution which dispossessed them was foreseen ; it was there- 
 fore decided that, to give the force of law to this provision, 
 the vote of the Council of the Hundred would suffice — a flagrant 
 breach of the law, and a real coup oV4tat, which in earlier times 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 117. 
 
 2 G. Capponi says 1470, but this is doubtless a printer's error, because it does 
 not agree with the other writers. 
 
 3 " E tutti a una fava " (Morelli, Del., xix, 188). 
 
 4 " Quegli achopiatori facevano essere de' signori chi credevano faciessi a lor 
 modo ; el. gonf. di giust. facievano sempre de quel numero ghovernava, e tutti 
 e signori ubbidivano a quello nelle chose di stato " (G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 2). 
 
 5 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 117; Morelli, Del., xix. 188; Guicciardini, c. 3, Op.ined., 
 iii. p- 28 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 109. 
 
1472] MODIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 285 
 
 would very properly have provoked an appeal to arms. So un- 
 popular was the reform, that even in this Council of the Hundred,, 
 where none but accomplices and instruments were expected to 
 be found, the proposal, put twice to the vote, did not secure 
 the necessary majority of two-thirds, so that the Lords were 
 compelled to give it up. 1 The stroke missed, but left behind 
 it rancour and distrust, and a fermenting hate which other 
 measures were destined to embitter and envenom. 
 
 Upon the advice of the balie, the Signory of September 
 1 47 1 ordered the sale of the goods of the Guelfa parte and 
 of the office of the mercanzia, to apply them to the amount of 
 twenty thousand florins in different services. 2 The magistracy 
 of the party once so powerful and dreaded were thus reduced 
 to the care of public works. 3 At a time when the popes were 
 not more Guelph than the emperors, the Florentine people 
 must have regarded with indifference the clipping of the nails 
 of a powerless tyranny ; though those who had the spending of 
 the funds were transformed from friends into enemies, or at 
 least into malcontents. 
 
 On September 20 a bolder measure reduced the fourteen 
 minor arts to five, and confiscated the goods of those sup- 
 pressed. As none of the seven major arts were suppressed, 
 this was a manifest return to the petty merchant aristocracy. 
 This time again public feeling ran high. It was even feared 
 that so grave a beginning hid some more ruinous measure still 
 against liberty, so that finally the execution of the scheme was 
 abandoned. 4 But distrust was awake, and it was some time 
 before it was lulled to sleep again. 
 
 Lorenzo profited by the lesson. To the Signory of Novem- 
 ber 1 47 1 he proposed more modest reforms, and met with 
 a less doubtful success. As the right of naming accoppiatori 
 was not disputed, by a judicious selection he could dispose 
 
 1 G. Capponi, ii. 100. 
 
 2 Morelii, Del, xix. 188; Alam. Rinuccini, p. 118. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 101. 
 
 4 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 118. 
 
286 RESTORATION OF ABSOLUTE POWER. [M74 
 
 of everything as he wished, since their mission was to substi- 
 tute an enlightened choice — too enlightened perhaps — for the 
 blind decision of the lot. He chose ten, himself of the number, 
 from his most intimate friends, so that it was quite a family 
 affair (November 20). 1 Until then all the ancient Gonfa- 
 loniers of Justice had competed for nomination in the Council 
 of the Hundred ; but as these were not sure men, it was decided 
 that the forty citizens previously designed for the office 2 would 
 join with only fifty of the Gonfaloniers, whom they themselves 
 would choose. As, on the contrary, the accoppiatori were 
 absolutely reliable, Lorenzo granted them, and in consequence 
 himself, a perpetual halicf — a monstrous innovation in a state 
 that pretended to adhere still to democratic forms. 
 
 Henceforth it was Lorenzo and his faithful friends that 
 named the members of each Signory. But it would have been 
 no less wearisome than compromising to influence nine new 
 Priors in person every two months, and bend them to his 
 policy and designs. To avoid this difficulty, he endeavoured 
 that the Gonfalonier of Justice should be the real head of the 
 chief office, so that in future it would be only needful to 
 communicate his wishes to this officer, whose duty it would 
 be to transmit them to his colleagues. 4 The Gonfalonier 
 seemed to be responsible for everything; but nobody was 
 mistaken. 
 
 The history of these encroachments, both audacious and 
 underhand, must be completed. For the ancient post of cap- 
 tain of the people, protector of the masses, was substituted 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 119. 
 
 2 See above, p. 142-144. 
 
 3 " E durassi la balia loro tutta la vita " (Morelli, Del, xix. 188). " Che questi 
 stessino a vita " (G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 3). Different numbers are given. Cambi 
 speaks of thirty, then of forty citizens, and he says that the old Gonfaloniers could 
 join on to the seventy ; but Rinuccini seems to be the decisive authority, for he 
 declares that he was member of the balie. See Al. Rinuccini, p. 1 1 7 ; G. Gambi, 
 Del., xxi. 3 ; Ammirato, xxiii. 109. This latter does not agree with Rinuccini 
 upon the dates of the month. He places the creation of the accoppiatori in Nov- 
 ember 1471, and the reduction of the twenty Arts in January 1474. 
 
 4 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., iii. 27, and Ammirato, xxxii. 112. 
 
1474] REDUCTION OF PUBLIC OFFICERS. 287 
 
 the much less important office of an ordinary judge. 1 The 
 podesta shrank more and more before the Eight of Guard, 
 without any provision being necessary, simply by force of 
 habit and the master's encouragement. The Eight, whose 
 original duty had been to hunt out crimes and offences, had 
 already received from Cosimo, in 1434, "balie of blood:" 
 they took proceedings, judged, condemned, and left nothing to 
 the pitiable podesta but an imperious order to ratify and 
 promulgate the sentences pronounced by them. 2 The podesta 
 escaped the captain's suppression; but of these two ancient 
 pillars of the state, the remaining one was no longer a support, 
 had no longer a voice. He was not even an object of derision, 
 as in Boccaccio's time, and instead of replacing him every six 
 months, he was left a year in office. As for the Executioner 
 of Justice, once a magistrate and an important one too, he 
 became a simple hargello, that is, an executioner in the narrow 
 and common sense of the word. 3 
 
 There remained the councils. The Council of the Hundred 
 was modified in its composition by the accoppiatori, since it 
 had just disappointed the master's hopes and shown itself 
 unmanageable. Once purified, it received the right to delibe- 
 rate upon all petitions relative to the public interest without 
 reference to the councils of the people and the commons, 
 which were thus annulled 4 rather than suppressed. Other 
 
 1 Al. Rinuccini, p. 126. 
 
 2 See the formula of the phrases : " Magnifici octoviri custodioe et balioe civ. 
 Flor. in numero sumcienti collegialiter congregati, intellecto et recepto qualiter. 
 . . . Et idcirco habito super predictis omnibus et singulis sano et maturo consilio, 
 &c, deliberaverunt, scribunt, commitunt, imponunt et mandant vobis prsesenti 
 Domino Potestati dictae civ. Flor. quatenus vigore preesentis deliberationis ac 
 commissionis et bullettini, per vestram sententiam declaretis, pronuntietis et 
 sententietis dictos. . . . {Sentetize pubblicate tra i documenti di corredo alP edizione 
 de commentario della congiura dei Pazzi per Angiolo Poliziano, in G. Capponi, 
 ii. 108, n. 2). 
 
 3 Morelli, Del, xix. 190; Al. Rinuccini, p. 121. 
 
 4 Al. Rinuccini, p. 117. This writer is a decided authority, for he was a 
 member of the balie, which proves that, with Lorenzo and his friends in great 
 majority, a small minority of friends of a sect easily made enemies were allowed 
 to enter it. 
 
288 ARBITRARY DESPOTISM. [1476 
 
 councils and offices disappeared, or were in a like way reduced 
 in their attributes. Amongst them the famous mercanzia. 
 The purpose was to concentrate all things, even a know- 
 ledge of private affairs, as far as possible in the hands of 
 the Signory. As for the contado, to rule it, which was 
 essential, and not very difficult, it sufficed to institute a 
 special bargello, whose term of office, at first four, then six 
 months, ended by lasting much longer. 1 
 
 Henceforth, all offices that were not abolished were weak- 
 ened and degraded. Even the Signory was but a vain show. 
 The serious action took place behind the scenes, in the secret 
 meetings of the ten accopjpiatori, one of whom was Lorenzo. The 
 new mechanism was based upon a cleverly conceived recipro- 
 city : the balie and its endurance rested with the Medici, who 
 only had to lift their hand for it to drop into nothingness. In 
 return, the Medici received from these subordinate powers the 
 tacit authorisation to draw from the public treasury in their 
 private interests, and to make good the void by taxes that 
 easily became exactions. They could diminish these taxes for 
 their favourites, or allow them for what had not yet been 
 paid, lower the interest of the credit inscribed in the book of 
 the monte, raise the wine-tax, create new taxes to pay the 
 interests, and, which seems still more exorbitant, extort fresh 
 sums by fines from those who, having once been sentenced, 
 had committed no new offence. All this was done with- 
 out accounting to any one. It was arbitrary and disguised 
 despotism with all its monstrous abuses. A hundred 
 thousand florins went to save the banking-house at Bruges, 
 managed for Lorenzo by Tommaso de' Portinari, from bank- 
 ruptcy, "and the poor town paid everything," writes honest 
 Cambi. 2 Nor was this the only time the public treasury 
 helped to straighten the embarrassments of Lorenzo; for he 
 continued the mercantile operations of his ancestors, without 
 
 1 Al. Rinuccini, p. 126. 
 
 2 G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 3. 
 
1476] LORENZO'S SUPPORTERS. 289 
 
 giving his time to them as they had done, without previous 
 initiation into the principles and rules of trade and its delicate 
 and complicated management. 1 He wanted the profits, but 
 relied upon the labour of others. Not that he was idle, but 
 his occupations were of another kind ; he was busy with 
 diplomacy and politics. It was by his personal tastes, and 
 not by his position, that he differed from his predecessors. 
 
 Guicciardini is wrong in stating that Lorenzo began at this 
 time to wish to be the master. 2 Like Piero and Cosimo, he 
 was master already, but he did not follow their example and 
 screen the fact. He openly favoured men of no worth, 
 asserting that had his father clone likewise, he would not 
 have run the risk of losing the State in 1466. 3 He obsti- 
 nately kept the big families, whose return might overshadow 
 him, in exile, 4 under the pretext of intimidating the homi- 
 cides, who, thanks to the failure of the laws, 5 defied the rela- 
 tives of their victims. The few families whose devotion 
 he had tried, and whom he admitted to a share of the power 
 as well as to a part of the treasury, alone supported him; 
 men of letters, whom he flattered by calling himself one of 
 them ; painters and sculptors, whom he honoured with his 
 praises and commissions ; the people, finally, whom he amused 
 by feasts and spectacles, and corrupted by his gold. In him 
 the Medicean traditions were fully developed. 
 
 It pleased Angelo Poliziano, then hardly twenty, to cele- 
 
 1 Ammirato, xxiii. 1 14 ; Sismondi, vii. 99 ; G. Capponi, ii. 107. 
 
 2 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 3, Op. ined., iii. 28. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 M. Bruto, 1. vi., in Burmann, viii. part I, p. 142. 
 
 5 On March 16, 1478, a provision was made which stated : "Si da conmodita a 
 chi l'omicidio conmette di potere sanza pena o timore alcuno essere nel conspetto, 
 tutto il giorno, e di quegli che anno ricevuta sanza grande indegnazione e perturba- 
 tione d'animo, tali homicidiali possono risguardare. E benche le leggie del popolo 
 fior. acremente vendichino e punischino tali delicti . . . nondimeno, qual se ne 
 sia la cagione, o la troppa humanita, che veramente piii tosto crudelta chiamar si 
 debbe, o il disordinato amore, non si observano tali ordini e onest e giustissimi " 
 (see text in Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 16, note 2). 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
2Q0 CONTEMPORARY OPINION. [i477 
 
 brate the repose which Florence at that time enjoyed, in spite 
 of the anger of Sixtus IV. ; * but only men already broken 
 to servitude could accommodate themselves to a government 
 founded upon contempt of human dignity, upon the pleasure 
 of a single person eternally master, thanks to the halie he had 
 made permanent, and quick to condemn, without personal re- 
 sponsibility or legal process, those whom he suspected through 
 caprice or distrust. Most of his contemporaries, and the 
 worthiest, Einuccini, Morelli, and Cambi after them, speak 
 bitterly of this system of rule, which was not even justified 
 by war, since the peace had not been broken for ten years. 2 
 Serious writers, the first voices of posterity, spoke afterwards in 
 the same spirit. The sagacious Guicciardini saw clearly, and 
 makes us see, how odious was the domination of the Medici. 
 Fiery Michele Bruto condemns it like a passionate enemy, 
 and for this reason it has been the fashion to discredit him as 
 an authority. But can we contest that of the Genoese Antonio 
 Galli ? Secretary of the office of San Giorgio at Genoa, 3 he 
 wrote twenty or twenty-five years after this period. He 
 neither saw the question too closely nor too distantly, yet was 
 far enough from it to perceive the large lines, which are more 
 favourable to Lorenzo than the mean and wretched details ; and 
 he was perfectly exempt from the local hatreds and jealousies 
 
 1 " Fiorenza lieta in pace si riposa, 
 
 Ne teme il vento o' 1 minacciar del cielo, 
 
 Ne giove irato in vista piu crucciosa" (Stanze vi.). 
 
 See G. Capponi, ii. 107, n. 3, on the date of this poem. 
 
 2 Excepting the insignificant affair of Prato and that of Volterra, peace was only 
 troubled, under Lorenzo, by the attacks of Carlo Fortebraccio of Montone, bastard 
 of the famous captain, upon Sienna. As the two Republics hardly ever agreed 
 (see Fil. Sacramoro to Galeaz, November 8, 1477, Orig., 1598, f. 128), Florence 
 was accused of underhandly pushing these attacks : " Cio mandavano ogni di una 
 buona lettera e il conte Carlo ogni di una cavalcata" (Allegretti, R.I.S., xxiii. 782, 
 May-June, 1477). Cf. Malavolti, part iii. 1. 3, f. 72 v° ; Machiavelli, viii. 119 a. 
 Reumont (1. ii. c. 9, vol. i. p. 371-374) quotes a letter of the Pope, taken from the 
 archives of Urbino. Sienna's revenge was to contract a close alliance with Naples 
 and the Pope, which permitted them to keep troops upon the Florentine frontiers. 
 September 27, 1477, Montone was taken from Carlo, " whose wool was shorn " 
 (Allegretti, xxiii. 783). 
 
 8 See Muratori's preface to Ant. Galli., R.I.S., xxiii. 
 
H77] DEATH OF DUKE OF MILAN. 291 
 
 that trouble judgment. These are his words : " The town of 
 Florence was held by the all-powerful Lorenzo under the 
 appearance of liberty. He was considered scarcely infe- 
 rior to the princes of Italy, and yet hardly differed from 
 his fellow -citizens in his way of living. He had innu- 
 merable followers, immense territorial possessions, and vast 
 flocks. Everything about him exceeded the measure of that 
 which constitutes a private individual. Nobody who dis- 
 pleased him was allowed to live in the town." l To rule by 
 proscription, even to the very last of his enemies, was to 
 put arms into the hands of those who, having offenp^w«,d 
 nothing else to look to. There was no need, ^jwaer to 
 curse and strive to shake off this yoke, tQvi$gr«e liberty 
 
 Henceforth conspiracy had its tteld^^nicK^^f^nd -kr^fae 
 ancient authors. Between insurrection auxf assassination there 
 was no middle term ; a choice must be m^d^V^Both were tried 
 by the Greeks and Eomans, and each Ma 'succeeded more than 
 once. Their imitation even, the fruit of erudition, had not 
 always failed. But upon this point, and in recent times, the 
 balance was not always equal between the two methods. Ste- 
 fano Porcaro in Eome (1453), Girolamo Gentile in Genoa 
 (June 1476), Niccolo d'Este in Ferrara (Sep. I476), 2 had at- 
 tempted insurrections as futile as those of Prato and Volterra ; 
 while in Milan, in December of the same year, assassination had 
 accomplished its fell design. Excited by Cola Montana, a pro- 
 fessor of letters, who was exalted by an old-fashioned patriot- 
 ism, as well as embittered by personal rancour, three gentlemen 
 stabbed Galeaz Maria in the church where he was hearing mass. 
 They paid with their lives for their success, as others had for 
 their failure ; 3 but from the distance, bloodshed and executions 
 do not inspire terror, and none felt discouraged. Not content 
 with pitying the murderers, they extolled them. Thus writes 
 Einuccini, speaking of Galeaz's murder : " It was a praise- 
 
 1 Ant. Galli., De rebus genuens., R.I.S., xxiii. 282. 
 
 3 See Sismondi, vi. 267-275, vii. 77, 83. 
 
 8 See Cipolla, p. 57^, on Galeaz's death, indicating the source. 
 
292 ORIGIN OF THE PAZZI CONSPIRACY. iH77 
 
 worthy and manly enterprise, which should be undertaken by 
 every one living under a tyrant, or a master resembling a tyrant; 
 but the cowardice of men accustomed to bear the yoke rendered 
 the example of little or no effect." 1 Here the allusion to Flor- 
 ence is evident, though not seditious (for these Ricordi were not 
 for publication), and of slight foundation, since only Galeaz's 
 uncle profited by his death ; it is the more significant in con- 
 sequence as a proof of the state of mind of the Florentines. 
 Assassination could succeed, as was just seen, upon the possible 
 forfeiture of one's life. As a piece of policy, Lorenzo and his 
 brother went about openly unarmed and unprotected. Be- 
 sides, one always hopes to take precautions and escape punish- 
 ment. In this erudite century it was forgotten that Brutus's 
 dagger had not prevented the triumph of Antony — a Csesar 
 without genius. The Medici's flatterers would be the first, 
 Lorenzo and Giuliano once dead, to curse their tyranny and 
 memory, for the brothers were not regarded, as Galeaz in 
 Milan, as legitimate masters. There was, then, a plausible 
 chance of success, and, as a fact, never was a conspiracy better 
 prepared than the one about to break out. 
 
 It was plotted in Rome among two very distinct parties — 
 Romans and Florentines. Nothing was less rare in the 
 Eternal City than deadly enemies of the new masters of 
 Florence. Sixtus IV. led the choir. He had not for- 
 gotten the league with the North, nor the help given to 
 Niccolo Vitelli, nor Lorenzo's intrigues to prevent Girolamo 
 Riario, his favourite son, from getting Imola and to exhaust 
 his sources of wealth. On his side, Riario did not renounce 
 the idea of cutting himself out a goodly principality in 
 Romagna, and he saw an obstacle in Lorenzo, and in case 
 of success an enemy, a near enemy, and a possible despoiler 
 when once the tiara should pass to another head. On the con- 
 trary, if Florence, with timely aid, were given her freedom and 
 accepted new masters, she might become a solid support on a 
 
 1 Alam. Rinuccini, Ricordi, p. 125, 
 
H77] ELEMENTS OF THE CONSPIRACY. 293 
 
 basis of reciprocity. Already the Pope's great friend, the King 
 of Naples, was advancing towards Sienna with his army. Let 
 the Medici once disappear, and the Florentine alliance with 
 Milan, Venice, and France be broken, he could cross the 
 frontier and dictate laws to the people who had so often made 
 sport of the house of Anjou. 1 
 
 The other element w T as the exiles, a constant source of per- 
 plexity to the Medici. To please these latter, on April 6, 1 470, 
 Louis XL loudly disowned his ambassador at Rome, whose only 
 fault was to have visited the defeated, and promised his efforts 
 to procure their recall. 2 Other discontented Florentines lived 
 in Home with them, and necessarily became more or less mixed 
 up in the affair ; and amongst them was the wealthy merchant 
 Francesco de' Pazzi. Of a restless, passionate, and ambitious 
 nature, this little man, whose frail appearance gained him the 
 name of Franceschino, was unmarried, and neither at home 
 nor in trade found employment for his eager activity ; 8 con- 
 nected, besides, with the Pope's son, and opposed by Lorenzo in 
 his lucrative banking operations, 4 he cherished hatred for his 
 country's oppressor, and against this oppressor's family he had 
 besides a standing grievance w T hich must be recalled. 
 
 The Pazzi family belonged to the ancient nobility of the 
 Contado, which its defeat had confined to Florence, and com- 
 pelled to live under the terrible law of the ordinance of justice. 5 
 
 1 Diarium Parmense, R.I.S., xxii. 277. The anonymous writer of this chronicle, 
 prudent and honest, to judge from his language, begins in 1477 and finishes in 
 148 1. He is thus a real contemporary. 
 
 2 See Louis XL's letter in Desjardins, i. 152. 
 
 3 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 35. See his portrait in Politien, 
 Conjurationis Commentaritim, 1478, f. I v°. 4 See below, p. 296. 
 
 5 Litta, who dedicates ten of his pictures to the Pazzi, will not have these 
 ancient Guelphs, come from Fiesole, confounded with the Pazzi of the Val d'Arno, 
 also noble, but Ghibellines. This party difference proves little. There was a 
 Ghibelline and a Guelph branch of the Guidi ; both sprang from the same root. 
 The Fiesolan origin, as Litta himself acknowledges {Tav. 1), was often only a 
 boast of these country squires to prove themselves of Roman origin, and it is 
 certain that the Pazzi cherished this pretension, since they profited in establish- 
 ing it by the discovery in San Firenze of an inscription which names a certain 
 M. Paccius (/£*'<£). 
 
294 THE PAZZI. [H77 
 
 But instead of imitating so many petty aristocrats, who, too 
 noble to do anything, were classed among the Scioperati or 
 idlers, they gave themselves up to trade, acquired immense 
 wealth, and won a place amongst the merchants, which 
 would have been greater still but for the haughty arro- 
 gance that belonged to their race. Their disgrace ended in 
 1434 upon Cosimo's return, who, to strengthen himself, made 
 considerable advances to those oppressed by the democracy 
 and the merchant oligarchy — to the ancient nobility. The 
 Pazzi, more far-seeing than their fellows, did not refuse to 
 belong to the people, since, at the price of a certain coldness 
 on the part of the upper class, they obtained the right by 
 this change of state to aspire to offices, and, in the event of 
 obtaining them, a means of increasing their opulence, the 
 principal object of their ambition. Thus it was that little by 
 little they became perhaps the richest of the Florentine families. 
 They traded all over Italy, and great was their renown. 1 
 
 The first among them who sat in the Signory was Andrea 
 de' Pazzi (1439). He received King Eene in his house most 
 sumptuously, and became his firm friend. Two of his five 
 sons 2 were raised to the supreme dignity of Gonfalonier of 
 Justice: Piero in May 1462, 3 Jacopo in June 1469. This 
 dignity was for Piero a reward upon his return from the 
 solemn embassy sent to Louis XL to congratulate him upon 
 his coronation (October 20, 1461). He had taken part as a 
 third with Filippo de' Medicis, Archbishop of Pisa, and Buon- 
 accorso of Luca Pitti. Inclined to company and pleasure, to 
 display and extravagance, he kept open house, and ruined 
 himself in copyists, books, and miniatures. He was quite of 
 his time. Upon the death of his father lie had run through 
 twelve thousand florins, of which there was nothing to be 
 seen, and for this reason his inheritance consisted in lands less 
 
 1 Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 34. 
 
 2 He had as well three daughters. See Litta, Tav. 7. 
 
 3 And not 1461, as Ammirato states (xxiv. 116). 
 
M77] THE PAZZI. 295 
 
 easy to dissipate. 1 It is probable that he had hopes of glory 
 and of realised ambition. In March of the following year he 
 refused to enter Florence with his two colleagues — he entered 
 alone the next day on horseback. All the knights, doctors, 
 principal citizens and important foreigners of the town 2 went 
 to meet him as far as the gates ; accompanied him first to the 
 palace of the Signory, where he received the people's banner, 
 then to his own house, which was crowded with visitors. 3 Was 
 he a formidable rival of the Medici ? Alessandra Macinghi did 
 not think so. " All that," she wrote, " meant little. In Flor- 
 ence manifestation and action are often two different things. 
 Eemember, my opinion is, that whoever is on the side of the 
 Medici is well off. With the Pazzi it is quite the contrary, 
 as they are always beaten." 4 They fought an obscure battle, 
 upon which history is silent. By these judicious words we 
 see that the misunderstanding between the two families was of 
 ancient date. 
 
 Of all the Pazzi, Piero was regarded as the most discreet 
 and reserved. 5 Thus Cosimo, although he did not regard him 
 as a sure friend, 6 married his grand- daughter, Bianca, to 
 Guglielmo de' Pazzi, Antonio's son and Piero's nephew, an 
 alliance which meant for the family exemption from all 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di Piero de' Pazzi, c. 1,2, 6, Spicil. Pom., i. 485, 490; life 
 published also in the Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. iv. part 1, p. 363. Cf. Burckhardt, 
 Die Cultur der Renaissance, vol. i. p. 259. This author reports a curious anecdote 
 of Piero's youth, reproduced in an article of M. Miintz, Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 November 1, 1881, p. 171. It is very clear that the Medici were not alone in 
 Florence in their taste for letters and arts. 
 
 2 Notably the brother and son of the Marquis of Mantua, as well as Nicodemo 
 de Pontremoli. 
 
 3 Letters of March 15, 1462, Lettere di una Gentild., p. 255, 261. 
 
 4 Letter of Alessandra Macinghi, ibid., p. 255, 256. 
 
 5 "Era d'altra discrezione che non era ignuno di quella casa" (Vespasiano, 
 Joe. cit., c. 2, Spicil. Rom., i. 487). 
 
 6 Wishing to open secret negotiations with Sforza, Cosimo recommended 
 Nicodemo not to speak of it to any one, especially not to Piero : " Guarda non ne 
 scrivere al signore, ne ne participare cum persona der Dio . . . et non voglio che 
 M. Piero de' Pazzi el senta " (Nicod. to Sforza, March 24, 1462, in Buser, Appen., 
 p. 414). 
 
296 THE AFFAIR OF IMOLA. [i477 
 
 taxes. 1 How did this man of letters, this clever spendthrift, 
 displease the people ? The fact is, that of all the Pazzi, the 
 only one that Florence liked was one of his nineteen children, 
 Eenato, who appears to have inherited his brains ; but neither 
 the father nor the son ever became heads of the family. The 
 chief was Jacopo, Andrea's eldest son, described as a gambler 
 and a blasphemer. 2 He had figured in the solemn balie created 
 for the enterprise of Yolterra. 3 He was not treated as an 
 enemy either. Two letters which he addressed to Lorenzo 
 show that, whatever their feelings at heart may have been, they 
 still strove to save appearances. 4 
 
 But the affair of Imola 5 upset matters. For this enter- 
 prise Sixtus IV. wanted money, and could not ask it of 
 Lorenzo, his depositary, since it was opposed to his interests. 
 There was no other resource for him then but to apply to his 
 treasurer, Franceschino de' Pazzi, Antonio's son and Andrea's 
 grandson. 6 Now Lorenzo had begged Franceschino not to 
 advance the funds. Too good a banker to lose an opportunity 
 of gain, and too little the Medici's friend to please them at 
 his own loss, Pazzi advanced thirty thousand ducats. He 
 even went further; he told the Pope of the refusal Lorenzo 
 had exacted from him. This was throwing oil upon the 
 flame ; on the spot Lorenzo lost the lucrative office of de- 
 positary, and, through the fault of one man, all the Pazzi 
 became his enemies, and were pursued and overwhelmed with 
 annoyances.' Franceschino was ordered to return to Florence 
 to defend himself from the accusations brought against him ; 
 in other terms, to put his head in the lion's mouth. 8 Giovanni, 
 
 1 Vespasiano, loc. at., c. 2 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 486. 
 
 2 Politien, Conjur. Comment., f. 1 r° ; Guicciardini, c. 4; Op. ined., iii. 34. 
 
 3 Ammirato, xxiv. 119. 
 
 4 Jacopo overwhelmed him with praise to obtain a reduction of taxes, December 
 21 and 23, 1474, Avignon, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 103, 105. 
 
   See above, same chap., p. 282. 
 
 6 Litta, Tav., 7 ; Ammirato, xxiv. 1 16. Antonio had two other sons, Giovanni 
 and Guglielmo. 
 
 7 Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 35. 
 
 8 M. Bruto, 1. vi., in Burmann, viii. part i. p. 142. 
 
H77] FRANCESCO DE' PAZZI. 297 
 
 his brother, who was in their power, felt the weight of a 
 heavy hand. Before his eyes was the prospect of fabulous 
 wealth, through his wife, only daughter of the wealthy Gio- 
 vanni Borromei. A decree was passed that in case of death 
 ah intestat, the nephew of every deceased should have prior 
 right of inheritance over a daughter, and as the decree was 
 passed for an individual, it was shamelessly made retrospective 
 in his case. By this means Carlo Borromei, a creature of the 
 Medici, inherited all the fortune of a man who, dying before 
 this perfidious Act was passed, naturally had not thought of 
 making a will in favour of his only child. The iniquity was 
 so enormous, that Giuliano, more prudent than his brother, 
 though younger, wanted to prevent it, but he did not succeed. 
 Lorenzo's hate was implacable, and nothing remained for those 
 whom it pursued but, in accordance with the ideas of the time, 
 to get rid of him. 1 
 
 The soul of the conspiracy was the ardent Franeeschino. 
 Eesiding in Borne, he enjoyed freedom of speech and action. 
 He was in relations with Count Girolamo Riario, whom he 
 had more than once helped pecuniarily, and who feared that, 
 at the Pope's death, Lorenzo would rob him of Romagna. 2 He 
 also met one of his compatriots, as determined an enemy of the 
 new masters as himself, Francesco Salviati, whose family, dis- 
 trusted by them, had been proscribed for their pleasure. 3 This 
 heaven-sent colleague was made Archbishop of Pisa by Sixtus IV. 
 upon the death of Filippo de' Medici, since he could not make 
 him Archbishop of Florence. For the see of Florence Lorenzo 
 had chosen one of his wife's relatives, Rinaldo Orsini, and, less 
 fortunate regarding the see of Pisa, he nevertheless deferred 
 the investiture for three years. One evil measure inevitably 
 
 1 Nardi, 1. i. vol. i. p. 23; M. Bruto, 1. vi., in Burm., viii. part i. p. 142; 
 Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 36; Machiavelli, viii. 117B; Ammirato, xxiv. 
 116. Nardi adds that this law of circumstance was again in vigour in his time. 
 
 2 Nic. Valori, Vita Lattr., p. 22 ; Guicciardini, loc. cit., p. 36. 
 
 3 Jacopo Salviati had been declared a rebel by Cosimo's will (Ammirato, xxiv. 
 Il6)". 
 
298 JACOPO DE' PAZZI. [1477 
 
 leads to another, as there is no reason to spare a man once he 
 has been made an enemy. Such is the law of human passions. 
 Salviati finished by taking possession of Pisa ; but whether 
 he distrusted his sacred position, which was but a doubtful 
 protection, or whether he took a merely mercenary interest in 
 his diocese, he spent most of his time in Kome. 1 
 
 Between these three personages the preliminaries of the con- 
 spiracy were conducted throughout the year 1477. It was first 
 necessary to win over the head of the family of the Pazzi, old 
 Jacopo, 2 and that was no easy thing : " he was colder than ice " 3 
 to the proposal. " It is madness," he said, " to try to become 
 masters of Florence. I know better than they ; do not speak 
 to me of it again." 4 His nephew Eenato, the strong mind of 
 the family, represented on his side that Lorenzo's private affairs 
 were so compromised that bankruptcy was at hand, and that in 
 losing fortune and credit he would also lose his undue influ- 
 ence in the State. But what conspirators have ever been 
 able to wait ? To convince Jacopo, it was necessary to assure 
 him of certain, or at least probable success. Franceschino 
 despatched to him Gian Battista of Montesecco, a conclot- 
 tiere devoted to Girolamo Pdario, who consented to enter into 
 the plot. The Pope, regarding Lorenzo as a great scoun- 
 drel, gave his consent provided there was no murder. 6 And 
 
 1 Politien, Covjur. Comment., f. I v° ; Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. meet., iii. 36; 
 Machiavelli, via. 117 A ; Ammirato, xxiv. 116. Politien makes a hideous portrait 
 of this prelate, even physically ; he accredits him with all the vices, but we need 
 not believe the word of a man so blindly devoted to Lorenzo. Cf. Reumont, 1. ii. 
 c. 9, and 1. iii. c. I, vol. i. p. 368, 384, 398. 
 
 2 "Come haviamo lui, la cosa e spacciata" (words of the Archbishop Salviati 
 to G. B. de Montesecco, one of the sworn members, in the confession of the latter, 
 published by Politien at the end of his Commentary, and by Fabroni, Roscoe, and 
 finally G. Capponi, proof of the importance of this document in the eyes of all 
 historians). We quote from the text of Capponi, which we have under our eyes. 
 See vol. ii. p. 512, App. 3. Its authenticity has been contested, but it does not 
 seem doubtful. On Montesecco, see Reumont, 1. iii. c. 1, vol. i. p. 387. 
 
 3 Words of Montesecco, ibid. Cf. Guicciardini, loc. cit., p. 36. 
 
 4 Words of Jacopo to Montesecco, ibid., p. 514. 
 
 5 Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. p. 41. 
 
 6 Confession of Montesecco, ibid., p. 512, 514. 
 
W7~\ COMPLICITY OF THE POPE. 299 
 
 when his nephew Girolamo told him that they intended to 
 avoid bloodshed, but that if it proved necessary they hoped 
 he would pardon them, " You are a fool," he replied. " I 
 have said that I want nobody's death." At the same time, 
 dismissing the three conspirators, he gave them his benedic- 
 tion, and promised them the support of an armed troop, or 
 anything else that was necessary. 1 Such language, in the 
 presence of witnesses, did not tend to discourage the assassins. 
 Not in a position to go to war with Lorenzo, why should the 
 Pope furnish an armed troop, if not for murder ? It was to 
 the honour of the Holy See and of Count Girolamo that they 
 had not appeared in the matter. 2 
 
 These assurances given by the officious Montesecco to Jacopo 
 de' Pazzi convinced him no doubt ; for from this time we see 
 this gambler assisting the poor, this blasphemer making gifts to 
 churches, paying his debts, rendering to their owners all the 
 merchandise that he held in deposit for others ; 3 in a word, 
 putting himself in order for a tragic end, and in contradiction 
 of the past, " needing the bridle instead of the spur." 4 Two of 
 the Pazzi remained out of the plot: prudent Renato,who thought 
 he was showing his disapprobation, and sufficiently covering 
 himself from all suspicion of complicity, by remaining in his 
 villa ; 5 and Guglielmo, Bianca de' Medici's husband, now inti- 
 mate with the two brothers, the alliance with whom changed, 
 his feelings from white to black. 6 
 
 1 " E con questo ci levassimo denanzi de S. S. facciendo poi conclusione esser 
 contento dare omne favore et aiuto de giente d'arme ed altro che accio fosse neces- 
 sario" {ibid., p. 514). Cf. Machiavelli, viii. 118 B. 
 
 2 For M. Reumont, the great affair is to exculpate the Holy See from all com- 
 plicity. The Pope's words appeared convincing to him in this affair (see vol. i. p. 
 280). We judge it in quite an opposite way, and the Revue Historique, criti- 
 cising M. Reumont's book, is of our opinion (see September 1884, p. 164). It 
 is astonished to find in Reumont words attributed to the Pope which are not 
 to be met with in the text as given by Capponi. Neither are they in Fabroni. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, viii. 121 A. 
 
 4 Confession, ibid., p. 516. 
 
 5 Machiavelli, viii. 1 19 a. 
 
 6 " Guglielmo et tu con Pigello insieme habbiatene consiglio et fatene delibera- 
 
3oo PLANS OF THE CONSPIRATORS. [1478 
 
 Already the plans were decided upon. Too much bound to 
 the Pope not to follow him, the King of Naples flattered him- 
 self besides that a revolution in Florence would render him 
 the arbitrator in Italy, and that his troops upon the border 
 of Sienna would advance without any obstacle as far as the 
 Florentine frontier. 1 Under pretext of attacking Montone, 
 and of revenging the wrong done the Siennese and the Peru- 
 gians by Count Carlo, a pontifical army was to assemble in the 
 state of Perouse. Lorenzo Giustini, of the Citta di Castello, 
 Niccolo Vitelli's rival, was to levy soldiers to hold him in 
 check : Gianfrancesco of Tolentino, one of the condottieri of 
 the Pope, was to pass with his troops into Eomagna, while the 
 Archbishop Salviati, Franceschino, and Montesecco were to go 
 to Florence, either to take part in the murder or to profit 
 by it. 2 At the moment the two intended victims should fall, 
 the town would be attacked from without on both sides at 
 once. 
 
 Montesecco arrived first with an army which he led, so it was 
 pretended, for the enterprise of Montone*. Whether Lorenzo 
 was his dupe or not, he received him marvellously well, in 
 quite fraternal fashion. 3 It is astonishing that, with so many 
 accomplices, the secret was kept. The accomplices of the 
 second rank were already enrolled and initiated. The two 
 Salviati's, one the brother and the other the cousin of the 
 Archbishop; Giacomo, son of the historian Poggio JBracciolini, 
 feather-brained, empty-headed, needy, and ready for anything 
 
 tione " (Piero to Lorenzo, May 4, 1465). " La brigata di Guglielmo sta benissimo n 
 {ibid., May II, 1465). Texts in Fabroni, Doc, p. 52, 53. In thirteen years, it is 
 true, many changes may take place, but Politien declares that Guglielmo, like 
 Renato, was recognised as innocent of conspiracy ( Conjur. Comm., f. 2 r°). We do 
 not, then, know why G. Capponi throws these doubts on the conduct of Guglielmo. 
 
 1 Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 38. 
 
 2 Confession, ibid., p. 512, 516; Guicciardini, ibid., p. 38; Machiavelli, vii. 
 119 a. See also the sentence of the Milanais Matteo des Toscani, podesta of 
 Florence, from the MSS. Strozziani, at end of the edition of the Comment, of 
 Politien published at Naples in 1769 by Giovanni Adimari. 
 
 3 ' ' Che veramente non s'averia possuto parlar per niuno fratello piu amorevol- 
 mente . . . con li piu amorevoli ricordi che possesse mai patre afigliulo" {Con- 
 fession, p. 513). Cf. Reumont, 1. iii. c. I, vol. i. p. 391. 
 
1478] DIFFICULTY OF EXECUTION. 301 
 
 to restore his lost fortune, prepared even to forget that through 
 the Medici's favour his father had sprung from simple school- 
 master to be secretary to the Kepublic ; 1 Bernardo de Bandino 
 Baroncelli, 2 Napoleone Franzesi, follower of Guglielimo de' 
 Pazzi, 3 and obliged to hide himself from his patron ; also two 
 priests, Antonio Maffei of Volterra, apostolic scribe, exasperated 
 against Lorenzo since the sacking of his country ; 4 Stefano of 
 Bagnona, 5 curate of Montemurlo, Jacopo de Pazzi's secretary, 
 and a monster of indecency, if we must believe the indecent 
 and untrustworthy Poliziano. The last meetings, when the 
 time for action came, were held in the house of Jacopo de' 
 Pazzi at Montughi, under the very walls of Florence. 
 
 The wish was to strike both brothers together ; but the 
 difficulty was to find them together outside their houses. 7 
 It was then decided that it would be wise to strike them 
 separately, since they could not mutually help each other. 
 Giuliano was on the point of marrying, at Piombino, the 
 daughter of the lord of that city ; if Lorenzo could be attracted 
 to Eome, under the pretext of reconciliation with the Pope, 8 
 they would not only be separated from each other, but from 
 the greater part of their friends. Unfortunately, a delay 
 would be necessary, involving the risk of disclosure. It was 
 then decided for expedition's sake to return to the first idea, 
 and strike both at the same time. 
 
 1 Politien, Conjnr, Comment., f. 2 r° ; Ammirato, xxiv. 117. 
 
 2 He is generally called Bernardo Bandini (see notably the contemporary Fil. 
 vStrozzi in G. Capponi, ii. 521, App. 4) ; but Bandino was the father's name (see 
 Burselli, Ann. Bonon., xxiii. 901). The tendency was more and more marked to 
 turn a patronymic into a family name. 
 
 3 Politien, f. 2 r°. 
 
 4 Fil. Strozzi calls him Marco Maffei (Capponi, ibid.). 
 
 5 Bagnone, in the Val di Magra, seven miles from Pontremoli, in Lunigiani. 
 The Bagnone torrent has given its name to that locality (see Repetti, i. 249, 254). 
 
 6 Politien, f. I, v°, 2 r° ; Machiavelli, viii. 119 A ; Ammirato, xxiv. 117. 
 
 7 " Res difficilis admodum videbatur quod juvenes raro simul erant, nee nisi in 
 tuto conveniebant " (Nic. Valori, Vita Law., p. 23). 
 
 8 " Laudaria assai che la magnificentia vostra fesse pensiere e determinatione 
 venir personalmente al conspecto della prefata sanclita, la quale non dubito vi 
 vedra volontieri" {Letter of Girolamo Riario to Lorenzo, January 15, 1478, in 
 Fabroni, Doc, p. 106). Cf. Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 37). 
 
302 CARDINAL SANSONI. [1478 
 
 There remained to find or provoke the opportunity. The 
 young Baffaello Sansoni, son of one of Girolamo Kiario's sisters, 
 and hardly twenty, was studying then in the University of Pisa. 
 By chance or calculation he received at the same time a cardi- 
 nal's hat and the commission of legate at Perugia. 1 In going 
 to his post, he naturally had to pass through Florence, and his 
 passage would necessarily be the occasion of feasts and ban- 
 quets, at which doubtless the two Medici would assist. Jacopo 
 de' Pazzi invited them both to Montughi with the beardless 
 cardinal-legate. Giuliano was suffering from a sore leg, and 
 did not come. Lorenzo in his turn entertained his guest in 
 his villa near Fiesole. For the same reason, or perhaps 
 another. Giuliano was still absent. A third feast was to take 
 place on Sunday, April 26, in the house where both brothers 
 resided in Florence. On this occasion Giuliano was still 
 absent. 2 In the end, their patience exhausted, the conspirators 
 decided to strike their blow in the cathedral at high mass. 
 Giuliano, who for the moment abstained from pleasures, would 
 certainly not abstain from this official act of devotion. In 
 fact, Lorenzo and he had agreed to join Cardinal Sansoni at 
 the foot of the altar, and conduct him, after the mass, to the 
 house. 3 
 
 This arrangement being known, a signal was given to 
 Montesecco, who arrived at once at the head of thirty 
 archers on horseback and of fifty infantry. He admitted 
 that he came from Imola to serve the Cardinal 4 as escort. 
 
 1 Account of the conspiracy by Filippo Strozzi, published first p. 55 of the volume 
 entitled Vita di Fil. Strozzi il Vecchio, scritta da Lorenzo, suo figlio, per cura di 
 Gius. Bini e Pietro Bigazzi, Florence, 185 1 ; then by G. Capponi, vol. ii. p. 520, 
 App. 4. 
 
 2 Ant. Galli (De rebus genuens., xxiii. 282) pretends even that he must have 
 supped outside. In that case there would be undoubtedly some complaint against 
 the young Sansoni ; but it is more probable that, being convalescent, he was 
 careful of himself. See Machiavelli, viii. 119 a, and Ammirato, xxiv. 117. 
 
 3 Nic. Valori, Vita Laur., p. 23 ; M. Bruto, 1. viii., in Burm., viii. part I, 
 p. 148; Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., iii. 38; Machiavelli, viii. 119 a; Ammirato, 
 xviv. 116. 
 
 4 Carlo Giovannini, Brev. Chron. , at the end of Politien, ed. of Naples, p. 68 ; 
 Cipolla, p. 584. 
 
H78] FINAL ARRANGEMENTS. 303 
 
 The double murder was to take place at the moment when 
 the priest, having given the communion, should pronounce 
 these words, turning towards the congregation, " Ite, missa 
 est." * At that instant, though there were still some prayers 
 to be said, every one rose and rushed to the doors. The noise 
 and movement that followed were favourable to violence ; 
 besides, the bells rang to warn the Archbishop Salviati and 
 Giacomo Bracciolini to seize without delay the palace of the 
 Signory. As for the work in the church, Franceschino de' 
 Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli were to settle Giuliano. Their 
 task was regarded as most difficult and dangerous, as this 
 weak and timid young man usually wore armour under his 
 garments. Montesecco was told off to strike Lorenzo, but 
 already shaken by the kindly welcome he had received at the 
 last moment, he shrank from the horrible sacrilege of murder 
 upon sacred ground. He was replaced by two obscure priests 
 of the conspiracy. It was thought that the habit of living 
 in the church would render them more indifferent to the 
 idea of profanation. 2 It was an advantage, but the habit of 
 stabbing strengthens the hand; for such work none is so 
 useful as a soldier or a butcher. 3 
 
 Santa Maria del Fiore was crowded with Florentines. 
 Lorenzo and the Cardinals had arrived, and mass was begun, 
 and Giuliano did not appear. His two impatient assassins 
 went out to join him and escort him. They told him that his 
 
 1 The subsequent or foreign authors say at the time of the elevation, or even at 
 the Sanctus (see Comines, 1. vi. ch. 4, 1. ii. p. 199). But Filippo Strozzi, who 
 was present, is an authority (see G. Capponi, ii. 521). He, moreover, agrees with 
 Nic. Valori (p. 24) and Guicciardini (p. 39). 
 
 2 " Parumper heesitatum est, cum obtruncando Laurentio miles delectus, et 
 multa emtus mercede, negaret sese in loco sacro csedem ullam perpetraturum, 
 deinde alio negotium suscipiente, qui familiaror, utpote sacerdos, et ob id minus 
 sacrorum metuens " (Ant. Galli, De red. genuens., xxiii. 282). The chronicler Jean 
 Molinet (died in 1507) said twice that the priest Etienne (Stefano) said the mass 
 (C/iron., ch. 61, vol. ii. p. 179 and 182, pub. in 1828 by Buchon in 5 vols. ; vols, 
 xliii. to xlvii. of the Collection des chroniques nationales et etrangeres) ; but he is 
 mistaken evidently. 
 
 3 According to Guicciardini (c. 4, Op. ined.^ iii. 42), this substitution was the 
 salvation of Lorenzo. 
 
304 DEATH OF GIULIANO. [1478 
 
 presence was necessary. On the way, as if in fun, they 
 encircled his body with their arms to see if he wore his 
 cuirass. Because of his sore leg, he was unarmed, without 
 even his inseparable companion — his hunting-knife. When 
 the officiating priest pronounced the sacramental " Ite, missa 
 est," the two brothers rose and began to move around the 
 choir, mixing freely with the crowd, and in consequence easy 
 to reach and close upon. 
 
 At once Bernardo Baroncelli struck Giuliano in the breast, 
 who, walking a few steps forward, fell upon the ground. 
 Franceschino de' Pazzi rushed upon him, and finished him 
 furiously. 1 At the same moment the two priests attacked 
 Lorenzo, but one of them, Antonio Maffei, having placed his 
 hand upon his shoulder, by this imprudence drew his attention, 
 and the wound he inflicted was light. Eapidly Lorenzo shook 
 himself free, wrapped his left arm in his cloak to parry the 
 blows, and defended himself, sustained by his two followers, 
 Antonio and Lorenzo Cavalcanti. The two priests lost courage 
 and ground, whereupon Franceschino, although wounded, rushed 
 in their place to face the enemy, and Bernardo Baroncelli 
 following him, killed Francesco Nori, who barred his way. 2 
 Lorenzo had time to jump into the choir as a protection, and 
 then to take refuge in the sacristy. Poliziano and other 
 friends shut the bronze gates made by order of Piero de' 
 Medicis, who little thought that they would prove the salvation 
 of his son. Antonio Kidolfi sucked the wound and dressed it. 
 F'rom their shelter they heard the great uproar in the church, 
 and the cries and the clanking of arms ; but they saw nothing, 
 and knew not of Giuliano's fate. At last somebody struck the 
 heavy door. " Come out ! " they shouted ; but were they friends 
 
 1 Machiavelli (viii. 119 b) says that Franceschino in his blind fury wounded 
 himself grievously in the thigh ; but Politien and Belfradello des Strinati 
 (Cronu/ietta, at the end of Storia di Semifonte, Flor., 1753, p. 132) allow us to 
 believe that he was wounded in the scuffle that followed. 
 
 1 This Nori had been sent as ambassador to Louis XI. in March 1467. See 
 Desjardins/- i. 147. 
 
J478] SAFETY OF LORENZO. 305 
 
 or enemies who shouted ? Was it advice given in good faith, 
 or the injunction of madmen ready for anything 1 To make 
 sure, a devoted youth rushed up the little staircase from the 
 tribune to the organ, whence he could see into the church. 
 He perceived Giuliano stretched in his blood, and he dis- 
 covered that they were friends who were knocking at the 
 sacristy door. After a long hour of suspense in this sacred 
 place, the door was opened, and Lorenzo, surrounded by a 
 large number of armed men, was conducted to his house, 
 which was close at hand. 1 
 
 What had passed during this fortunate but stirring seclu- 
 sion ? In the church, most of the conspirators, seeing Giuliano 
 fall, imagined Lorenzo was dead, and rushed outside in the 
 direction of the palace, where the second act of the drama was 
 to take place. The young Cardinal, for whom none showed 
 anxiety, was dead with fright near the altar, and so terrified 
 that he remained pale for the rest of his life. The priests of 
 the cathedral sheltered him, and, a little later, two of the 
 Eight conducted him under guard to the palace, where he was 
 kept prisoner, in spite of the Pope's orders to have him given 
 up — an impious audacity that was soon punished by a formal 
 sentence of excommunication. 2 
 
 Outside the Archbishop Salviati heard the bells which an- 
 nounced the end of mass, and which the bell-ringer had rung in 
 his ordinary course without knowledge of the murder which was 
 to take place. At once the violent prelate went to the palace, 
 accompanied by a few friends and some Perugian exiles, thirty 
 in all Leaving a few of them at the entrance for security, he 
 went in with the others, and hid them in the chancellor's office ; 
 but the latter shut the door upon themselves, and as it closed 
 
 1 Fil. Strozzi, account in G. Capponi, ii. 251, App. 4; Politien, Conjur. 
 Comment., p. 2 v°, 3 r° ; Morelli, Del, xix. 193; Nerli, 1. iii. p. 54; Malavolti, 
 part iii. 1. 3 f. 73 r° ; Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. zned., iii. 39 ; Machiavelli, viii. I19B, 
 120 a; Ammirato, xxiv. 118 ; Comines, 1. vi. c. 4, vol. ii. p. 198 sq. 
 
 2 Fil. Strozzi, loc. cit., p. 521 ; Politien, f. 3 v° ; Nic. Valori, Vita Law:, p. 
 24. Diarium Parmense, xxii. 277 ; Molinet, c. 61, vol. ii. p. 184. 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
306 ARCHBISHOP SALVIATI. [1478 
 
 with a spring, it could not be opened from within without 
 a key that they had not. Their aid, therefore, could not be 
 counted upon. 
 
 At that moment the Priors were at table. The Archbishop, 
 listening to the noise from the place, which he found too 
 slight, demanded audience of the Gonfalonier of Justice in the 
 name of the Pope. Cesare Petrucci, who then held the gon- 
 falon, was an insignificant creature of the Medici. Once com- 
 missary at Prato, thanks to them, he nearly perished in the 
 petty conspiracy of Bernardo Nardi. He retained for this a 
 certain attitude of mistrust, which served him well on this 
 occasion. Kising from the table to receive in the audience 
 chamber the intruder who disturbed him, his scrutinising 
 glance detected the changes on his face, and his anxious looks 
 towards the door. Cesare listened to his incoherent talk, and 
 heard him cough as a signal. With a bound he was in the 
 corridor, calling his colleagues and the famigli of the palace. 
 He knocked up against Jacopo Bracciolini, whose presence he 
 justly regarded as suspicious ; he seized him by the hair, and 
 gave him into the hands of the famigli who had answered his 
 summons. With the Priors who rejoined him, he crossed the 
 kitchen and seized the spit, with which he placed himself at 
 the door of the tower where the Signory had retired. 
 
 All the issues were soon protected, and the conspirators 
 were attacked separately. As soon as they captured one, 
 he was put to death or flung alive out of the window. 
 Upon the noise within, the conspirators without, according 
 to watchword, seized the entrance, and having shut it upon 
 themselves, 1 they sustained a sort of siege against the friends 
 of the Medici, who invaded the place, and thus held them 
 between two fires. 
 
 These friends, it is true, were not better or less perilously 
 
 1 Politien, Comment. , f. 3 v° ; Fil. Strozzi, loc. cit., p. 521 ; Al. Rinuccini, p. 
 127; Morelli, Del., xix. 193; Diarium Parmense, xxii. 278; Guicciardini, c. 4, 
 p. 40; Machiavelli, viii. 120 a; Ammirato, xxiv. 118. 
 
1478] THE CONSPIRACY CRUSHED. 307 
 
 placed than themselves. Few in number, because it was said 
 that the dagger which had struck Lorenzo was poisoned and 
 his death was predicted, 1 they saw Jacopo cle' Pazzi bearing 
 down to the square from the gate Alia Croce, which he occupied 
 with Montesecco. The two priestly murderers had been cut to 
 pieces. Bernardo Baroncelli, seeing that the aim had missed, 
 took flight outside the town. Franceschino, weakened by his 
 wound, had retreated to his uncle's; and his eager prayers 
 would have sufficed to induce this old man to fight with a 
 hundred men, that Lorenzo's friends might be put to peril, if 
 the indifferent mass, called to arms for liberty, had not turned 
 a deaf ear to them. The Signory could only prevent the defeat 
 of their few defenders by flinging from the windows the stones 
 that were always kept in the palace, and which had been for 
 many centuries their defensive artillery. 
 
 It was only after having heard the tower bell ring, and learnt 
 that the gonfalon of justice was unfurled, that a number 
 of roughs began to shout, " Palle, Palle,'' without having the 
 slightest intention of doing anything. " There was not one," 
 Kinuccini wrote sorrowfully, "who cried Marzocco or any- 
 thing else." 2 On both sides the old energy was equally 
 lacking. Jacopo de' Pazzi soon left the party, retired to his 
 own house, and waited for two hours to see if Heaven would 
 not help him who had ceased to help himself ; and as nothing 
 happened, he retreated through the gate Alia Croce, which was 
 always strongly occupied, and took refuge in Eomagna with 
 two hundred of his peopled Now, if these two hundred 
 men had joined the hundred he had brought to the place, 
 they might perhaps have changed the face of things; but 
 
 1 Ant. Galli, De rebus genuens., xxiii. 283. 
 
 2 " Marzocco " was the lion of Florence ; "anything else " is evidently liberty 
 (Al. Rinuccini, p. 128). " Eorum tamen plus initio voces quam manus pilas 
 clamando operabantur" (Ant. Galli, De reb. genuens., xxiii. 283). 
 
 3 Fil. Strozzi, loc. cit., p. 522; Politien, f. 4 r°; Nic. Valori, Vita Laur., 
 p. 26 ; Diarium Parmense, xxii. 278 ; Ant. Galli, De reb. genuens. , xxiii. 282 ; 
 M. Bruto, 1. vi., in Burm., viii. part I, p. 152; Guicciardini, c. 4, Op. ined., p. 
 40; Machiavelli, viii. 120 B; Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 18. 
 
308 SUMMARY EXECUTIONS. [1478 
 
 in a coup-de-main he who thinks of his own safety lacks faith 
 in success. 
 
 When Jacopo's departure was known, the greatest poltroons 
 became brave ; they rushed in a body to the Medici's palace 
 to offer their devotion. They demanded Lorenzo, who showed 
 himself with his neck bound up in linen. In the public palace 
 the gates could be opened again, and communication estab- 
 lished between those without and those within. The Gon- 
 falonier Petrucci, who had given an opportune proof of courage, 
 all the more real since he knew nothing of what was going on 
 at the cathedral, in his anger upon learning the facts, had the 
 Archbishop Salviati, his brother, his cousin, and Jacopo Brac- 
 ciolini hung from the palace windows. Of all those who had 
 invaded him in their train, only one escaped, and he was dis- 
 covered four days afterwards under a mass of wood, where 
 he had hidden himself. He seemed sufficiently punished by 
 fright and hunger. 
 
 This was the only merciful act in an orgie of revenge and 
 repression. The people cut in pieces all who were described 
 as enemies of the Medici and friends of the conspirators. 
 Their bodies were dragged through the streets, their heads 
 and limbs were carried on pikes, and even the sacred 
 remains of a priest of the bishopric were not respected. 1 
 Franceschino, dragged out of bed, where he was ill from his 
 wound, and forsaken by his uncle, was conducted, undressed 
 as he was, to the town-hall, and hanged from the same window 
 as the Archbishop. Ilenato, ceasing to believe himself secure 
 in his villa, tried to escape in peasant attire. Recognised, 
 arrested, and conducted to Florence, he was hanged in spite 
 of his certain innocence. His no less innocent brothers were 
 thrown into prison in Volterra. Guglielmo took refuge in the 
 very house with Lorenzo. He owed it to his relationship that 
 he was only condemned to relegation in the Contado within 
 twenty miles and beyond five. They wanted to have him 
 
 1 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 19. 
 
1478] SUMMARY EXECUTIONS. 
 
 309 
 
 at hand. While his wife remained in Florence, he prudently 
 new to Eome. There, seeing him in shelter, they spared him, 
 and gave him some hope of a return to favour. 1 
 
 The churches were less friendly asylums than Lorenzo's 
 house ; Jacopo Bracciolini's two brothers were dragged out of 
 them and imprisoned, though one of them was a canon of the 
 cathedral. 2 Galeotto de Piero de' Pazzi was found in Santa 
 Croce dressed as a woman, and Giovanni d'Antonio in the 
 monastery of the Angelo. 3 Piero Vespucci was thrown into 
 the Stinche for the sole crime of having favoured the flight of 
 Napoleone Franzesi. 4 Montesecco, after a curious interroga- 
 tory, which has been preserved, although he had refused to 
 strike and had confessed — a double claim upon indulgence 5 — 
 was beheaded. The executions continued until May 1 8. 6 In 
 a few days about a hundred persons perished, and amongst 
 them how many innocent ! 7 
 
 Even while there were still many guilty or suspected persons 
 to punish, victims were sought for far and wide. Jacopo de' 
 Pazzi, arrested by the peasants of the Apennines, begged for 
 death, and was refused it. Conducted to Florence, the favour 
 was accorded him, with the ignominy of the gibbet (April 27). 
 His body was buried in the family tomb, but as it rained very 
 
 1 Lorenzo's instruction to his son Piero going to Rome in November 1484, in 
 Fabroni, Doc, p. 268. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiv. 119. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 118. 
 
 4 Al. Rinuccini, p. 128; Ammirato, xxiv. 119. This Franzesi probably died 
 the following year, in the army of the Duke of Calabria, before Florence. See 
 upon this fact and on the family, G. Capponi, ii. 119, 120. 
 
 5 May 4. See a MSS. quoted by Adimari at the end of the Commentary of 
 Politien, ed. of Naples. 
 
 6 On the diverse sentences of the Eight from August 28 to May 18, see the 
 sentences of the podesta Matteo des Toscani, at the end of Politien's Commen- 
 tary, p. 136-155. Reumont (1. iii. c. 1, vol. v. p. 402) refers us for a more or less 
 accurate list .of the wounded and dead to a MS. of the Magliabechiana, appendix 
 to the edition separate from Ammirato's account, p. 86-88. 
 
 7 Fil. Strozzi says eighty (in Capponi, ii. 522) ; Ammirato (xxiv. 119), seventy; 
 Al. Rinuccini (p. 127), 140 ; Allegretti (Diari Sanest, xxiii. 784), 200. Luca Lan- 
 ducci {Diario, p. 19) rates at about twenty the number of hanged the first evening, 
 and in three days more than seventy. He continues to enumerate the executions. 
 
310 FATE OF JACOPO DE' PAZZI. [1478 
 
 heavily at that time, it was believed that the heavens were 
 punishing the town for having buried in consecrated ground 
 this great blasphemer, who even in dying called upon the 
 devil. He was taken out of the sepulchre and buried under the 
 walls (May 1 6). " Some children next day disinterred him a 
 second time, dragged the body through the streets with a piece 
 of string around his neck, then, tired of this pleasure, and not 
 knowing what to do with the corpse, they threw it into the 
 Arno from the Eubaconte bridge, singing an improvised song — 
 
 " Messer Jacopo giu per Arno se ne va." 
 
 "This was regarded as a great miracle, for children are 
 afraid of the dead, and the body smelled so foully that no one 
 could approach it. From the 27 th of April to the 17 th of 
 May, think how it must have smelled ! And they had to 
 touch it with their hands in throwing it into the river. A 
 curious crowd was gathered on the bridges to watch it float 
 with the tide away from Florence. Another day, in the 
 vicinity of Brozzi, 1 some other children dragged it out of the 
 water, hanged it to a willow, beat it, and finally flung it back 
 into the river. It was said to have passed under the bridges 
 of Pisa." 2 
 
 Thus an eye-witness writes. Another contemporary, who 
 had seen nothing, on the contrary says that the body, thrown 
 into the Arno, was not found again. He adds that the devil 
 had carried it off with the souL 3 
 
 Twenty months did not soften the feelings of these con- 
 querors who had not fought. Bernardo Baroncelli retired to 
 Constantinople. Lorenzo's revenge pursued him there, and 
 Mahomet II. gave up the refugee, as the chronicler Burselli 
 naively says, from horror of a sacrilegious murder committed 
 
 1 Brozzi, Florentine Val d'Arno, five miles west of Florence, between that town 
 and Poggio a Cajano. See Repetti, i. 363. 
 
 2 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 21, 22. 
 
 3 Diarium Parmense, xxii. 279; Machiavelli (viii. 121 A) only states what is 
 likely ; Ammirato (xxiv. 120), believes like Landucci, that the corpse flowed away 
 with the current. 
 
1478] THE PAZZI PROSCRIBED. 311 
 
 in a church. 1 Bernardo was hanged from the windows of the 
 Bargello, December 29, 1479. 2 In 148 1 the unfortunate 
 wretches, vaguely accused of having wished to kill Lorenzo, 
 were killed in turn by horrible tortures. 3 If the Salviati 
 family were not entirely ruined through the fault of one 
 member, this was because the Medici found it wise to make 
 allies of some of them. 4 But no pity was shown the Pazzi. 
 On May 22 a decree ordained that their arms be effaced from 
 all public and private buildings, and replaced by that of the 
 Florentine people. The place called the Canto del Pazzi was 
 forced to drop the accursed name. The chariot of the sacred fire 
 for the feast of Holy Saturday 5 was still preserved, as it had 
 nothing in common with them, for, as the decree said, " it is the 
 honour of the Pazzi, and not the ancient custom, that is to be 
 suppressed." 6 All the survivors of the family were bidden to 
 change their arms and name in two months if they remained in 
 the dominions, in six if beyond them. Whoever took a wife 
 in the male line of Andrea de' Pazzi, or gave his daughter 
 in marriage to one of his descendants, would, with all his 
 descendants in male line, be ammonito, and for ever deprived 
 of all office and dignity. 7 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that the old punishment of 
 painting the guilty, head downwards and in grotesque atti- 
 tudes, upon the walls of the towers and upon the palace of 
 
 1 Burselli, Ann. Bonon., xxiii. 902. Landucci (p. 33) says that Baroncelli was 
 taken the 23rd of December 1479. The fury of vengeance had had ample time to 
 satiate itself. 
 
 2 Cronachetta de Belfradello des Strinati, at the end of the Storia di Semifonte, 
 p. 133- Cf. Guicciardini, c. 4, p. 42. 
 
 3 September 27, October 15, 1480. See in Landucci (p. 36) details of the tor- 
 tures from which an old hermit died, accused because he came to Poggio a Cajano 
 to Lorenzo. Farther on we shall find other tortures, in a less hypothetical con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 4 G. Capponi, ii. 120. 
 
 5 See our vol. i. p. Ill, 112. 
 
 6 " Ut Pactiorum decus, non mos sublatus videatur" (Decree in Fabroni, Doc, 
 P- "3). 
 
 7 Decree of May 22, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 114, 115. Cf. Fil. Strozzi, in G. 
 Capponi, ii. 522, App. 4. 
 
312 VINDICTIVE RETALIATION. [H7* 
 
 the Bargello, was not spared to the Pazzi. The painter, 
 Sandro Botticelli, devoted to the Medici, put all his talent 
 into it. Posterity accorded the honour to Andrea del Cas- 
 tagno, dead since 1 4 5 7. 1 The defamatory painting was effaced 
 afterwards, and by-and-by the people began to call the little 
 place by the name it so long had borne, Canto dei Pazzi, but 
 the Pazzi themselves never rose again. 2 
 
 There is no example in the history of the Florentine Kepub- 
 lic, even in its records of extremest violence, of so implacable 
 a vengeance. In popular commotions of olden times a few 
 people were killed. Under a princely rule, cruelty progresses 
 not so much in the refinement of torture as in the facility 
 of inflicting it, and in the duration of resentment and re- 
 venge. Whoever is surprised by it cannot know the fif- 
 teenth century. As for those who regard the tyranny of a 
 single individual the normal condition of peoples, it will not 
 occur to them to be indignant : rebellion calls for punish- 
 ment, and punishment is not bound to measure itself by the 
 crime, since, in their eyes, the crime assumes the gigantic 
 proportions characterised by the sinister and bloody words 
 — high treason. Even modern historians willingly accord 
 to princes the right of putting to death treasonable subjects. 
 They admit that a rising of six weeks calls for and merits 
 a six months' repression. And if one among them should 
 regret the absence of impartiality and justice, can he flatter 
 himself that even he is just and impartial ? 
 
 As was natural, the unfortunate Giuliano received a mag- 
 nificent funeral. It was known that his mistress, one of the 
 Gorini, was enceinte, and her child was brought up with 
 Lorenzo's children. He was afterwards Pope Clement VII.* 
 
 1 See above, p. 34, n. 2. Cf. Vasari, Andrea del Castagno, iv. 150; Reumont, 
 1. iii. c. I, vol. i. p. 406 ; G. Capponi, ii. 120. The editors, Milanesi (p. 151, n. 4, 
 of Vasari) are not quite certain upon this point. 
 
 2 "Fu spenta in pochi di una si nobile, ricca e potente famiglia" (Al. Rinuc- 
 cini, p. 128). . . , 
 
 3 G. Capponi, ii. 121. 
 
'478] LORENZO'S INCREASE OF POWER. 313 
 
 As for the survivor of the two intended victims, life-size 
 statues were raised to him, with waxen face and hands. 
 They were arrayed in garments resembling those worn by 
 the model, and prominently placed in the church of the San- 
 tissima Annunziata, and in that of a convent in the street 
 San Gallo. The likeness was striking. For a long time 
 public curiosity w T as excited by the statues, and they still 
 existed in Vasari's day. 1 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medicis was a lucky man. He had just 
 escaped an almost certain death, and was rid of a brother 
 he would have had to make away with if he had ever 
 claimed to share the power. In his defence the people 
 had taken up arms, and more than ever was he recognised 
 as their chief. For his safety he was allowed the privilege 
 of a body-guard of armed men, whose number was his own 
 choice. The attempt of his most serious enemies shook him 
 free of them, and furnished him with the precious oppor- 
 tunity, legitimate in appearance, of treating rigorously all who 
 stood in his way. The noisy rumour of the event glorified 
 the man who had so " providentially " escaped the dagger. 
 Kings congratulated him and treated him as a cousin. 2 
 Thus his power increased, and, as a whole, was more secure. 
 Henceforth his companions were subjects, the people en- 
 slaved, heredity was consolidated ; upon his death, without 
 immediate disaster and after an accidental crisis, hereditary 
 power went through the most common and perilous ordeal, 
 the replacing of an able and prudent prince by an idiot or a 
 madman. 3 
 
 Could the Pazzi conspiracy possibly have succeeded ? It 
 
 1 Andrea Verrocchio designed the faces, which were executed by an excellent 
 wax-moulder named Orsini. See Vasari, Andrea Verrocchio, v. 152. 
 
 2 Louis XI. to the Florentines upon the conspiracy, May 12, 1478, in Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 119, and Desjardins, i. 171. 
 
 3 In the sixteenth century Guicciardini pointed out this danger : " E spesse 
 volte di uno savio viene in uno pazzo, che poi da l'ultimo tuffo alia cita " (Stor. di 
 Fir., c. 4, Op. ined. y iii. 43). 
 
314 WEAKNESS OF THE CONSPIRATORS. [1478 
 
 is doubtful. If it had powerful support outside, it was of a 
 nature to render it the more unpopular at home. The con- 
 spiracy neglected to secure general favour, or at least keen 
 intelligence, a necessary precaution ; for if Lorenzo was little 
 loved, Giuliano was very popular because of his youth, his 
 soft and easy disposition, and his truly Florentine love of 
 pleasure and feasts. Finally, it was a great imprudence to 
 choose a church for murder ; the multitude were not, like the 
 priests, indifferent to the sacreclness of the place, or, like the 
 conspirators, imbued with the Pagan spirit of the Eenaissance ; 
 for them the murder, so far from being venial, became a 
 mortal sin through sacrilege. 1 To fail under such circum- 
 stances meant the complete sacrifice or the indefinite delay 
 of success. It can be affirmed that the Pazzi contributed 
 greatly to the strengthening of the Medici's powers. 
 
 Would the ruin of the Medici at this late hour have been 
 for Florence's welfare ? We may also be permitted to doubt 
 it, if not to deny it altogether. Einuccini shows little pene- 
 tration when he says that the Pazzi enterprise was just and 
 honest because its aim was to restore freedom to the country. 
 We have said it over and over that liberty was then but an 
 idle word, a pretext, a sort of flag for the ambitious. In 
 face of the Medici, progressive and ill-assured usurpers, the 
 ancient pojoolani and the old nobility, their rivals, who suffered 
 from their disdain, their severity, and their injustice, did not 
 so much strive to obtain greater justice as to throw off the 
 yoke, and to place under it those who imposed it, and those 
 who seemed destined always to bear it. 2 Had the Pazzi 
 succeeded, they would have replaced the Medici, as the Medici 
 had replaced the Albizzi. Perhaps they would have shared 
 their power with the Salviati, until such time as they 
 were torn asunder, when one of them would have started 
 
 1 A few of these ideas have been judiciously indicated by G. Capponi, ii. 120. 
 
 2 Rinuccini recognises this at the risk of self-contradiction ; " Mostrarono avere 
 animo virile e generoso, e non potere sopportare molte ingiurie e sdegni gli eran 
 suti fatti da Lorenzo medesimo" (p. 128). 
 
H78] USELESSNESS OF THE CONSPIRACY. 315 
 
 the same campaign that the Medici had brought to a success- 
 ful issue by patience and intrigue, and the Pazzi to an unsuc- 
 cessful issue by impatience and assassination. The only differ- 
 ence being that the new rule of an oligarchy would have 
 delayed the definitely hereditary reign of a single head, the 
 fatal term of evolution, in Florence as in the rest of Italy, in 
 virtue of the laws of affinity. Was it worth while to effect a 
 murder and attempt a revolution for a few days respite ? 
 Yes, for the families that would have gained by victory, since 
 blood-shedding in those days was a slight matter; but not 
 for the Florentine people, whose part now was to carry its 
 yoke philosophically. The observer and historian see as little 
 reason to regret the Pazzi's failure as to applaud the Medici's 
 triumph. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS IN STRIFE WITH THE HOLY SEE. 
 
 I478-I480. 
 
 Lorenzo's power after the Pazzi conspiracy — Sixtus IV. excited against Florence — 
 Florentine ambassador insulted — Florentine merchants imprisoned — Florence 
 under interdict (June 1, 1478) — Cardinal Sansoni set free (June 12) — War upon 
 paper — Consultation of the Florentine clergy — Negotiations with Louis XL— 
 Meeting of the French clergy at Orleans (September)— Relations with Venice- 
 Pontifical army on the frontier — War declared (July 7) — Confusion in the Florentine 
 army — Military operations — Taking of Montesansavino by the pontifical party 
 (November 8) — French embassy in Rome (January 1479) — Armistice (April 14) — 
 Failure and departure of the ambassadors (June 2)— Genoa freed (November 26, 
 1478) — Diversion of San Severino in Lunigiani (February 1479) — Incapacity and 
 discords of the Florentine chiefs— Devastations of the enemy — Lodovico il Moro, 
 Duke of Milan (September 8) — Discontent of the Florentines — Lorenzo's.departure 
 for Naples (December 6)— His enemies in Florence — His magnificence and nego- 
 tiations in Naples — His return (March 1, 1480)— Peace promulgated (March 25) 
 — Reform of Florentine institutions — Council of Seventy (April 8-19) — Opposition 
 of the Florentines— New alliances — Siege and taking of Otranto by the Turks 
 (July 28- August 11) — Florence delivered from her enemies — The interdict raised 
 (December 3) — Lorenzo strengthened. 
 
 It is commonly believed that the failure of the Pazzi con- 
 spiracy was the origin and beginning of absolute power for 
 the escaped victim. But to support this untenable opinion, 
 it is necessary to forget that Lorenzo's father and grandfather 
 had already ceased to be citizens, and to swear on the word of 
 courtier-historians. Lorenzo was the second of the race who 
 reached the pinnacle in virtue of the principle of heredity, not 
 yet declared, but implicitly accepted. From the first day he 
 followed the path that Cosimo and Piero had traced for 
 him, and, thanks to them, his foot upon it was surer. His 
 enemies' dagger only warned him to look more closely at his 
 feet, and to avoid the stones of offence. 
 
 It is true these stones became rarer by the very failure of 
 
 316 
 
1478] SIXTUS IV. AND LORENZO. 317 
 
 the Pazzi, for nobody dared to fling others after their terrible 
 expiation. More than ever did all peaceful folk, through 
 fear of disorder and the unknown, rally round the young lord, 
 so miraculously protected by Heaven. From without alone 
 could danger come. It was no small thing, in the ardour of 
 rage, to have killed two priests, hanged an archbishop, and 
 imprisoned a cardinal, the Pope's nephew, without the slightest 
 proof of his complicity in the conspiracy. At first, his im- 
 prisonment, which could not last long, left Sixtus IV. indif- 
 ferent enough. To the Florentines he wrote letters of con- 
 dolence, and he assured the Cardinal of Mantua, his legate at 
 Bologna, that he did not reproach the Bolognese with having 
 sent aid to Florence, since Florence had not committed any 
 offence against ecclesiastical dignity. 1 But the disappointed 
 instigator of the great plot was too near him not to help to 
 change his mind. 
 
 Count Girolamo Kiario neglected nothing to shuffle the 
 cards and to disturb his uncle and the Sacred College. Well 
 informed as to the acts and words of his Florentine enemies, 
 he reported, underlined and distorted everything. In despite 
 the Pope, who persisted in distinguishing between Lorenzo and 
 his fellow-citizens, he extended from the one to the others the 
 responsibility of his real or imaginary grievances, and in Eome 
 he headed a demonstration against the ambassador of the 
 Kepublic, the esteemed and learned Donato Acciajuoli. 2 Fol- 
 lowed by armed men, he carried off from his house this in- 
 violable person, paying no heed to his energetic protestations, 
 and conducted him between a guard of pikes to the pontifical 
 palace. 
 
 1 " Cum nihil adhuc Florentini in ecclesiasticum dignitatem moliti essent. . . . 
 Nos quoque casum ipsum primum indoluimus, et commiserationis nostrse testi- 
 monium per literas nostras ad Florentinos dedimus." This letter is found in the 
 commission MS. of the Pope to the Cardinal of Bologna. Gino Capponi, who 
 possessed it in his library, reports (p. 123 n. 2) the above passages, and he adds 
 that no Florentine historian mentions it any more than the other. 
 
 2 Michele Bruto says of Donato, " Vir nobilitate et probitate vitee pariter domi 
 forisque habitus clarus " (L. vii. in Burm., vol. viii. part i. p. 166). 
 
318 FLORENTINE AMBASSADOR INSULTED. [1478 
 
 They wanted to have him under their control, and not to 
 bring him to the Pope, but they could not refuse him the 
 satisfaction he insistently claimed. Before Sixtus IV., whose 
 anger was now alight, to everybody's surprise, he fell upon 
 humility. So far from maintaining the rights of the Floren- 
 tines, insulted in the person of their young chief, he pro- 
 tested that he had nothing to do with the events, that he 
 knew nothing about them, and that he disapproved of every- 
 thing. This dashed the arms from the Pope's hands, even 
 had the ambassadors o{ Milan and Venice not already relieved 
 him of them, by their assertion that they would regard as a 
 personal insult all injury done their colleague. Sixtus IV. 
 ordered that Donato be escorted to his house. If he had 
 had the feeling of outraged dignity, of violated inviolability, 
 surely Donato would have profited by his recovered liberty 
 to shake the dust of Eome from his feet and return to Florence. 
 Instead, he meanly stayed in Eome, degraded and powerless. 
 His despatches recommended the instant freedom of the young 
 Cardinal, who, he swore by all his gods, had been imprisoned 
 solely to save him from the fury of the people. Had not 
 the magnificent lords promised to give him up as soon as he 
 should be claimed ? Now, it was impossible to ignore that 
 the Bishop of Perugia, sent to Florence with that purpose, 
 had claimed him.* 
 
 But little fear so precious a hostage would thus be given 
 up. Many Florentine merchants were in Eome, threatened in 
 their persons and in their goods. They had secretly received 
 orders to place their merchandise in safety and to evacuate 
 the Eternal City, and had not kept the secret. In turn, fear- 
 ing to lose hostages that guaranteed the protection of his 
 subjects' money in Florentine banks, Sixtus IV. had all the 
 issues from Eome guarded, and flung into the Castle of Sant' 
 Angelo all those suspected of a desire to depart. At the end 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di D. Acciajuoli, c. 16, Spicil. Rom., i. 451 ; G. Capponi, 
 ii. 121, 122. 
 
1478] FLORENCE INTERDICTED. 319 
 
 of four hours they were released, under promise of not going 
 away. 1 The Cardinal of Ostia, informing his friend Lorenzo 
 of these facts, added in his missive, that five members of the 
 Sacred College had been named to take proceedings " against 
 Florence " — and not Lorenzo solely, as the Pope wanted to 
 pretend later — if the Cardinal of San Giorgio was not released 
 at once. 2 Yield, he urged, or else the resolutions of the five 
 cardinals, ratified by the Sacred College, will be very grave, 
 seeing that nothing can overcome the Sacred College. 3 On 
 her side, Venice gave the same counsel. She suggested the 
 excuse, already offered by the Florentines, that Eaffaello San- 
 son! had only been imprisoned in his own safety, and she 
 added that, since the danger had ceased, this explanation 
 would be rendered valueless if there was any longer delay 
 about the release. 4 
 
 The Cardinal of Ostia's letter was dated May 24. On 
 June 1, Sixtus IV. fulminated a sentence of excommunica- 
 tion against Lorenzo, the Signory, the Eight, and all the 
 accomplices in their detestable work. He enumerated all his 
 grievances, new and ancient, imaginary and real : the help given 
 to Niccolo Vitelli in the war of Citta di Castello ; the favour 
 accorded Carlo Fortebracci in his attempt against Perugia and 
 his expedition upon Siennese territory ; the asylum offered for 
 a while to Deifobo of the Anguillara, a fugitive from Eome. 
 Lorenzo and the Eight were accused of wishing, " with the fury 
 of mad dogs," to kill and destroy a vast number of citizens that 
 the chief of the Medici might be strengthened in his vengeance ; 
 of having introduced him for this purpose, against the general 
 
 1 The Cardinal of Ostia's letter, charged with restoring the Florentine merchants 
 to freedom, to Lorenzo de' Medicis, Rome, May 24, 1478, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 116. 
 
 2 " La santita di N. S. ha deliberato procedere per via di rasone contro quella 
 vostra Excelsa Comunita, se non si rende liberamente el R mo Mgr. le Card, di S. 
 Giorgio" {ibid., p. 116). 
 
 3 " Purche sapete che il sacro collegio non more mai" (Letter of the Card, of 
 Ostia, ibid.) p. 1 16). A part of the text of this letter may be found in Capponi, 
 ii. 123. 
 
 4 In Romanin, vol. iv. p. 389, may be seen the text of this letter from Venice, 
 dated May 22. G. Capponi quotes a passage, p. 123, n. I. 
 
320 THE EXCOMMUNICATION. [1478 
 
 will, into the balie, 1 whence arose so many public and private 
 discords ; of having refused for three long years to allow the 
 Archbishop of Pisa to take possession of his diocese ; of having 
 ignominiously hanged this prelate from a window, and after- 
 wards flung his corpse upon the ground ; of having killed other 
 ecclesiastics ; 2 of having insulted and imprisoned a cardinal of 
 the Holy Church, proof " of a devouring thirst of injustice and 
 cruelty against the clergy and the Church, which these rash men 
 wish to rob." As an aggravating circumstance, these evil deeds 
 were perpetrated on a Sunday ! The brief took care not to 
 mention that the murder of the Medici had been committed on 
 the same Sunday upon sacred ground; that the priests were 
 mixed up in it, and that it is not customary to put off to the 
 morrow the suppression of those who want to kill you to-day. 
 Thus Lorenzo was declared iniquitatis filius et perditionis 
 alumnus? and condemned with those whom the Pope branded 
 with him as " infamous, abominable, worthless, they, their sons 
 and descendants, unfit for ecclesiastical honours, for civil 
 offices, to inherit, to appear in court, or to be heard therein 
 as witnesses." Every man was forbidden to hold business 
 relations or conversation with them ; their goods should be 
 escheated, their houses destroyed and left for ever in ruins, 
 to preserve for posterity the remembrance of their wicked- 
 ness and its punishment. If within a month the town of 
 Florence had not given them up to the ecclesiastical tribunals, 
 she would be laid under severe interdict, as well as the dioceses 
 of Fiesole and Pistoia. 4 
 
 1 "iEgre hoc ferentibus civibus" (Excommunication of June I, text in Ann. 
 Eccl., 1478, § 5-10, vol. xxix. p. 582-585. The words quoted are on p. 584). 
 
 2 Doubtless the two murderers of Giuliano. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 582. 
 
 4 The analysis of the text in the Ann. Eccl. can be seen in Cipolla (p. 586), 
 Sismondi (vii. 117), and Capponi (ii. 124), who gives more details. Ammirato 
 (xxiv. 120) piously passes over in silence this monstrous brief, and only speaks of 
 the Pope's anger. Capponi, to exculpate him as much as possible, says (p. 125) that 
 Gir. Riario dictated, and that Sixtus merely added his signature. As if any one 
 could decline the responsibility of signing an act so grave and so aggravated by its 
 very terms ! 
 
H78] SANSONI RELEASED. 321 
 
 This display of bad faith, this cynical and furious language, 
 benefited Lorenzo rather than injured him, as it showed the 
 father of the faithful on the side of the assassins at a time when 
 he had not any acknowledged right to interfere in the domestic 
 affairs of neighbouring powers. But politics did not lose their 
 rights in Florence. Five days later, June 5, the Kepublic 
 began to yield, not without saving appearances. Cardinal 
 Sansoni was conducted from the Medici palace, where he had 
 been detained, to the convent of the Servi, which he was per- 
 mitted to leave on the 12 th June. He did not wait to be 
 told to go a second time. On Florentine ground his feet 
 trod burning coals, and next day he was in Sienna, on his 
 way to Eome, still white and trembling. 1 When he arrived 
 there, Florence had another enemy. 
 
 But it looked as if she intended to brave them all, for 
 on June 13, as soon almost as the Cardinal had turned on his 
 heel, the Ten of War were appointed, amongst whom were 
 Tommaso Soderini and Lorenzo himself. 2 This was, how- 
 ever, little else but the satisfaction of pride and bravado. The 
 election was no longer, as of old, a declaration of immediate 
 war. For that matter, nobody was ready. The people were 
 distracted from more serious matters by a singular plague 
 that swept over Italy from Venice to Florence, and even be- 
 yond. A cloud of locusts fell upon the country, especially in 
 Mantua and Brescia. Thousands of hands were employed to 
 kill these destructive insects, but none to bury them. Their 
 decomposition in the open air resulted in a dreadful pest, which 
 carried off in a month more than 2000 soldiers and several 
 
 1 Codex LXVII. Abbatiee Florentines, quoted by Fabroni, Doc, p. 115. Cf. 
 Allegretti, Diarii Sanesi, R.I.S., xxiii, 784. We find in the Atti delta Sinodo 
 Fiorentina (Fabroni, Doc., p. 158) a letter of Cardinal Sansoni to the Pope, dated 
 June 10, and in consequence from the convent of the Servi. He praises greatly 
 Lorenzo's behaviour to him, and expresses regret that his prayers to the Pope 
 should not have tempered his anger. If this letter be not a forgery, which is not 
 known, it is explained by the fact that Sansoni was not yet free. The lifted paw 
 of the Florentine lion might yet fall upon him. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiv. 120. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
322 PAPER HOSTILITIES. [1478 
 
 of the principal officers of the Republic. Venice was deserted, 
 the councils could not assemble ; and even supposing Rome 
 were still spared, Sixtus IV. would not have been in a hurry 
 to send his troops into the midst of infection. 1 
 
 For the moment, then, war upon paper replaced war upon 
 the field. The Florentine Chancellary replied to the Pope 
 upon the question of excommunication, and spread afar its 
 complaints ; but Bartolommeo Scala needed so much time to 
 furbish and revise his ample and elegant Latin periods, that 
 they were not ready until August 1 1 . 2 Lorenzo took coun- 
 sel with theologians even out of Florence. 3 Their advice 
 being that the Pontifical thunderbolt had no value, the order 
 was given to the three dioceses under interdict to ring the 
 bells, say mass, and administer the sacraments as usual. The 
 consultation of these persons learned in canon law was drawn 
 up in the form of a reply to the Pope, dated from Santa Re- 
 parata, 4 July 23, in very lively terms, and sent to the Emperor, 
 to the kings of France, Spain, and Hungary, and to all the 
 Christian princes. It claimed support against such violence, 
 and reparation of a scandal that was a general offence. Truly 
 a sword thrust in water, and such it was felt to be. 
 
 At the same time, the Signory wrote an apologetic letter to 
 the Pope, in which it feigned to take literally his assertion 
 
 1 Diario Parmense, xxii. 280 ; Ammirato, xxiv. 125 ; Sismondi, vii. 135. 
 
 2 The reply was published for the first time by Adimari at the end of Politien's 
 Conspiracy of the Pazzi, ed. of Naples, pp. 1 71- 176. The principal partis Monte- 
 secco's confession, which was a revelation of the incontestable reality and gravity 
 of the conspiracy. It is the Excusatio Florentinorum published by Fabroni, Doc, 
 pp. 167-181. See Cipolla, p. 587, and Capponi, ii. 125. 
 
 3 Whether these theologians met in a synod is a controvertible question. 
 Reumont and Cipolla believe so ; Fabroni does not. Roscoe and his Italian trans- 
 lators are of his opinion ; Capponi doubts. Lami declares that a proof MS. of the 
 counter-excommunication was seen, and that many MSS. less "orridi" have been 
 lost {Lezioni di Antichita Toscana, vol. i., pref., p. 135, Flor., 1766). Ammirato 
 names the theologians consulted (xxiv. 123). 
 
 4 This consultation is found, under the title Atti della Sinodo Fiorentina, in 
 Fabroni, Doc, pp. 136-166, and in Roscoe, Append. No. 27, vol. iii. p. 167 sea. 
 According to Fabroni, the writer was Gentile Becchi, Bishop of Arezzo ; according 
 to Reumont (i. 441), Rinaldo Orsini, Archbishop of Florence, one an old preceptor 
 of Lorenzo, and the other one of his wife Clarissa's relations. 
 
1478] POLICY OF THE POPE. 
 
 3*3 
 
 that he solely demanded Lorenzo's expulsion. 1 Such indeed 
 was the argument and attitude of Sixtus, who wished to pose 
 as a liberator. In writing to Federico of Urbino, July 25, 
 that " God had taken from the Florentines both intelligence 
 and feeling to punish them for their sins," 2 his anger was only 
 directed towards his nephew's gaoler. 3 They were simple 
 minds who accepted the Pope's words as gospel : he confessed 
 afterwards that to free Florence he was pursuing the followers 
 of Lorenzo as well as Lorenzo himself. 4 But in reality he was 
 led by many diverse influences. Jacopo Ammanati, Cardinal 
 of Pavia, counselled him to gain time, 5 and many of the mem- 
 bers of the Sacred College exhorted him to conciliation, while 
 the King of Naples cried out for vengeance against the Flor- 
 entine who had joined a league against him ; 6 and at the 
 Pontifical court Girolamo Biario and Raffaello Sansoni led the 
 chorus for war. 
 
 In thus pretending to separate Lorenzo from Florence, what 
 could be Sixtus' gain ? Doubtless he hoped that, by wearying 
 Florence with war and interdict, he would achieve the expul- 
 sion of " the tyrant." This was a policy ; but it should have 
 been logically carried out, and the Florentines should not have 
 
 1 " Ejicere nos e civitate vis Lauren tium de Medicis . . . et quod tyrannus 
 noster sit et publico christianse religionis bono adversetur." See the text in Galli, 
 De rebus genuens., R.I.S., xxiii. 293-295. There is no date. 
 
 2 Text in Fabroni, Doc., p. 130. 
 
 3 " Non agimus quicquam contra alios nisi contra ilium ingratum, excommuni- 
 catum et haereticum filium iniquitati Laurentium de Medicis " {Ibid. , p. 1 30). 
 
 4 "Di comune consenso fu deliberato di prender l'armi contro Lorenzo et suoi 
 seguaci come contra petram scandali et perturbatore della pace et quiete d'ltalia 
 per metter la citta di Firenze in liberta" (February 1480. The Pope's instruc- 
 tions to Antonio Crivelli, sent to the King of Naples. Text in Capponi, Append. 
 No. 5, vol. ii. p. 584, from a MS. in his library. These instructions contain a 
 sort of resume of the past). 
 
 5 July 16, Jac. Ammanati wrote in this sense to the Pope, urging him to promise 
 to pardon the Florentines if they repented, to defer receiving the French ambas- 
 sadors while the plague lasted, which prevented the cardinals from meeting 
 (Card. Papiens, Ep. 693, analysed by Sismondi, vii. 119-121, mentioned by 
 Capponi, ii. 131). 
 
 6 " Instando (il Re) per l'espulsione di Lorenzo . . . etiam che vi fosseromolti 
 cardinali che ci dissuadessero detta esclusione" (Instruct, to Ant. Crivelli, ibid., 
 p. 529). . 
 
3 2 4 NEGOTIATIONS WITH LOUIS XI. [1478 
 
 been irritated by the pillage of their banks and shops in Eome 
 and in Naples, which thus provoked the public opinion of 
 both cities in their favour. 1 If the popes were infallible at 
 all, it certainly was not in the part of temporal princes. 
 
 Lorenzo, on his side, feeling the celestial storm gathered 
 over his head, addressed himself to all the saints to ward 
 it off. Bartolommeo Scala's reply, which at last was ready, 
 made the round of the courts as the consultation of the Floren- 
 tine clergy. Drawn up in the name of a town once so Guelph, 
 it appealed formally to the Emperor. 2 Lorenzo, establishing 
 more intimate relations with Louis XL, 3 was not long kept 
 in suspense. Replying, May 27, to the letters of condolence 
 upon the murder of his brother, brought him by Philippe 
 de Comines, 4 he humbly pleaded " not guilty." He declared 
 that his only crime had been to resist being killed. He 
 promised the king the friendship of the three allied States, 
 Florence, Milan, and Venice, and begged his resolute support 
 against the Pope, and proposed a council. 5 He pretended that 
 his affairs were much improved by the coming of the " very 
 illustrious Lord of Argentan," who, after a year's sojourn, 
 acknowledged his powerlessness. 6 But Lorenzo was too far- 
 seeing not to recognise that he had little to hope from Louis 
 XL This practical monarch only believed in fighting by de- 
 spatches and embassies. 7 He gave vent to his discontent ; he 
 
 1 Diar. Farm., xxii. 279; Giovanni di Juzzo in the Cronache di Viterbo, pub- 
 lished by Ignazio Ciampi, Flor., 1872, p. 419, and quoted by Cipolla, p. 587. 
 
 2 See Fabroni, Doc, p. 181. 
 
 8 Desjardins (vol. i. passim) shows that the despatches were not purely diplo- 
 matic. Dogs, magic rings, and the way to wear them were demanded, &c, 
 details proclaiming very close intimacy. 
 
 4 These letters are of May 12. See Desjardins, i. 171. 
 
 5 Letters of May 27 and June 19. See Buser, p. 194 ; Cipolla, p. 589 ; Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 131. Capponi (p. 126) judged the letter of June 19 "fiere e dignitose." 
 I cannot accept this judgment. 
 
 c " Que res rebus nostris multum attulit favoris et dignitatem multum ornavit . . . 
 insurgunt in nos isti crudelissimi hostes et multa succedunt, quia sunt adorti im- 
 provisos . . ." (Text in Desjardins, i. 172-173). " Lafaveur du roy fit quelque 
 chose, mais non pas tant que j'eusse voulu, car je n'avois armee pour les ayder" 
 (Comines, i. vi. chap. iv. vol. ii. p. 204). 
 
 7 This is seen in the despatches published by Desjardins, i. 173-186. 
 
1478] COUNCIL AT ORLEANS. 325 
 
 called Count Girolamo " homme nagueres comme incongneu, 
 de basse et petite condition ; " he complained of " la grant 
 vuidange d'argent qui se tire de nostre royaume." 1 In a very 
 lively letter to the Pope he quoted Scripture and the Apoca- 
 lypse concerning those who, having caused scandal, atrociously 
 persisted therein ; he expressed unreverential regret that his 
 Holiness did not know what he was about, and was not imma- 
 culate amid so much crime. 2 Not having been listened to 
 when he demanded the meeting of a council to unite the 
 Christians against the Turks, he called one himself at Orleans 
 in the month of September, solely composed of French prelates, 
 who owed him obedience and submission. 
 
 Even on this, his own ground, the Pontifical ambassador 3 
 played a trick on him, in spite of the Florentine ambassador. 4 
 Impeded by the Nuncio's fine promises, 5 this National Council, 
 presided over by Pierre de Bourbon, composed of three hundred 
 clergy and a great number of lords, only resulted in the 
 following declaration, in which the interests of France seem 
 better protected than those of Italy : " Le royaume italique et 
 les autres puissances confederees avec le roy tres chrestien, 
 ay ant interest a ce qu'un concile general soit tenu tous les dix 
 ans, le pape sera requis d'en convoquer un le plus tost possible, 
 et jusqu'a ce que ledict seigneur pape ait depose* les armes 
 prises par luy contre les chrestiens, aucun argent ne sera 
 
 1 Ord. of Selommes, August 16, 1478. Ordonnances des Rois de France, vol. 
 xviii. pp. 425-427. 
 
 a " Utinam Sanctitas Vestra dignaretur considerare quod egit. . . . Utinam a 
 tarn nefandis rebus Sanctitas Vestra immaculata foret" (Letter of August 18, 
 1478, in Malipieri, Arch. Stor. y 1st ser., vol. vii. p. 247). 
 
 3 Gian Andrea des Grimaldi, Bishop of Frejus, ambassador of the Holy See at 
 the court of France. '* II n'est venu fors pour dissimuler et nous cuider abuser" 
 (Louis XL's letter to the Cardinals, October 17, 1478, in Buser, Append., p. 483. 
 Cf. p. 197 of the same). 
 
 4 Baccio Ugolini, sent by Lorenzo to the Emperor and the King of France, 
 August 14, 1478, Buser, p. 196-197. 
 
 5 L'assanblee a Orliens de' prelati di Francia si tiene et e vi gran giente, ma 
 non credo vi si conchiuga nulla per la speranza che questo vescovo a dato al Re 
 che Papa fara" (Leonardo des Rossi's letter to Lorenzo, Lyons, September 26, in 
 Buser, Append., p. 478). 
 
326 RELATIONS WITH VENICE. [1478 
 
 envoye a la cliambre apostolique, dans la crainte qu'il ne serve 
 a la continuation de la guerre." 1 Such was the last word 
 of French policy, a pretext for not sending any more money. 
 Lorenzo cannot have been deceived by it. 
 
 Might greater reliance be placed on Venice? She was 
 bound to Florence by the league, and the Pope expected she 
 would turn against him. 2 She had warned him of her intent 
 (July 7), while an embassy was sent to assure Lorenzo that 
 negotiations were on foot with Ferrara and Milan to furnish 
 him with help. The Venetian ambassador at the court of Rome 
 was to reply, in case the Pope referred him to Count Girolamo, 
 that the Most Serene Republic had accredited him only to his 
 Holiness. 3 Two months later, the Council of Ten represented 
 to Sixtus IV., as Louis XL had done, that it was urgent to 
 bring this war to an end in order to turn upon the Turk 
 (September 1 8), and on December 7th it wrote to the 
 Emperor and the King of France to strengthen their inten- 
 tion of calling a general council. 4 All these superficial steps 
 meant nothing in a century when even signed treaties carried 
 
 1 Bibl. Nat. Fonds Fran fats, MS. 3880 : Relation exacte de la negotiation f aide 
 par les ambassadenrs de Louis XI. four tr aider de la paix entre le Pape Sixte IV. 
 et le Roy de A aples cfune part, et la Rep. de Venise, les Dues de Milan et de Ferrare 
 et la Rep. de Florence d 'autre part es annees 1478 et 1479. This MS. is only a 
 copy, but it is too full of faults to be a forgery. Besides, it was amongst those 
 given to the Library by Antoine Lancelot, named inspector of the Royal College 
 in 1732. Montfaucon indicates it {Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptorum, 
 vol. ii. pp. 1667-1669) ; and M. Dantier gives an interesting analysis of it {V Italic, 
 Etude Histoj'iqucs, ii. 172 so.). Cf. Gilles Andre de la Roque, Hist, de la Maison 
 d Harcourt, vol. i. p. 445, Paris, 1662, in 4to. This writer only sees the agitated 
 affair of Orleans from the French point of view. Labbe only writes a word upon 
 the meeting, and the historians do not even speak of it. 
 
 2 " Ad Venetos habbiamo justificatamente riposto se faranno cose injuste, Deus 
 est desuper, qui retribuit unicuique juxta opera sua" (the Pope's letter to Ferd. of 
 Urbino, July 25, 1478, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 131). 
 
 3 " Si Beatitudo ipsa vos, ut solet, remitteret ad comitem Hieronymum, dicite 
 esse oratorem nostrum ad sanctam sedem apostolicam et ad illius Beatitudinem, 
 si Summus Pontifex esse voluerit memor debiti et officii sui, non ad comitem 
 Hieronymum " (Arch. Venice, Sen. Seer, xxviii. f. 103, July 7, 1478, in Brosch, 
 Fapst Julius II. und de Griindung der Kirchenstaates, notes, p. 304, n. 3, 
 Gotha, 1878). 
 
 4 Doc. of the Secreta, indicated by Romanin, ix. 389-392. 
 
1478] DECLARATION OF WAR. 327 
 
 no weight. Lorenzo was well aware that Venice accused him 
 of having embarked upon this accursed Italian war. 1 
 
 Thus he was quite alone, or nearly so. On the other hand, 
 the Pope could count on the King of Naples and on Federico 
 of Urbino, a petty prince, but " grant et saige homme et 
 bon capitaine," 2 whom he placed at the head of his army. 
 He remembered the saying of one of his predecessors, Pius II., 
 that this man, blind of an eye, saw more with one eye than 
 others with two. 3 He respected in him the adventurous soldier 
 who had learnt caution and punctuality in Piccinino's school, 
 and execution and rapidity of thought in Sforza's. He knew 
 him to be disposed to form a company and accept a condotta to 
 cut out for himself a principality, since that of his father, Guid- 
 antonio of Montefeltro, was the inheritance of the legitimate 
 son, not of the bastard. 4 
 
 This brilliant condottiere, with Alphonsus of Calabria, Fer- 
 rante's son, was upon the Florentine frontier by July 3. On 
 the nth, they encamped near Montepulciano, communicated 
 with Sienna, and sent their contemptuous declaration of war 
 to Florence by a simple trumpeter. The trumpeter carried a 
 Pontifical missive, dated the 7th, signifying to the Florentines 
 that Lorenzo's ill-doing rendered war inevitable, but that 
 arms would be laid down if he were expelled, as nothing then 
 would prevent the Republic from joining the other States in 
 the enterprise against the Turk. 5 
 
 1 " Resto awisato che del fatto de' denari non mi bisogna stare a speranza, che 
 Dio sa quanto sono suto contento, maxime intendendo le cagioni, e che costi 
 reputano che io li habbi messi in guerra . . . Vorrei piutosto haverci perdulo 
 10 m. ducati non che accatatili con tanto stento e vituperio che havere letto 
 simili parole" (Lorenzo to Girolamo Morelli, November 13, 1478, in Buser, 
 Append., p. 485). 
 
 2 Comines, 1. iv. ch. iv. vol. ii. p. 203. 
 
 3 Ricotti, hi. 228. Federico, born in 1422, was still in his prime. 
 
 4 Cron. d^Agobbio, xxi. 996 ; Sacchetti, Novelle, nov. 119, vol. ii. p. 174; Ricotti, 
 iii. 223-225. Cf. Ugolini, Storia dei Conti e Duchi d'Urbino, Flor., 1859 ; James 
 Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, London, 1851. 
 
 5 Luca Landucci, Diario for., p. 23. This curious chronicle, published in 1883, 
 was known in MS. to Adimari, editor of Politien's Pazzi's Conspiracy : he quotes 
 it in the Append., p. 49, n. 113. Cf. Ammirato, xxiv. 222. 
 
328 STATE OF THE ARMY. [1478 
 
 Even this defiance was slow to rouse Florence. Lorenzo 
 harangued her with his well-oiled tongue. 1 u . They threaten 
 us with schism and disobedience," wrote the Pope. 2 Pliant to 
 the spur, the Ten of War collected men and money every- 
 where ; but money came in more readily than men. Venice 
 only sent a few soldiers, not holding herself bound to furnish 
 troops against a private individual like Count Girolamo. 3 A 
 few spare squadrons came from Milan, commanded by Alberto 
 Yisconti and Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, a noble captain, who had 
 already served Louis XL in opposing the League of Public 
 Welfare, 4 and who later on was Marshal of France in the Italian 
 wars. What could he or Alberto Visconti do with a hundred 
 armed men ? 5 What confidence could they hope to inspire when 
 the year before an illegitimate daughter of Galeaz Maria, sister 
 of the young Duke Gian Galeaz, had married this same Count 
 Girolamo ? 6 There were almost as many captains as soldiers, 
 and the best were already in the Pope's pay? 7 The civil 
 commissary of the army, Jacopo Guicciardini, lacked authority, 
 and a captain-general could not be found. When Ercole of 
 Este, Duke of Ferrara, was selected for this post, Venice raised 
 objections against a prince who was too much of a neighbour 
 to be a friend, who, as the King of Naples'* son-in-law, would 
 be a half-hearted leader against his brother-in-law, the Duke 
 of Calabria ; 8 and Louis XL was of this opinion too. 9 
 
 1 Ammirato (xxiv. 122) and Machiavelli (viii. 121 b) report his great speech^ 
 which Capponi quotes from Ammirato (ii. 127). 
 
 2 Letter of Sixtus IV. to Ferd. of Urbino, July 25, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 131. 
 
 s Malipieri, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 247; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 5, 
 Op. ined., iii. 48; Machiavelli, viii. 122 B. 
 
 4 See Rosmini, Vila di G. J. Trivulzio, p. II, Milan, 1815. Cf. Ricotti, iii. 
 216, on his exploits. 
 
 5 Rosmini, ibid., p. 53. 
 
 6 In 1477. Giov. di Juzzo, be cit., p. 414 ; Cipolla, p. 589 ; Litta, Famiglia 
 Sforza, tav. 5. 
 
 7 See some names in Capponi, ii. 128. 
 
 8 Marin Sanuto, xxii. 1209; Malipieri, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 246. 
 
 9 " Egli (Louis XL) e molto grandemente maravigliato che voi abbiate fatto lo 
 ducha di Ferrara chapitano gienerale, et dicie che se non vi viene piii di male 
 di questo che del parentado che e suto fatto, che non ve ne verra mai punto " 
 (Comines to Lorenzo, Turin, September 23, in Buser, Append., p. 481). 
 
1478] MILITARY DISORGANISATION. 329 
 
 None the less Ercole came to the camp before Poggio 
 Imperiale. He came on September 13, and only received his 
 baton of commander on the 27th, at half-past ten o'clock, or 
 sixteen by Italian reckoning ; thus the astrologers wished it. 
 He was to be paid 60,000 florins in war, and 40,000 in 
 peace. All his expenses and his followers were to be paid as 
 long as he was upon the territory, 1 which meant that he was 
 to go beyond it, and that beyond it they would live by war. 
 But it was not probable that they could act upon the offensive. 
 Trivulzio, in his letters, shows the Florentine army without 
 provisions, without guastatori or order, the men scattered, the 
 regiments mixed, or separated one from the other by a half mile ; 
 hardly a hundred and fifty infantry properly armed. To their 
 own soldiers the Florentines shamelessly sold provisions at the 
 highest possible rate, and victuals from outside were subjected 
 to taxes so heavy as to be almost prohibitive. 2 The discipline 
 and perfection of the Lombard army, so much admired by the 
 civil commissary, 3 were nevertheless lost upon this nation of 
 merchants. " This was how our soldiers of Italy fought," writes 
 a discouraged contemporary, Luca Landucci : " thou wilt rob 
 down there, and I here. There is no need to approach one 
 the other. A castle is bombarded for several days, and nobody 
 thinks of relieving it. One of these days we shall have to 
 have the Ultramontanes to teach us war." 4 This chronicler and 
 patriotic grocer was an unconscious prophet. 
 
 1 Al Rinuccini, p. 129. 
 
 2 " Vidi questa gente de' signori fior. cum uno tristissimo ordine per modo ch'io 
 ne ebbi disgusto, senza ordine alcuno, l'uno homo d'arme lontano dall'altro . . . 
 spesso una squadra meschiata coll'altra. per modo ch'io non li comprehendeva 
 regola . . . una squadra era lontana dall'altra mezzo miglio. . . . Fano vendere le 
 victualie piu caro sii possibile senza limitatione di pretii ad le robe. . . . Sel vene 
 robe in campo ne della Lombardia ne d'altro, li fano pagare tanti dazi chel e una 
 meraviglia et che e pezo le reteneno ne le lassano passare Fiorenzia " (Trivulzio to 
 the Duke of Milan, in Rosmini, Vita di Trivulzio, vol. ii., Doc. 2 and 4, p. 31, 
 32 ; cf. p. 36, and in Ricotti, iii. 218, n. 1). 
 
 3 " II commissario fior. che accompagnava l'esercito rimase molto maravigliato 
 e contento della disciplina ed eleganza della soldatesca lombarda" (Rosmini, vol. 
 
 i. P- 53)- 
 
 4 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 24, 25. 
 
33o SIEGE OF MONTE SAN SAVINO. [1478 
 
 Less far- seeing, Lorenzo had never occupied himself with 
 the study of war. He was full of confidence, and did not believe 
 it possible that the enemy would attack him ; 1 he only saw 
 their weak, and not their strong side. Comines, who was 
 there, saw both. He saw the Pontifical and Neapolitan troops 
 scattered over Chianti, covering the Val d'Elsa and the heights 
 that dominate the Val d'Arno, destroying the country by fire 
 and pillage, besieging the castles of the energetic Ricasoli. 2 
 " lis prenoient," he wrote, " toutes les places qu'ils assi^geoi- 
 ent, mais non pas si promptement comme on feroit ici, car ils 
 ne scavoient point si bien la maniere de prendre places, ne de 
 les deffendre, mais de tenir un champ et de y donner bon 
 ordre, tant aux vivres que aultres choses qui sont necessaires 
 pour tenir les champs, ils le scavoient mieulx que nous." 3 
 
 At last the Florentine army was massed and ready for 
 action. At the same time Urbino and Calabria evacuated 
 Chianti, advanced towards the valley of Chiana, and laid siege 
 to the important place of Monte San Savino, which upon the 
 frontier commanded the entrance to the plains of Arezzo and 
 Cortona, to the valleys of Am bra and of Arno. Contrary to 
 Lorenzo's calculation, they assumed the offensive, and the 
 Duke of Ferrara hurriedly leaving the Siennese territory, where 
 he had taken a few small towns, was ordered with the entire 
 army to rush to the imperilled spot without delay. 4 
 
 The warfare, hitherto guerilla, was now concentrated, and the 
 advantage was in favour of Florence's enemies. The incapable 
 and irresolute Florentine captain lost precious time in discussions 
 with his officers and the civil commissary. He never found 
 
 1 " Le cose della guerra si stanno alio usato et pare che i nostri nemici habbino 
 poca speranza d'offenderne, perche tucti i buoni luoghi sono bene provisti. . . . 
 Sono a campo a uno piccolo palazzo d'uno nostro cittadino dimorato gia dieci 
 giorni. Chredo lo haranno, che vi hanno piantato due grosse bombarde " (Lorenzo 
 to Comines, September 24, in Buser, Append., p. 482). 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiv. 127. Having lost their castles after a vigorous defence, the 
 Ricasoli were allowed privileges and declared fit for office. See Al. Rinuccini, 
 
 p. 130. 
 
 3 Comines, 1. vi. ch. iv. vol. ii. p. 203. 
 
 * Ammirato, xxiv. 128; Sismondi, vii. 126. 
 
H78] CAPTURE OF MONTE SAN SAVINO. 331 
 
 the camp in order. He was full of excellent reasons for hold- 
 ing himself aloof, 1 and allowed the deserters to increase. He 
 granted a truce of eight days to his adversaries without exact- 
 ing an interruption in the work of the siege. It hardly needed 
 so much to make him suspected of treason. 2 Still worse, his 
 brother Alberto, sent by the King of Naples to rouse Ferrara 
 against a prince declared fallen by the Pope, visited him in his 
 camp, 4 it was thought with the object of turning him from his 
 engagements. The fall of Monte San Savino under his eyes 
 (November 8) increased the distrust and anger, when the con- 
 queror was seen quietly installed in his winter quarters upon 
 the heights above Chiana, while Ercole and his humiliated 
 troops were below between the Olmo and Puliciano. 5 
 
 Sismondi wonders that Lorenzo did not appear in the army 
 during this campaign, of which he was the cause. 6 Certain 
 it is that his military incapacity was not an excuse, since 
 the civil commissaries were hardly more capable than he, 
 and his presence would have inspired his party with courage. 
 It is true he had reason not to go far from Florence, of 
 which he was not over- sure, but Monte San Savino was only 
 fifteen leagues distant. He could often have gone and 
 returned easily enough. Apparently he regarded the hostili- 
 ties as unimportant, and preferred the closer field of diplomacy, 
 where he was past-master, at a time when such masters were 
 not wanting. 
 
 1 " E'l nostro campo non voile mai andare a trovare e nimici " (Luca Landucci, 
 Diario, p. 28, 29. See on same page note upon the fruitless efforts of the Floren- 
 tine government to obtain more serious measures). 
 
 2 ' ' Dissesi che'l nostro capitano non voile vincere e che non faceva el dovere, 
 e non si diceva altro per popolo " {Ibid., p. 32). 
 
 3 Ann. Eccles., 1479, § 16, vol. xxix. p. 599. 
 
 4 Diario Parm., xxii. 288. 
 
 5 The Olmo is in the valley of Chiana, on the road to Perugia. There are 
 several Puliciano. The one in question is naturally the nearest to the Olmo. 
 See Repetti, iii. 657, and iv. 683. On these facts Allegretti, xxiii. 784 ; Ammirato, 
 xxiv. 129 ; Machiavelli, viii. 123 A ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 5, Op. ined., iii. 
 49 ; Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 28, who gives November 1 as the date of the 
 taking of Montesansavino. 
 
 6 See Sismondi, vii. 127. 
 
332 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. [1478 
 
 It would be tedious to enumerate all the ambassadors who 
 in the affairs of Italy wore out their horses' hoofs upon the 
 highways of Europe. To the potentates who looked upon 
 Lorenzo as a brother and a cousin, the Pope appeared to go too 
 far. While Lorenzo despatched by an orator to justify him at a 
 Diet invoked in Germany by the Emperor Frederick III., 1 he 
 received an ambassador from Mathias Corvinus, King of Hun- 
 gary (November 1 2), who came to offer this prince's mediation. 2 
 Venice, freed from the Turks, 3 no longer alleged as an excuse for 
 abstaining from the war its private character ; she represented 
 to the Pontifical ambassadors that the Pope " injured the 
 Florentines spiritually and temporally, upon the request of 
 others, and for the satisfaction of dishonest appetites." 4 It 
 was a lie, she said, to pretend that the much-calumniated 
 Lorenzo alone was attacked. " It was the State itself and the 
 form of government that he wished to reach." f 
 
 Louis XL went still further than Venice. In December 
 1478 he sent eight ambassadors to Italy, two for each of the 
 towns of Milan, Rome, Naples, and Florence. 6 Their instructions 
 included a renewed invitation to the Pope to call " un consille 
 general en lieu decent et competant la ou nostre diet Sainct 
 Pere, se son plaisir estoit, se pourroit trouver en personne, 
 ou y commettre et depputer legat." 7 They were to propose 
 
 1 " Per giustificare le cose nostre e li incharichi che ne ha dati il papa iniusta- 
 mente " (Lorenzo to Comines, October 24, 1478, in Buser, Append., p. 486). 
 
 2 Lorenzo to Girolamo Morelli, November 13, 1478, in Buser, Append., p. 485. 
 
 3 Venice had concluded peace with the Turks, January 26, 1479. See Sis- 
 mondi, vii. 149. 
 
 4 " A petitione d'altri e per satisfare dishoneste voglie e appetiti di chi si sia" 
 (Secreta, p. 91 ; Romanin, iv. 390. Text in Capponi, ii. 132, n. 2). 
 
 5 " Perche ben intendemo tutti nuiquesta offesa no'esser fatta piu alle particu- 
 larity de Lorenzo innocentissimo di tutte quelle calunnie si sono apposte, che al 
 presente stato e forma de governo de la citta di Fiorenza " (Ibid. ). 
 
 6 Diario Farm., xxii. 294. Malipieri (p. 247) errs when he states that these 
 ambassadors reached' Venice November 24, as their instructions were dated 20th 
 (Bibl. Nat. MS., 3880, f. 17), and in this MS. (f. 29 v°), in Buser (p. 203), we find 
 that they entered Milan December 27. 
 
 7 See these instructions in the MS. of Bibl. Nat., No. 3880. The quoted passage 
 is in f. 17 r°. 
 
1479] FRENCH EMBASSY. 
 
 333 
 
 Lyons, 1 and offer an apology for the Florentines, " qui se sont 
 toujours montres et exibes bons et loyaux Francois," repre- 
 senting that the war made upon them by Riario was the sole 
 cause that prevented them from seconding Venice in defence 
 of the faith. 2 On the I 5th January 1479, Louis XL's ambas- 
 sadors at Florence stated in their official audience that the 
 Pope " avoit fait scavoir au roy . . . qu'il estoit content luy 
 remettre la pacification de la dissention qui estoit entre nostre 
 diet Sainct Pere et le roy Ferrand d'une part, icelle Seigneurie 
 de Florence, le magnifique Laurens et la ditte illustrissime 
 Ligue d'autre." 3 
 
 The signors who gave them audience suspected that these fine 
 speeches meant action. "Go forth, royal angels," they said, 
 " under the protection of angels divine ; go to those who have 
 sent you, and restore to Italy the peace that is her due ! " 4 
 But Lorenzo saw more clearly into Louis's game, 5 who, old 
 and sickly, masked his approaching end from Europe by nego- 
 tiations or menaces, though at heart he was little inclined for 
 enterprises he had not the strength to carry out. 6 He paid no 
 heed to the promise of five hundred lancers, knowing they 
 would not arrive, though he was much in need of them, 7 as he 
 
 1 Bibl. Nat. of Paris, MSS. } No. 3880, f. 20 r<>. 
 
 2 Ibid., f. 21 r° v°. 
 
 3 Jbid. , f. 50 v°. 
 
 4 " Agite igitur, angeli regii, divinis angelis comitantibus, vadite quo mittimini, 
 et reddite Italise debitam parcem" (Ibid., f. 55 r°). We can see that the Floren- 
 tine orator understood the double meaning of the word angehis, and that the pun 
 was intentional. 
 
 5 " Noi abbiamo poca speranza di pace per questo mezzo di Francia, per molte 
 ragioni che intendete meglio di me, et pero vorremmo che non ci nocessi quello 
 che non speriamo ci possi molto giovare, et che questa giustificatione della speranza 
 della pace non ci tirassi uno altro anno la guerra adosso et fussimo trovati spro- 
 veduti " (Lorenzo to Tommaso Soderini, orator in Venice, December 11, 1748, 
 in Buser, Append., p. 484). 
 
 6 " II faisoit tant de semblables choses et telles qu'il estoit plus crainct de ses 
 voisins et de ses subjectz qu'il n'avoit jamais este : car aussi e'estoit sa fin, et le 
 faisoit pour ceste cause" (Comines, 1. vi. c. vii. vol. ii. p. 234). 
 
 7 "A me pare che questa deliberatione del Re del mandare nuova ambasciata 
 in Italia, sia buona, se al medesimo tempo le gente d'arme ancora loro passassino 
 et non si lasciassi indrieto la convocatione de' prelati ad Orliens" (Lorenzo to 
 Comines, September 24, 1478, in Buser, Append., p. 482). 
 
334 CONDITIONS OF PEACE. [i479 
 
 had no desire for peace, which every one knew. 1 As soon as he 
 learnt the conditions of the Holy See, he hastened to commu- 
 nicate them to Louis XL, first by his most trusty messenger, 
 Donato Acciajuoli, who was so ill-treated in Home, and after his 
 death en route in Milan, 2 by Guidantonio Vespucci, a renowned 
 lawyer. 3 Sixtus IV. insisted that the negotiations should be 
 intrusted to the kings of France and England, with a legate, the 
 Emperor and his son, Maximilian, who was married to the heiress 
 of Burgundy. Now, Louis XI. being upon unfriendly terms 
 with these princes, the Florentines found themselves supported 
 by a single ally, whose earnestness was far from reliable. 4 If 
 they wanted peace without waiting for arbitration, they should 
 implore pardon and absolution, give alms, offer up masses, 
 build an expiatory chapel in memory of the priests killed in 
 the conspiracy, efface the infamous effigy of the Archbishop 
 Salviati, promise not to attack the States of the Church, pay a 
 pecuniary indemnity, or make restitution of Borgo San Sepolcro, 
 and even Modigliana and Castrocaro, places acquired long before 
 this war. 
 
 In communicating these exorbitant conditions to their allies, 
 
 1 " El Re di Francia ha rivocati li amb. che mandava in Italia, et so che sara 
 tenuta mia opera, et che la prima cosa che dira el Re di Francia alii amb. nostri 
 sara che Lor. de' Medici ha voluto che li rivochi," &c. (Lorenzo's letter, Nov- 
 ember 1748, in Buser, Append., p. 483). In December, concerning the new French 
 embassy, Lorenzo wrote: "De leur venue il adviendra facilement que nos com- 
 pagnons (de la Ligue) qui sont naturellement froids, le deviendront d'autant plus 
 par l'espoir de la paix. A quoi il y a deux remedes : l'un de pousser les prepa- 
 ratifs de la guerre ; l'autre, qui les membres de la Ligue adjoignent chacun un 
 orateur aux ambassadeurs francais pour empecher un trop long sejour a Rome, si 
 les reponses du Pape etaient belliqueuses ou seulement dilatoires " (Lorenzo to 
 Tomm. Soderini, December II, 1478, in Buser, Append., p. 484). 
 
 2 D. Acciajuoli, dead, was covered with honours, and his family with favours, 
 to encourage the State servants. His two sons became wards of the Republic, and 
 his two daughters were dowered. The entire family for fifteen years was exempted 
 from all taxes. See the provision in Fabroni, Doc, p. 191 (not dated). Cf. 
 Vespasiano, Vita di D. Acciaj., c. 20; Spicil. Rom., i. 455; Rinuccini, p. 129; 
 Machiavelli, viii. 123 B ; Ammirato, xxiv. 126; M. Bruto, 1. vii. in Burmann, 
 vol. viii. part 1, p. 166. 
 
 3 Machiavelli, viii. 123 B ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. 5, vol. iii. p. 50. 
 
 4 See Ann. Eccl, 1478, the protest of the ambassador, and the Pope's reply, 
 §§ 19, 20, vol. xxix. p. 588. 
 
1479] FRIENDS AND FOES. 335 
 
 the Signory entreated them to obtain more reasonable ones by 
 means of a Council, but they felt so little hopeful of success 
 that at the same time they begged Venice to yield them the 
 condottiere Fortebracci. 1 There was a great need of serious 
 help : those neighbours who were not declared enemies were 
 hardly less hostile. Sienna was negotiating with Rome and 
 Naples. At Lucca, young Pier Capponi, Neri's son, sent to 
 hold the town, almost lost his life in a tumult provoked by 
 Cola Montano, who pursued tyranny in Lorenzo's person as 
 he had pursued it in Galeaz Maria's. 2 The friends, on the 
 contrary, were inactive : Venice restrained Bentivoglio, the 
 tyrant of Bologna, and Manfredi, the lord of Faenza, from 
 attacking the principality of Imola, because it belonged to 
 Count Girolamo, and because she would prevent war breaking 
 out in Romagna. 3 The Duke of Milan alone flung himself 
 into the affair seriously, and the King of Naples prepared to 
 strew his path with stumbling-blocks. 
 
 In such circumstances, was it credible that the French am- 
 bassadors would be listened to in Rome, where the final 
 decision must be made? They were there by January 20, 
 1479. Having submitted their master's propositions to the 
 Pope — the arbitration of the King, the pacification of Italy, 
 and the General Council — they were struck by the passionate 
 irritation which Sixtus IV. could not hide, and they declared 
 that if any one hoped " oster au roy la seigneurie de Flor- 
 
 1 Despatch to King of France, February 9, 1479, analysed in Desjardins, i. 184. 
 Cf. Ammirato, xxiv. 136. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiv. 130, 133; Machiavelli, viii. 123 b; M. Bruto, 1. vii. in 
 Burm., vol. viii. part 1, p. 167. In a letter of February 16, 1482, may be seen 
 that Cola Montano, going by sea to Rome, was captured by the Florentines during 
 a stop forced upon him by the weather, and that he had to continue his journey 
 by land, after having offered those who detained him money, which they doubt- 
 less accepted {Atti e memorie delta depntazioni di storia patria delle provincie 
 modenesi e partnensi, vol. i. p. 259). Capponi (ii. 133) sees proof in this letter that 
 Cola plotted against Lorenzo's life, but there is nothing more than we have stated. 
 The same writer admits that the papers of his ancestor, Pier Capponi, contain 
 nothing interesting upon his mission to Lucca. 
 
 3 See Sismondi, vii. 129. 
 
336 ANXIETY OF THE POPE. [H79 
 
 ence, ses horn mages et droits de Gennes et Savonne et autres 
 seigneuries de ses parents, alliez et confederez de l'illustrissime 
 Ligue, il avoit delibe^, a l'aide de Dieu, de les scavoir defendre 
 et ayder com me feroit ou faire pourroit son propre royaume." 1 
 The Pope having refused Louis's mediation, and the Imperial 
 ambassador having added that his master would support the 
 Holy See, and, like the other powers, that " il ne requeroit con- 
 sille," 2 the French at once protested against this meddling of 
 the Emperor, who was posing as an exclusive protector ; but, 
 making a step backward, they thought proper to say that they 
 only demanded the Council in case his Holiness continued 
 the war, by which means he was opening Italy to the Turk. 3 
 To which Sixtus IV., angry with being pushed and pressed 
 for a prompt decision, replied in visible ill-humour : " Aux 
 condamnez a estre pendus en ce pays-ci, on leur donne quinze 
 jours d'espace." 4 (In this country, those condemned to be 
 hanged are allowed fifteen days' respite.) 
 
 He was only allowed eight. It was well known that at 
 heart he was consumed by anxiety : he dreaded the rising of 
 the Roman people and the nobles under the Church, 5 which 
 he was assured was pending ; he dreaded the meeting of the 
 General Council clamoured for by all the princes save the 
 Emperor, where the irregularities of his life might be exposed, 
 as well as the acts of simony by which his election was stained. 
 For this reason he consented to an armistice, and suspended 
 the sentence which Florence had not heeded (April 1 4). This 
 half-success emboldened the ambassadors. They announced 
 their intention to leave Rome in eight days if peace was not 
 concluded before then 6 (May 1 8). 
 
 But diplomatists do not necessarily depart because they have 
 
 1 Bibl. Nat., MS. 3880, f. 81 v°. 
 
 2 Ibid., f. 103 v°. 
 
 3 Ibid., f. 103, r° 104 v°. 
 
 4 Audience of March 31. Bibl. Nat., MSS., No. 3880, f. 134 r°. 
 
 5 Ibid., f. 133 r°. 
 
 6 Despatch analysed in Desjardins, i. 185. 
 
1479] RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATIONS. 337 
 
 taken leave. A fresh audience was given on May 22, when 
 the Venetian Badoer was bidden to speak. He maintained 
 the previous propositions, declaring that " au cas que le Sainct 
 Pere, dans huit jours, n'auroit accorde" la paix, selon les offres 
 des diets Estats, les deputez se departissent de Rome et s'en 
 allassent devant leurs seigneurs, lesquels mettroient peine a se 
 deffendre et de chasser les mauvaises herbes dTtalie, 1 ce dont 
 ils avoient ordre, sous peine de perdre la tete." 2 Forced 
 to a decision, Sixtus still found a means to equivocate. On 
 May 3 1 he again called the ambassadors, and maliciously 
 asked them if it really were to fight the Turk that they 
 wanted peace just when Venice had concluded a truce with 
 the Sultan of Constantinople. Badoer could not deny this 
 recent scandalous treaty. " Venice," he said, " has fought 
 the infidel for seventy years ; abandoned and alone in front of 
 him, she was forced to come to an arrangement, and she will 
 hold to it without, on that account, ceasing to serve the interests 
 of Christianity." The orators of Milan and Florence approved 
 the reply, showing thereby that in all these negotiations the 
 Turk was nothing else but what we vulgarly call " a Turk's 
 head." But the Pope seized hold of the fact and its admis- 
 sion to refuse all pacific conclusion, and closed the sitting. 
 Two days later, June 2, the ambassadors of the League took 
 leave in full consistory and quitted Rome, inviting those of 
 Louis XI. to do likewise, and ordering the prelates of their 
 nations to depart instantly. 3 
 
 After this fresh and vigorous flourish of the sword in water, 
 the war continued, but under what conditions for Florence ? 
 She had only one real ally, Milan, and all her enemies' efforts 
 were strained to embarrass the regent, Bonne of Savoy, the late 
 Duke's widow, with accumulated difficulties. Since the pre- 
 ceding year, Sixtus IV. had been inducing the Swiss of the 
 
 1 Bibl. Nat., MS. 3880, f. 162 v°. 
 
 2 Ibid., f. 178 r<>. 
 
 3 Ibid., f. 178 v ., 179 r°. Despatch analysed in Desjardins, i. 185. 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
338 BONA OF SAVOY. [i479 
 
 canton of Uri to attack the Milanese, 1 and lending underhand 
 encouragement to the uncles of the young Gian Galeaz, whom 
 she had been obliged to exile. One of the exiles, Lodovico, 
 went to Lunigiana, where he engaged with King Ferrante 
 and the Genoese exiles to provoke a rising in Genoa. After 
 a series of incidents, Genoa had once more recovered her 
 freedom (November 26, 1478). 2 
 
 This was a serious complication for Lorenzo. Bonne of 
 Savoy had ordered her captain Sforzino to assist the Floren- 
 tines after having beaten the Genoese ; but instead of beating 
 them, he had himself been beaten. The Florentines paid dearly 
 for their incapacity to make use of Leghorn and Pisa. In the 
 power of their ally, Milan, Genoa was the great mart of their 
 maritime traffic ; free and protected by the Neapolitan fleet, 
 she escaped them. Four galleys filled with merchandise, 
 valuing more than 300,000 florins, were expected to reach 
 that port ; their seizure would entail a considerable loss and 
 diminution of the resources of war, and would be a cause of 
 commercial discouragement. Lorenzo was by this war com- 
 pelled, instead of helping the regent to recover Genoa, to con- 
 gratulate the new Doge, Battista de Oampo Fregoso, and solicit 
 his friendship ; thus, in spite of excuses, wounding and alienat- 
 ing Milan. 3 
 
 It was just at this time that Koberto de San Severino, 
 a famous, but turbulent and factious captain, who had been 
 banished from Milan, and expelled from Genoa, in agree- 
 ment with the uncles and Sixtus and Ferrante, 4 attacked 
 Tuscany on the Pisan side with 4000 soldiers. Taken un- 
 awares, obliged to face this new enemy when behind them on 
 the Siennese frontier were Urbino and Calabria, the Ten of 
 War, hoping that in February the latter would not think it 
 yet time to leave their winter quarters, faced the more urgent 
 
 1 Sismondi, vii. 153 ; Zeller, p. 323. 2 See Sismondi, vii. 129-134. 
 
 8 Galli, xxiii. 296-300; Sismondi, vii. 134. 
 
 4 Diar. Parm., xxii. 295 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. v. vol. iii. p. 50 ; 
 Machiavelli, viii. 123B; Rosmini, Vita di Trivulzio % ii. 34, 4 2 »49J Sismondi, vii. 131. 
 
1479] PARTISAN LEADERS. 
 
 339 
 
 danger. Civil commissaries set out to support the first shock, 
 to raise men, and to form a corps in the valley of Nievole, which 
 should be on the look-out against a possible surprise of 
 Lucca, while the Duke of Ferrara was recalled to command 
 the army. But Ercole of Este, as slow and easy as uncer- 
 tain, dreading an enemy inferior in numbers, was three entire 
 weeks coming from Pisa to Sarzana, a distance of fifty miles. 
 He left San Severino, who retreated before him, the advan- 
 tage of two or three marches. He never caught a glimpse 
 of him, and his soldiers had no chance of as much as a 
 turn with their lances. The Ten bullied him enough, but 
 he paid no heed to them ; he even replied to " those merchants " 
 that they knew nothing about it. He came back just as slowly 
 toward his quarters on the Siennese frontier, where he found 
 that Urbino and Calabria had made use of their time. Not 
 daring to dismiss this incompetent captain, whose princely rank 
 was a protection, no doubt, Lorenzo flanked him by well-known 
 condottieri — Count Carlo of Montone, son of the celebrated 
 Braccio, whom he obtained from the Venetians, Deifebo of 
 the Anguillara, and a few great lords, Koberto Malatesta de 
 Rimini, Costanza Sforza de Pesaro, 1 Antonello Manfredi de 
 Forli, the three latter decoyed by enormous bribes from the 
 Pope's service. 2 He counted chiefly upon Carlo de Montone ; 
 but this head of the Bracceschi had inherited a mortal hatred 
 against the Malatesta and the Sforzeschi; while between their 
 soldiers there was nothing but challenges and duels. Once even 
 a general battle between them was imminent ; to avoid it, Carlo 
 was sent to Perugia, where he had adherents, and where he 
 could divide the Papal forces. He died on June 17, and his 
 rival, Malatesta, replaced him in this diversion. 3 This latter, 
 
 1 Alessandro Sforza's son, and nephew of the famous Francesco. 
 
 3 Diar. Parm.> xxii. 303 ; Ammirato, xxiv. 133, 134, who says (p. 137) that he 
 wrote this part of his history from the book of the Ten, in which there is a lacuna 
 from June 21 to August 14, 1479 ; Machiavelli, viii. 123 b ; M. Bruto, 1. vii., in 
 Burm., viii. part 1, p. 167. 
 
 3 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir. t c. v. vol. iii. p. 50 ; Machiavelli, viii. 124 A ; 
 Ammirato, xxiv. 136; Reumont, i. 463. 
 
340 PROGRESS OF HOSTILITIES. [i479 
 
 victorious near Lake Trasimene, had drawn upon himself 
 nearly all the hostile forces, thus relieving Ercole of all pre- 
 text for inaction ; but after having seized a mere village upon 
 the Siennese territory, Ercole fell into a strife with his personal 
 rival, the Marquis of Mantua, 1 about some miserable booty, and 
 Urbino profited by the occasion to separate the two bodies of 
 the army by taking up a post upon the extremity of the valley of 
 Chiana. Mantua and Ferrara, agreeing upon one single point, 
 selected this moment to return to Keggio with the pretext of pre- 
 venting the exiled Sforza from crossing the Apennines (August 
 10). By this stroke the Florentines found themselves with- 
 out a leader, for Sigismondo of Este, left by his brother 
 Ercole in his place, did not count. 2 
 
 The war, as usual, was a pitiable spectacle. The Floren- 
 tines were far from secure on Poggio Imperiale. They might 
 have been the French. The enemy saw this, and rushed 
 from Ponte to Chiusi (September 7). At the sight of the 
 dust raised by this march, the Florentine army flew like a shot, 
 abandoning munitions, chariots, and artillery. " It sufficed 
 then," says Machiavelli, " for a horse to turn its head upon 
 its tail to bring about a panic and the loss of an enterprise." l 
 Here stops the comparison with France, where at least they 
 know how to defend themselves and die. The inhabitants of 
 the valleys of Elsa and Pesa, seeing themselves no longer 
 covered, took refuge in Florence with their goods. It was not 
 until the return of the troops sent to Perugia that their cowardly 
 comrades were inspired with some confidence, and together 
 they finally fronted the Pontifical army upon the heights of 
 San Casciano, eight miles from the capital. Neither Urbino 
 nor Calabria, brave as little as they were clever, and advanc- 
 ing only as the enemy retreated, offered or accepted combat. 
 They found it less perilous to disperse over the valleys, and more 
 lucrative to ravage and pillage castles. The siege of the castle 
 
 1 The Marquis of Mantua came in the pay of Milan. 
 
 2 See Sismondi, vii. 158 ; Cipolla, p. 595. 3 Machiavelli, viii. 124 b. 
 
1479] LODOVICO IL MORO. 341 
 
 of Colla detained them sixty days, although the garrison was 
 so weak that women had to join the men upon the ramparts. 
 This fine achievement having exhausted the assailing force, 
 Calabria hastened to regain his winter quarters and accept the 
 three months' truce that the Pope proposed. 1 
 
 Lorenzo must have joyfully welcomed this truce, as he no 
 longer knew where to turn. He thought himself on the eve 
 of losing the Milanese alliance, his anchor of safety. Bonne 
 of Savoy, feeble and ill-counselled, closed upon by her 
 brothers-in-law, was not able to prevent them from return- 
 ing to Milan, whither the enemies of her old minister, Cecca 
 Simoneta, summoned them. She even admitted them into the 
 government as guardians of the young Duke. But soon she 
 was forced to yield the place to the uncle, Lodovico — Lodovico 
 ii Moro, as he was called, who remained the master (Sep- 
 tember 8, 1439). 2 
 
 This new lord, the wiliest of them all, did not reveal upon 
 which side he would lean in the quarrel between Florence and 
 the Holy See, but certain rumours gave Lorenzo to understand 
 that he would end by pronouncing in favour of the Holy See. 3 
 He believed it because he feared it. But could not a politician 
 so far-seeing have seen that, Bonne put aside and Gian Galeaz 
 fallen, Lodovico would renounce the Pope's alliance, which he 
 only sought to checkmate these ? Since Sforza's time the 
 Florentine alliance was the interest as well as the tradition of 
 the masters of Milan. But fear does not reason, or it reasons 
 badly. Lorenzo's only hope was the House of Anjou, whose 
 rights were doubtful, and whose intervention, for the moment, 
 was hardly probable. 4 
 
 1 Allegretti, xxiii. 793-797; Machiavelli, viii. 124 B ; Ammirato, xxiv. 138, 
 142; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. v. vol. iii. p. 54; M. Bruto, 1. vii.,in Burm., 
 vii. part I, p. 170. 
 
 2 Alb. de Ripalta, Attn. Placent., xx. 959 ; Sismondi, vii. 159 sq. 
 
 3 Capponi, ii. 135. 
 
 4 The House of Anjou was then represented by Rene II., son of Ferry, Count of 
 Vaudemont, and of Yolande, daughter of Rene I. , who had brought to the House 
 of Lorraine all her more or less doubtful rights. Her two brothers had died with- 
 
342 DISCONTENT IN FLORENCE. [1479 
 
 At home the people murmured. Even the councils were 
 accused, as is ever the case when a nation is vanquished. 
 Lorenzo was reproached with everything — with sudden checks, 
 errors committed, ruinous and useless expenses, unjust laws, 
 dispersed troops, fortresses lost, the country devastated, trade 
 compromised by the distrust of traders and the confiscations 
 ordered by the Pope. A little more and they would have 
 charged him with the plague of locusts. Must the entire 
 town be lost for the sake of one man ? A confidential friend 
 had the courage to tell him that Florence was weary of war, 
 and that she was no longer willing to endure interdict and 
 excommunication in defence of the Medici. 1 
 
 What should he do ? In his perplexity Lorenzo thought 
 of the old motto, " Divide and rule." But in which of his two 
 enemies should he seek a friend ? The Pope was irreconcil- 
 able. The rebukes of Christendom angered him without en- 
 lightening him. On the contrary, the King of Naples made 
 war politically, without any personal resentment. Undisputed 
 master of the south of the peninsula, powerful in the north by 
 the freedom of the Genoese and the domination of II Moro in 
 Milan, he might well regard himself on the eve of being recog- 
 nised sovereign by Sienna, whose territory was occupied by 
 his son. Why should he fear Lorenzo or wish for his expul- 
 sion, seeing him inferior in arms and badgered by an opposition 
 increased by failures ? 2 
 
 In this judicious view of his position, on the 24th of No- 
 vember 1479, Lorenzo charged Filippo Strozzi, a merchant 
 grown rich during his exile in Naples, to say to King Ferrante 
 that he placed himself unconditionally in his Majesty's hands 
 if he would establish peace and restore to Florence the cities 
 
 out heirs. Old Rene, who had only consented to her marriage to recover his own 
 liberty, had disinherited her in favour of Charles, Count of Maine, his younger 
 son, July 22, 1474 Charles died in 1481, bequeathing all his rights to Louis XL, 
 whence those of Charles VIII. See Sismondi, vii. 163. 
 
 1 Jacopo Nardi, 1. i. vol. i. p. 25 ; Ammirato, xxiv. 142. 
 
 2 See Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 56. 
 
1479] LORENZO SETS OUT FOR NAPLES. 343 
 
 she had lost. 1 He had to communicate this step to the 
 Duke of Calabria, since he took it at the very time this heart- 
 less and choleric prince had consented to the truce. 2 Matters 
 thus promised well, but, in order to hasten the conclu- 
 sion, and believing only in himself, he resolved to start for 
 Naples. 
 
 The court historians admire the boldness of this resolution. 
 Lorenzo, they said, might leave behind him revolt, and in 
 a like venture Piccinino had found his death. 3 They did not 
 understand that their idol had sufficiently degraded the Floren- 
 tines to have nothing more to fear from them. They did not 
 reflect on the lame comparison with Piccinino, nor remember 
 that the suppressed condottiere left nobody behind to avenge 
 him, while Florence might very well avenge the death of the 
 master she cursed in life, or at least make the continuance of 
 his policy a question of honour. 
 
 There was nothing further from recklessness, — nothing 
 more calculated for effect than this voyage. King Ferrante had 
 been consulted about it, and sent two galleys to Leghorn to re- 
 ceive the illustrious traveller. Upon the point of departure, the 
 latter announced the fact to both captains of the hostile army, 
 and by letter expressed a hope that he should, upon his return, 
 find everything in order as when he left (December 6). 4 On 
 
 1 "A dire alia Maesta del Re che totalmente gli si rimetteva nelle braccia, e che 
 in quello modo che S. M. lo volesse, o grando o basso, dentro o fuori, era con- 
 tento di modo che S. M. rendesse pacie alia cipta e le terre tolte " (Filippo Strozzi's 
 account of the Pazzi conspiracy in Capponi, ii. 523, Append. 4). 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxiv. 142. The Duke of Calabria "e di cattiva natura e collera, 
 oltre che sia di natura che come ha fatto il fatto suo, non conosce piu ne amico 
 ne benevolo" (Aldovrandino Guidoni to Ercole of Este, October 1, i486, Atti e 
 memorie, &c, i. 287). 
 
 3 Piccinino was killed on Neapolitan ground, June 24, 1465. See chiefly 
 Cristof. da Soldo, 1st. Bresc, xxi. 903. Ricotti (iii. 195) and Sismondi (vi. 439) 
 point out other sources. 
 
 4 " Mi parto per essere a Pisa e dipoi a Livorno, secondo l'ordine dato par tras- 
 ferirmi a piei della Maesta del Re. Qui lascio le cose bene in ordine et in modo 
 che ho speranza di trovarle come le lascio " (Lorenzo to the Count of Urbino and 
 the Duke of Calabria, December 6, 1479, in Malavolti, part iii. 1. iv. f. 76 r°). Leo 
 (ii. 237) has reprinted this letter whole from Malavolti. 
 
344 LORENZO'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [i479 
 
 the evening of the day he sent off this letter, he called a meet- 
 ing in the palace of the Ten of a committee of forty of the 
 chief citizens, not to take their advice, but to communicate his 
 intention to them. 1 This is the way of absolute sovereigns ; but 
 the insecure usurper gave the motive of his resolve. " Flor- 
 ence needs peace," he said, " for the allies are not doing their 
 duty. Since they feign to make war on me alone, it is for me 
 to go in search of peace. When my enemies will have me in 
 their power in Naples, we shall see if it is I alone they aim 
 at." He was full of confidence for the rest, though he none 
 the less recommended his family and his house to those 
 present. 2 Opinion differed considerably, but no one dared to 
 express blame or offer unsolicited advice. 3 Rather Lorenzo 
 gave nobody time to do so. The moment he finished speak- 
 ing he left the palace. He had been playing Decius well 
 enough to dupe his compatriots and the princes, 4 if not the 
 Venetians, who were judiciously convinced of a prearranged 
 agreement between him and the Aragonese. 5 
 
 That same evening he left Florence. 6 On the next day 
 (December 7) he wrote from San Miniato al Tedesco to the 
 Signory, excusing himself for not having spoken to them, on 
 the plea that actions, and not words, were wanting : a bad 
 reason, since he had spoken to less qualified persons. Already 
 he was creating and developing the legend of a victim, offer- 
 
 1 " Non ricercava lo consigliassino, ma solamente che lo sapessero" (Guicciar- 
 dini, Stor.di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 56). 
 
 2 Guicciardini, ibid., p. 56; Ammirato, xxiv. 143. 
 
 3 M I pareri furono in se varii, nondimeno perche gli aveva detto non ci ricer- 
 care drento consiglio, nessuno lo contradisse" (Guicciardini, ibid., p. 57). 
 
 4 Ercole of Este wrote to his orator, Antonio Montecatino, December 22, that 
 nobody quite knew why Lorenzo went to Naples or what would be the result. He 
 continued: "Ne avvisate dialcuni discorsi che vi fate con lo intelletto di quello che 
 abbia a seguire in quella magnifica citta o tornando o non tornando il M co Lorenzo. 
 . . . Starete attento di intendere quello si sentira II de la sua arrivata a Napoli, 
 e de l'onore gli sara stato fatto e de le opere sue" [Atti e memorie, &c, p. 252). 
 
 6 The Signory of Venice wrote in this tone to Louis XL, December 14, 1479. See 
 Buser, p. 216 and 217, on Louis's opinion. Malavolti, who published Lorenzo's 
 letter, recognises the understanding. Cf. Capponi, ii. 138, and Reumont, i. 487. 
 
 6 Allegretti, xxiii. 797. 
 
1479] LORENZO'S RECEPTION IN NAPLES. 345 
 
 ing himself for sacrifice to turn aside the wrath of powerful 
 enemies. 1 How could they have given him credit for this ? 
 From Pisa, the 10th, he announced the arrival of the Nea- 
 politan galleys, commanded by one of Calabria's intimates, and 
 his intention to embark the following night. He spoke humbly 
 and recommended himself to God. 2 The balie of the Ten of 
 War, of which he was a member, pursued him to Leghorn to 
 offer him the commission of orator to the King of Naples, a 
 commission they wanted to ask of the Council of the Hundred, 
 but they did not dare lest it should be refused, which would 
 have made a bad impression. 3 
 
 Lorenzo reached Naples on December 18. 4 Hardly had 
 his foot touched shore when it was evident that he was received 
 as a friend. The second son and grandson of the King awaited 
 him. He was welcomed with every honour. 5 Such was the 
 King's reception of him that he felt assured of peace, and wrote 
 to Florence to this effect ; but he was mistaken. The question 
 dragged slowly, either because Ferrante feared to offend the 
 Pope, or because he was waiting to see if Lorenzo's departure 
 would cause any commotion in his country. 
 
 It was a splendid opportunity certainly. However degraded 
 
 1 This letter may be read in Roscoe, i. 296 ; Atti e memorie, &c, p. 239 ; Lettere 
 de' principi, i. 3, Venice, 1581. 
 
 2 " Giantomaso Caraffa del Conte di Matalone, e Prinzivalle de Gennaro, la 
 conditione del quale appresso del duca di Calabria credo vi sia nota. Sono 
 venuti per accompagnarmi, benche sia compagnia da honorare molto maggior 
 huomo che non sono io. A Dio piaccia condurmi e ricondurmi a salvamento et 
 con qualche frutto" (Lorenzo to Antonio Montecatino, Pisa, December 10, in Atti 
 e memorie, &c, p. 240). 
 
 3 Decemviri collegoe tui oratorem te post discessum tuum ad Neapolitanum 
 regem statuerunt. Idem quoque novi decemviri decreverunt. Putabam autem 
 posse id fieri a centumviris honoratius, sed quibusdam amicis id attentare non est 
 visum, in quorum ego sententiam facile concessi, quod in tanta suspensione 
 animorum atque expectatione rerum quid melius factu sit non est facile cognos- 
 cere " (Bartolommeo Scala to Lorenzo, in Roscoe, Append. 30, vol. iii. p. 224). 
 Roscoe dates this letter December 5, but this is an error, as Lorenzo only left on 
 the 6th, as we see in Allegretti (xxiii. 797). 
 
 4 Account of Fil. Strozzi in Capponi, ii. 523, Append. 4 ; Malavolti, part 3, 
 1. 4, f. 76 r° ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 57.— Upon the voyage, 
 Allegretti, xxiii. 797 ; Jacopo of Volterre, xxiii. 100. 
 
 5 Nic. Valori, Vita Laurentii, p. 34. 
 
346 LORENZO'S MAGNIFICENCE. [1480 
 
 were the Florentines, there were still malcontents among 
 them. 1 In want of a chief, they thought to find one in Giro- 
 lamo Morelli, that scolding friend, who always had advice ready 
 when it was not asked for — a man of importance who had once 
 been ambassador at Milan, and who was then one of the Ten of 
 War. The rash dared to say that it was not well that a hand- 
 ful of men should offer themselves in place of the councils for 
 the distribution of taxes. The wary contented themselves with 
 expressing a fear for Lorenzo's fate. They recalled Piccinino's 
 disaster, perhaps in the hope of suggesting a second murder. In 
 the councils they opposed the proposals of Lorenzo's partisans. 
 They affected to be disquieted by the Duke of Calabria's pre- 
 sence on the Siennese frontier, and to be indignant at the news 
 that Agostino Fregoso, in contempt of the truce, had surprised 
 Sarzana, sold a long while ago by his father, Lodovico, to the 
 Florentines. 2 Without a recognised chief, as Morelli held back, 
 and without fixed intentions, they were scarcely formidable. 3 
 But we do not always fear by the measure of reason for fear : 
 letters of alarm begged Lorenzo to hurry back. 
 
 In spite of a corresponding desire, Lorenzo thought fit to 
 dissimulate, and he dissimulated as a man does whose natural 
 talent inclines that way. He sought to please, and he pleased 
 the court by his banquets and festivities, 4 the people by the 
 magnificence of his equipages, and everybody by his presents 
 and liberality. He dowered a host of young girls who im- 
 plored him to do so ; he bought off a hundred captives from 
 the galleys, and gave them each ten golden florins, as well as 
 a suit of clothes and hose of green cloth. 5 King Ferrante, so 
 reticent by nature, observed him closely to discover his mind, 
 
 1 See above, p. 292 set/., 342. 
 
 2 Diar. Farm., xxii. 327 ; Machiavelli, viii. 125 B ; Ammirato, xxiv. 143. 
 
 3 Thus judged Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 59 ; Machiavelli, viii. 
 126 A ; Sismondi, vii. 169 ; Capponi, ii. 137. 
 
 4 See a gracious letter addressed to Lorenzo by Hippolita of Aragon, the King's 
 daughter-in-law, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 223. 
 
 5 Diar. Farm., xxii. 335 ; Nic. Valori, Vita Laurentii, p. 35 ; Ammirato, 
 xxiv. 144. 
 
i 4 8o] ATTITUDE OF THE POPE. 347 
 
 tried to captivate him by fine speeches and amiable manners, 
 by the justness and depth of his political views, which Michele 
 Bruto resumed in a solemn harangue. 1 Did he foresee an ap- 
 proaching French invasion ? Doubtless not. Louis XI. still 
 reigned, and the future Charles VIII. was only a child. But 
 he had good reason to aim at a Florentine alliance, as the age 
 and health of Sixtus IV. prognosticated a near election, and the 
 new Pope, according to custom, would adopt a policy quite op- 
 posed to his predecessor's, and in consequence lean upon the side 
 of Florence. It remained to be seen if the Florentines were 
 heart and soul with Lorenzo. Upon this question their peace- 
 able attitude during a long absence seemed convincing. Thus 
 the negotiations were prolonged for two months. 
 
 In the various courts there was plenty of surmise on the sub- 
 ject. Sixtus IV., above all, was disturbed. The honour of the 
 Holy See, he wrote to his ally of Naples, will only be safe if 
 Lorenzo comes to Rome to humiliate himself, which the prince 
 who holds him in his power should exact. 2 This was a conces- 
 sion on the part of the Pontiff, once so eager to have Lorenzo 
 expelled from Florence. What was the use of expelling him 
 if, like his grandfather, he was destined to return ? Unable to 
 fight alone, Sixtus made a virtue of necessity, and forewent " the 
 triumph, the satisfaction of expelling the tyrant, and of restor- 
 ing freedom to the Florentine people, and peace and repose to 
 all Italy." But Lorenzo refused the amende honorable to Rome, 
 the minimum it exacted by pontifical self-respect, and soli- 
 cited by Ferrante. "He must be forced," said Sixtus, "since we 
 have him in our power." Was it possible? He hardly thought so 
 himself, as, having thus covered his retreat, he ended by endors- 
 ing the pardon after having, as he mournfully wrote, exhausted 
 a well of gold to obtain this victory that had escaped him. 3 
 
 1 M. Bruto, 1. vii., in Burm., vol. viii. part I, p. 176. Sismondi (vii. 167) gives 
 a risumi of the harangue. 
 
 2 Antonio Crivelli's commission from Sixtus IV., who sent him to Naples, 
 February 1480, published by Capponi, ii. 524, Append. 5, from a MS. in his library. 
 
 3 Ibid.y pp. 526, 527. 
 
348 DEPARTURE FROM NAPLES. [1480 
 
 Lorenzo scented these underhand dealings, and suspected 
 their opposition to his own ; but ignoring their main point, 
 he deemed a hasty departure from Naples prudent. He reached 
 Gaeta on March 1, 1480. Ferrante sent a long letter after 
 him begging him to return. What did he fear ? The Pope 
 would grant him every possible security. Did it not look as 
 if the state of Florentine affairs had precipitated his departure ? 
 None of his friends would be surprised or shocked by his 
 return to Naples, above all, when he could announce the con- 
 clusion of peace as imminent. 1 
 
 Lorenzo well knew through his correspondents that there 
 was nothing to fear in Florence, 2 but too delighted to have got 
 out of the hole, he was deaf to all prayers to re-enter it, and 
 went on his way. In despair the King sent a messenger after 
 him to obtain his signature to the treaty already signed by 
 the royal hand. He added his name, and peace was pro- 
 mulgated (March 25) in all the contracting States. 3 On that 
 day, the Feast of the Annunciation, and the first day of the 
 Florentine year, a grand procession of thanksgiving took place 
 in Florence. All the same, Kinuccini writes, " The people did 
 not appear much rejoiced or consoled by it, for it is said that 
 the treaty contains many secret articles neither useful nor 
 honourable to our unhappy city." 4 
 
 If this is the language of the opposition, speaking ill in the 
 privacy of its Eicordi, it is noteworthy that the opposition is 
 persistent in the hour of success, when the population, greedy 
 
 1 The King's letter is dated from Castello Novo in Naples, March 1, 1480. It is 
 to be found in Fabroni, Doc, p. 213, and in Roscoe, iii. p. 226, Append. 3. 
 
 2 Letters of Agnolo de la Stufa, undated ; of Antonio Pucci, January 11, 1480. 
 Pucci begs Lorenzo to conclude with the King if he cannot with the Pope, and he 
 adds, " La cipta si riposa bene ; qui non si senter innovazione alcuna " (Fabroni, 
 Doc.y pp. 207, 210, 213). "Tutto il popolo dubitava che el Re nollo lasciassi 
 tornare a sua posta. . . . Idio l'aiuto " (Luca Landucci, Diario, pp. 33, 34). 
 
 3 The authors do not agree regarding date of signature. Ammirato (xxiv. 145) 
 says March 6 ; Malavolti (part iii. 1. 4, f. 76 r°), Allegretti (xxiii. 798), Rinuccini, 
 (p. 131), the 13th; Cipolla (p. 602), the 17th. Rinuccini adds that the news 
 reached Florence on the 17th. This proves the date 13th probable. The Diario 
 Par?nense (xxii. 336) dates the promulgation the 25th. 
 
 4 Al. Rinuccini, p. 131. 
 
i4&>] CONDITIONS OF PEACE. 349 
 
 of rest, was thankful to the master who assured it, and whose 
 power it consolidated out of sheer gratitude. The conditions 
 of peace, when known, were found to be without glory or 
 conspicuous advantage. Lorenzo only obtained the support 
 of the King by an annual payment of sixty thousand florins 
 to the Duke of Calabria. He did not even obtain restitu- 
 tion of the places taken from the Eepublic, such restitution 
 depending upon the royal will. Finally, he made a cruel 
 sacrifice of his own feelings in freeing those of the Pazzi still 
 detained in the tower of Volterra, although they had taken no 
 part in the conspiracy. 1 
 
 To have paid so dearly for peace proves either that he 
 yielded to the pressure of public opinion, or that in this 
 matter he singularly lacked foresight. The Duke of Calabria, 
 even more than he, desired an understanding to strengthen his 
 position in Sienna, where he was, and the opportunity to march 
 later towards the conquest of Tuscany, the old dream of the 
 kings of Naples, whose realisation, thrice attempted, 2 this peace 
 seemed to facilitate. Twenty years earlier Florence was indig- 
 nant and frightened because the Neapolitans acquired a few 
 miserable castles in the Tuscan Maremma, and now she not only 
 saw them permanently installed at her gates, but she authorised 
 them to remain there. If matters were settled afterwards, it 
 was by one of those chances that escape human foresight. 
 How could Lorenzo have foreseen that Sienna would soon be 
 so dissatisfied with her new masters that she would offer Venice 
 the command of her destiny, 3 and, above all, that a near inva- 
 sion of the kingdom of Naples by the Turks would free Florence 
 of all fear for Sienna ? Mr. Trollope is right ; the third of the 
 Medici was a lucky man. 
 
 1 Luca Landucci, p. 33 ; Nardi, 1. i. vol. i. p. 25 ; Machiavelli, viii. 126 A ; 
 Ammirato, xxiv. 145. 
 
 2 In 1446, 1452, 1456. 
 
 3 See Brosch, Papst Julius II. , p. 303, doc. of May 24, 1481 ; Jacopo of Vol- 
 terra, xxiii. 108 ; Malavolti, part iii. 1. 5, f. 78 ; Machiavelli, vii. 126 b ; Ammi- 
 rato, xxiv. 144 ; Sismondi, vii. 171 ; Cipolla, p. 602. 
 
35o RESULTS OF THE TREATY. [1480 
 
 He and Ferrante agreed, what could the other combatants 
 do but follow suit ? Lodovico il Moro was quite ready to do so ; 
 Ercole of Este likewise, though he recommended Lorenzo not 
 to neglect the friendship of Milan, 1 and to abstain from going 
 to Rome, where he would run some danger. 2 Sixtus IV. 
 scolded, complained that he had not been consulted, but he 
 bowed to necessity. His orator, Lorenzo Giustini, granted his 
 approbation to the treaty without any special authorisation, and 
 the Pope did uot dare to erase his name. 3 As for Venice, if 
 she remained outside, she had full liberty to accede, but she 
 did not care about it. She would have liked to prevent this 
 new grouping of Italian forces, that might prove perilous for 
 her. She profited, however, by the Pope's ill-humour to con- 
 clude with him in April a separate league, big with fresh wars. 
 The captain-general of this league was Couut Riario, 4 and his 
 lieutenant was Rene II. , with a salary of two thousand ducats 
 a month. 5 
 
 Whenever absolute powers have any success abroad, we 
 may feel sure that they will profit by it to do at home what 
 would be otherwise difficult, if even they have not sought the 
 prestige of triumph with this object. " Our city was never in 
 such danger of losing its freedom," wrote Machiavelli. 6 The 
 second act of the comedy was the long meditated execution 
 of domestic projects. 
 
 The admitted aim of reform, or rather the sort of coup oVitat 
 about to be attempted by Lorenzo, was a new organisation of 
 the monte delle doti — the secret aim, the appropriation of its 
 
 1 " Perche sono due stati che troppo si affanno insieme e sone attissimi a conser- 
 varsi l'uno con l'altro" (Desp. to Ant. Montecatino, Ferrara, March 19, 1480. 
 Atti e memorie, p. 253). 
 
 2 " Per fuggire ogni pericolo" (Desp. of April 20, 1480 ; tfo'd., p. 253). 
 
 3 Jacopo of Volterra, xxiii. 100, 105. 
 
 4 April 17, 1480. Sanuto, xxii. 121 1 ; Malipieri, Arch. Stor. y 1st ser., vol. vii. 
 p. 250 ; Romanin, iv. 394. Cf. doc. of March 23, 1480, in Ugolini, Storia dei 
 Conti e Duchi cT Urbino^ i. 514. 
 
 5 Romanin, iv. 394, who quotes Commemoriali, xvi. p. 154, document on the 
 pay received, signed " Rene, by Mgr. the Duke and his counsel, Fontaines." 
 
 6 Machiavelli, viii. 126 B. 
 
1480] NEW STEP OF LORENZO. 351 
 
 funds. Kinuccini stated it formally, 1 and he stated the truth, 
 since later, at Lorenzo's death, the people rushed to Antonio 
 Miniati's house, the proveditore of the monte, and the master's 
 right hand in this affair, to seize the private books which con- 
 tained the proofs of these financial jobberies. 2 
 
 Lorenzo did not regard himself as sufficiently armed 
 to carry them out on a larger scale in all security. He 
 certainly had in his service the famous accoppiatori, who 
 knew how to arrange and dip into the bourses, and who kept 
 the new places of the Signory for reliable friends, permitting 
 them to do nothing without orders from the Medici palace, 
 and by the intermediary of the Gonfalonier of Justice. 3 But 
 the balie only exercised a temporary power, and could not be 
 prolonged or created by mere will. The monarchical instinct 
 once awakened called for permanent institutions. At a time 
 of peace, when the balie of the Ten of War, in which was con- 
 centrated all power in a period of strife, 4 ceased to exercise its 
 functions, Lorenzo wanted to secure a permanent intermediary 
 between himself and the public offices. 
 
 He did not give himself the trouble of invention. He was 
 content to walk in the beaten track, and constituted a new 
 council, which, without suppressing any of the others, would 
 be consulted before them, and would, in consequence, take the 
 lead. In olden times, a meeting of Parliament would have 
 been called for such a work; on this occasion, April 8, 1480, 
 scarcely returned from Naples, Lorenzo, without ringing the 
 bells, without following any of the usual formalities, called a 
 meeting of friends, which Rinuccini regarded as a Parliament, 5 
 
 1 Al. Rinuccini, p. 147. 
 
 2 Nardi (i. 26, 27) gives curious details concerning these jobberies. Cf. Cer- 
 retani's MS. history, quoted by Capponi, note to the documents at the end of this 
 letter of Jacopo Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st. ser., vol. i. p. 318. 
 
 3 Cambi, Del., xxi. 2. 
 
 4 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 62. 
 
 5 " Sanza suono di campana o altra dimostrazione feciono, si puo dire, un par- 
 lamento" (Al. Rinuccini, p. 131). Rinuccini's authority is pre-eminent, as he was 
 a member of the permanent balie. We may by this believe that in every-day life 
 he didjnot express such ill-humour or opposition as we so often see in his Ricordi. 
 
352 THE NEW BALIE. 1 1480 
 
 a fact that cannot be construed into praise of this ancient method 
 of forcing the game. These friends or partners adopted and 
 passed on the same day through the Council of the Hundred, 
 and afterwards on the 9th and 1 oth, by councils of the people 
 and the commons, a resolution to the effect that the Lords, with 
 a majority of six beans, should nominate thirty citizens for 
 the election, conjointly with the Signory and the colleges, 
 of a balie of 210 members under thirty years of age, who, 
 consequently, had only known of the old system by hearsay, 
 and could not greatly regret it. To these 2 1 o elected would 
 be joined the Thirty, the Lords, and colleges, to form a new 
 balie, which would last until June 30, with the full authority 
 of the three usual councils, 1 and with the essential point, the 
 right to delegate all powers to a lesser number if they thought 
 fit. 2 Naturally, they were to think it fit, and did so. 
 
 In the month of November they were to undertake the 
 customary task of the sqidttinio, that is, to form the bourses, 
 and inscribe the names of the Florentines eligible for office. 3 
 Lorenzo having reflected, feared lest a too small number of 
 councillors might become a dangerous, or, at any rate, a dis- 
 turbing oligarchy : he wanted the Thirty to have the right to 
 add forty new colleagues to their number for these delicate 
 operations (April 1 9).* Thus was created a body of seventy 
 members, who admitted the minor arts in the same proportion 
 as the other offices, 5 who were to appoint all the public servants, 
 who made the squittinio last four years, 6 who received the ex- 
 orbitant right of replacing themselves those of their members 
 
 1 That is, the Councils of the Hundred, of the people, and the commons. 
 
 2 " E oltre a questo potessino dare qualunche autorita et alia a minore numero 
 di cittadini, cornea loro paresse" (Al. Rinuccini, p. 131. Cf. Cambi, Del., 
 xxi. 2). 
 
 8 The same, and Capponi, notes to J. Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st sen, i. 316. 
 
 4 For this nomination the Thirty should add forty-eight citizens to their number, 
 twelve by quarter. See Rinuccini, p. 131, 132. The decree of April 19 may be 
 read in the Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 329. 
 
 8 Decree of April 19, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 329 sq. 
 
 6 Cambi, Del., xxi. 3. 
 
1480] THE SEVENTY. 353 
 
 carried off by death or other means ; * the institution thus 
 became permanent to eternity. Lorenzo evidently thought 
 that instruments elected for life 2 would have and could have no 
 other interest than his own. He divided them into two sections, 
 each in turn acting for six months. This Council became the 
 chief wheel of the State, almost the only important one. 
 
 It soon eclipsed the Council of a Hundred, which in turn 
 had eclipsed the old Councils of the people and the commons,, 
 the corner-stone of the Republic. It was not suppressed, 
 suppression being repugnant to the Florentine mind ; it was an- 
 nulled after deciding that to nominate its members, the Seventy, 
 as well as the past and future 3 Gonfaloniers of justice, all 
 friends of the first class, should meet, and that, instead of 
 being consulted before the two ancient Councils, already half 
 effaced, it should only be consulted after them. 4 This was 
 giving fifth rank to one of the four carriage-wheels. Indeed, 
 among themselves the ranks were confused ; 5 the coach no 
 longer ran upon its own wheels ; one man alone dragged or 
 carried it away by his own strength, and by the force of 
 acquired speed ; two means that cannot count upon time. 
 
 After Lorenzo, the Seventy were so completely the sole 
 
 1 J. Pitti. 1. i. Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 25, and Capponi, Notes to Documents, 
 ib., p. 316. The document contains restrictions upon the number of each family 
 or consorteria that could be admitted simultaneously into the Council of Seventy 
 (ibid., pp. 330, 334). Only two families were exempt of all divieto in this ques- 
 tion. "I imagine," Capponi, so grave, maliciously writes, "that one was the 
 Medici, and the other some obscure and unimportant family " (Capponi, ii. 143). 
 
 2 " Feciono che questi 70 ciptadini stessino a vita, e fussi un altro chonsiglio della 
 cipta" (Cambi, Del., xxi. 3). Cf. Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vi. vol. iii. p. 62). 
 
 3 Al. Rinuccini, p. 133. The future Gonfaloniers were known, as the names of 
 those desirable for office were placed in a special bourse. 
 
 4 Decree of April 19, p. 330; Rinuccini, p. 132; Cambi, Del., xxi. 3; J. Pitti, 
 loc. cit., p. 25, 26. " Che hogni provixione che sordinava savessi prima a vinciere 
 per questo chonsiglio de' 70, e di poi pel chonsiglio del popolo e di poi pel chon- 
 siglio del comune, e di poi pel chonsiglio del ciento" (Cambi, Del., xxi. 3). 
 
 5 March 6, 1482, Filippo Sacramoro, orator of Milan, wrote to his master that 
 the day before a provision of 300,000 ducats was allowed him for two years, 
 first by the Council of Seventy, then the Councils of the Signory and the Colleges, 
 then the Council of a Hundred, all on the same day, contrary to custom. He 
 makes no mention of the Councils of the people and the commons (Arch. Sforz.y, 
 copies, MS., 1 610, f. 320). 
 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
354 SUPREMACY OF THE SEVENTY. [1480 
 
 power, that they at once appointed the twelve procurators 
 charged with levying the taxes, governing the monte, overlook- 
 ing the mercanzia and the consulates, 1 nominating the Eight of 
 balie, whose authority spread over civil and criminal questions, 2 
 and even every six months electing the Eight, who were prac- 
 tically but quietly substituted for the Ten of War — not quite 
 suppressed, but reduced to a merely decorative state. 
 
 We must add one last feature if we would realise the full 
 value of this Machiavellian mechanism. No private person 
 had the right to present a proposition or even a petition to 
 the Seventy. Everything should proceed through the Lords, 
 following the established rule ; 3 but as the Lords were de- 
 pendent upon this Senate, matters began and ended with it. 
 The supreme ambition now was to reach it : the other offices 
 were only regarded as stepping-stones. 
 
 Armed with this precious instrument, Lorenzo, like the Ten 
 of Venice, was able to have a secret policy, and this was hence- 
 forth the reason of his strength abroad. But, at first, the 
 formidable innovation was not approved of at home. The 
 citizens, Cambi wrote, are degraded, and have become the 
 servants of those who have the giving of office. 4 Rinuccini 
 declared that all liberty was crushed, that the people were 
 reduced to slavery ; he speaks of the insolence and tyranny 
 of Lorenzo, and of the execution of three citizens for having 
 wanted to cut him in pieces. 5 Jacopo Pitti, who was not a 
 contemporary, 6 but saw matters from a near point of view, 
 says that this creation and all these measures were received 
 with general dissatisfaction. 7 The courtier Ammirato, who 
 
 1 Document in Arch, Stor., 1st ser., i. 334. 
 
 2 Ibid., and Capponi, ii. 143. 
 
 3 Capponi, ii. 143. 
 
 4 Cambi, Del., xxi. 3. 
 
 5 Al. Rinuccini, p. 132-135. Rinuccini says it is true that these three had 
 conspired with the exiles and Count Girolamo Riario ; but the important fact was 
 their feeling for Lorenzo. 
 
 6 Jacopo Pitti was born January 26, 15 19. 
 
 7 "Con malissima satisfazione dell' universale" (J. Pitti, 1. i., Arch. Stor., 1st 
 ser., i. 25). 
 
i4&>] TREATIES AND ALLIANCES. 355 
 
 softens the glaring tints of the picture, does not dare to deny 
 that Cosimo's grandson " imperceptibly controlled public affairs 
 and the authority of the laws, and ended by meeting with no 
 opposition when he seized everything." x 
 
 Meanwhile the negotiations with the Italian powers were 
 continued, and new alliances were formed : on the one side, 
 the Pope, Venice, and the Duke of Anjou ; 2 on the other, 
 Naples, Milan, Ferrara, Floreuce, united by a new treaty 3 
 and the marriage of Hippolita, Calabria's daughter, with Gian 
 Galeaz. 4 Hence, in spite of all Lorenzo's embassies, the notice- 
 able coldness of Louis XI., who, though he might not exercise 
 his rights over Naples, was not ready to give them up. 5 The 
 interdict and excommunication continued to weigh upon Flor- 
 ence with a severity intolerable in a time of peace ; the only 
 concession they had obtained from the rancorous Pope was 
 the cessation of war. 
 
 Nothing less than the descent of the Turks on the Neapo- 
 litan side of the Adriatic could move him. Mahomet II. had 
 seen well enough that the divisions in Italy furnished him 
 with a favourable opportunity, and even promised him Italian 
 allies. There was no possible agreement between the Venetian, 
 Roman, and Neapolitan navies any more than with Florence, 
 who, besides, had never been a maritime power ; on the con- 
 trary, there was no doubt of an agreement between Venice 
 and the Sultan. The Serene Republic was already suspected, 6 
 and a Turkish ambassador formally accused her of having 
 
 1 "Tirando pian piano a se le faccende pubbliche, e insiememente l'autorita 
 delle leggi, non trovando alia fine piu contrasto del tutto si fosse insignorito " (Am- 
 mirato, xxiv. 145). 
 
 2 See supra, p. 341. 
 
 3 July 25, 1480 ; Cipolla, p. 602, n. 6. 
 
 4 See doc. of Dec. 28, 1479, in Rosmini, Storia di Milano, iv. 173, Milan, 1820 ; 
 Cipolla, p. 602, n. 7. 
 
 5 Buser, p. 219; Cipolla, p. 603. 
 
 6 The suspicion is not doubtful, as may be seen in Sanuto (xxii. 12 13), Nava- 
 gero (xxiii. 1165), Machiavelli (viii. 126 b), who did not know of the documents. 
 This suspicion was natural, since quite recently Venice had concluded a peace 
 with the Turks and refused to take part against them. 
 
356 THE TURKS IN ITALY. [1480 
 
 suggested the idea of the expedition. 1 She defended herself 
 on the shores of the Bosphorus, where she ordered her orator 
 to press forward the " enterprise of the gulf," 2 proposing 
 the Pope Rene of Lorraine as captain-general of the Christian 
 league. 8 But hidden documents have now come to light, and 
 we find that the Venetian admiral, Vettor Soranzo, had orders, 
 should the Ottoman fleet attack Naples, to retreat to Corfu, 
 to guard that island, save the Republican vessels, and preserve 
 peace with the Crescent. 4 
 
 The Florentines were also accused of connivance, 5 but so 
 far we have no proof of it. At any rate, Lorenzo, despite 
 his relations with Naples, did not appear much alarmed by 
 the threat of an infidel fleet bearing down upon the Italian 
 shores. 6 Through his compatriot merchants, he was upon 
 easy and friendly terms with Mahomet II. Since he had 
 obtained the extradition of Bandini, he was regarded as able 
 to do anything with him. 
 
 However this may be, towards the end of August, while the 
 Grand-master of Rhodes, D'Aubusson, 7 was repulsing a Turkish 
 fleet, the Grand Vizier, Keduk Ahmed, with a hundred vessels, 
 bore down upon Albania opposite Otranto, as if to punish 
 
 1 Capponi, ii. 140. This writer alleges a MS. letter of Pier Capponi, dated 
 Naples, April 18, 1483, and addressed to the Ten. He does not say where it is 
 to be found — probably among his family papers. 
 
 2 Secreta, p. 99, 102, in Romanin, iv. 396. 
 
 3 Sanuto, xxii. 121 1. 
 
 4 Despatch of March 23, 1480. Secreta, p. 86, in Romanin, L xi. c. iii. vol. iv. 
 
 P- 385. 
 
 8 " Tra quei che cio procurarono, disero i Ragonesi essere stati i Florentini " 
 (Camillo Porzio, La congiitra di Baroni del Regno di Nafioli contra il Re Ferdi- 
 nando /., f. 2 r°, Rome, 1615). Capponi (ii. p. 140, n. 4) distrusts the testimony 
 of this writer, careless about facts, as he says. But Porzio only reports the im- 
 pressions of the Aragonese. 
 
 6 Nothing clear can be made of a letter written July 12, 1480, by the Signory 
 (or the Ten) to Guidantonio Vespucci, ambassador to Louis XI., to inform him 
 of the movement of the Turks. "Tout reste en suspens, est-il dit avec une ex- 
 treme froideur, rien de decide." See text in Desjardins, i. 186. 
 
 7 Epist. Petri d'Aubusson ad Pontificem, Sept. 13, 1480, in Ami. Eccles.^ 1480, 
 § 2-13, vol. xxix. p. 606; Hammer, Hist, de P Empire Ottoman. , trad. Dochez, 
 Paris, 1840, 1. xvii. vol. i. pp. 328-332. There is also an Italian translation of 
 this work by Romanin. The other sources are indicated by Sismondi, vii. 1 76. 
 
i4&>] CAPTURE OF OTRANTO. 357 
 
 Ferrante for aid given the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 
 a natural result of the latter's close friendship with the Pope. 
 Sixty Venetian sails accompanied him, presumably to prevent 
 him from entering the gulf ; but without even an effort, they 
 allowed him to lay siege to Otranto (July 28), retreating 
 to Corfu according to orders, to await the result. 1 It was 
 rumoured that they supplied the besiegers with provisions. 2 
 The place capitulated on August 1 1 , and the writers say that 
 the Turks behaved barbarously. Were they worse than the 
 Christians? Henceforth they had a foothold in the peninsula, 
 and could devastate it at their will. 3 King Ferrante informed 
 the Pope that if the Church did not promptly send powerful 
 assistance, he would treat with the Turks and make the way 
 clear for their march upon Rome. 4 
 
 This catastrophe, which upset all Italy, according to Lor- 
 enzo gave it breathing space. So he wrote to Louis XI. four 
 days later, 5 and from the Florentine point of view he was 
 right. Florence was not the first state threatened by the 
 invasion. The Duke of Calabria, recalled by his father, aban- 
 doned Sienna, where he occupied so many places, 6 to the 
 vengeance, the claims, and conquests of the neighbouring 
 Republic ; while the king of Naples, March 1 48 1 , went so far 
 as to insist upon the Siennese yielding spontaneously, so that 
 Florence, should she declare war upon them in her own 
 interest, would not have an excuse to refuse him the assist- 
 ance he hoped for against the Turk. 7 On the other hand, 
 
 1 Sanuto, xxii. 1213 ; Malipieri, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 130. 
 
 2 Diar. Farm., xxii. 379. 
 
 3 Histoire de V Empire Othoman, by Demetrius Cantimir, Prince of Moldavia, 
 trans, by M. de Jonquieres, Canon of Montpellier, Paris, 1743, vol. iii. p. 29; 
 Ammirato, xxiv. 146 ; Sismondi, vii. 177. 
 
 4 Sanuto, xxii. 121 3 ; Sismondi, vii. 178. 
 
 5 " Essendo quietate queste nostre cose d'ltalia in gran parte. . . . Senza dubi- 
 tatione questa pace e quiete d'ltalia abbiamo pel caldo e favore la S. M. ne ha 
 fatto" (Lorenzo to G. Vespucci, Aug. 15, 1480. Text in Desjardins, i. 187). 
 
 6 Among others, Colle, Poggibonsi, Poggio Imperiale, Montesansovino, Monte 
 Domenichi, La Castellina, San Polo. 
 
 7 Allegretti, xxiii. 808 ; Malavolti, part iii. 1. v. f. 79 v°; Machiavelli, viii. 127 B. 
 
358 EMBASSY TO ROME. [1480 
 
 Sixtus IV., who until then had refused Lorenzo pardon until 
 he should prostrate himself at his feet, consented to receive 
 ambassadors from him. Twelve were appointed on Novem- 
 ber 4, 1480. 1 Their instructions were, that if his Holiness 
 did not grant absolution without delay, if he demanded money 
 before raising the interdict, if any particular person were 
 exempted from pardon — this meant Lorenzo — they were 
 instantly to leave Rome. 2 Lorenzo felt that, owing to cir- 
 cumstances, he could take a high hand. 
 
 The ambassadors entered Rome by night, and were re- 
 ceived in a private audience on the 25 th November. After- 
 wards, December 3, the First Sunday of Advent, they met 
 under the portico of St. Peter. The Pope and all his cardi- 
 nals came, the grand entrance remaining closed behind him. 
 Seated, he addressed the prostrated Florentines a speech, in 
 which, among other graceful remarks, he advised them " not 
 like dogs to return to their vomit." 3 The customary forma- 
 lities followed. The Pontiff took the rod from the Grand 
 Penitentiary and struck each ambassador upon the shoulder, 
 each of whom bowed his head and recited a verse from the 
 Miserere. Then they were allowed to kiss the Pope's foot 
 and received the blessing. The grand entrance was opened ; 
 Sixtus IV. was conducted to the high altar, and in his train 
 the whipped Florentines entered under the sacred vault. 4 
 Their master and their country were reconciled to the Church. 
 How was it that the head of the Church did not seize this 
 moment, instead of a later, to force the Republic to arm fifteen 
 
 1 The names of these ambassadors may be found in Rinuccini, p. 134, and 
 Cipolla, p. 602. 
 
 2 See these instructions in Fabroni, Doc, p. 219. Capponi (ii. 144) gives a 
 half page of the text. 
 
 3 M Nolite, ut canes, redire ad vomitum." (See this speech mAnn. Eccl., 1480, 
 § 40, vol. xxix. p. 619, from Jacopo of Volterra (xxiii. 114), who was present at 
 the ceremony.) 
 
 4 All these absurdities were still practised in Henry IV. 's time, for whom Duper- 
 ron and D'Ossat received absolution. See our work, LEglise et f£tat sous le 
 regence de Marie de Midicis, vol. i. p. 132, Paris, 1872. 
 
1480] LORENZO'S GOOD FORTUNE. 359 
 
 galleys against the Turks ? Perhaps he would have obtained 
 it then. 1 
 
 All is well that ends well. When Florence had recovered 
 her lost possessions upon the Siennese frontier, and seen her 
 enemy, the Duke of Calabria, detained for a long time in the 
 south ; when she had recovered the right of assisting at the 
 " functions" or ceremonies, and of receiving the sacraments 
 of a religion whose dogmas she sneered at, this town, " greedy 
 of speech," Machiavelli says, " which judges facts by suc- 
 cess and not by counsel, changed its mind, raised Lorenzo 
 to the skies, saying that his good luck had made him gain 
 by peace what bad luck had made him lose through war. 2 
 This was not quite just. Resolution and cleverness had pre- 
 pared and merited luck, for God only helps those who help 
 themselves, and we only gain in a game by having a stake in 
 it. Lorenzo was a clever player and a wily politician. That 
 was why, in spite of many accidents, of many deceptions and 
 sources of disquiet, he ended his days in the plenitude of the 
 power that his grandfather had bequeathed him, and which 
 his son compromised and finally lost. 
 
 1 Jacopo of Volterra, xxiii. 113-115 ; Ann. EccL, loc. cit. ; Machiavelli, viii. 
 127 a ; Ammirato, xxiv. 146 ; Reumont, i. 512 ; Capponi, ii. 141 ; Cipolla, p. 602. 
 
 2 Machiavelli, viii. 127 b. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICIS FROM HIS RECONCILIATION WITH THE HOLY 
 
 SEE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ITALIAN EQUILIBRIUM. 
 
 I48O-I49I. 
 
 Papal intrigues to create a principality for Riario Sforza (1480) — The Ferrara war 
 (May 3, 1482) — The two leagues — Campaign of 1482 — Incapacity — Death of the 
 captains — Vain efforts to gather a council— Peace concluded (December 12) — Dis- 
 content of the Florentines — Diet of Cremona (February 28, 1484) — Projects for 
 territorial enlargement — Enterprise against Sarzana (September 1484) — Taking of 
 Pietrasanta by the Florentines (November 8) — Pontificate of Innocent VIII. — War 
 of the Holy See against the King of Naples (1485) — Lorenzo's difficulty— Peace 
 debated in the Sacred College (March i486) — French embassy in Italy (May) — 
 Peace concluded (August 11) — Duplicity of Lorenzo — Genoese campaign against 
 Sarzana (1487)— Florentine victory and siege of Sarzana (April 13) — Capitulation of 
 Sarzana (June 22) — Misunderstanding between Milan and Florence on the subject 
 of Genoa — Genoa in the hands of the Milanese (August 1488) — Negotiation for 
 the marriage of one of Lorenzo's daughters with Franceschetto Cybo, and the 
 nomination of one of his sons to the cardinalate (1486-1489) — The contract signed 
 (January 20, 1488) — Death of Clarissa, Lorenzo's wife (July) — The hat granted 
 (March 9, 1489) and given back (March 10, 1492)— Girolamo Riario assassinated 
 (April 14, 1488) — Accusations against Lorenzo — The widow joins his family — 
 Galeotto Manfredi assassinated (May 31, 1488) — Lorenzo, protector of Faenza, 
 Imola, and Forli, mediation between the powers — His greatness abroad. 
 
 Lorenzo's safeguard was war around Otranto, which kept the 
 Turk at sea. The energy and talents of Mahomet might have 
 prolonged the struggle, had not his death on May 3, 148 1, 
 brought it to a brusque end. An armed rivalry between his two 
 sons, Bajazet II. and Djem, enabled Sixtus IV. to recall his fleet 
 and the Duke of Calabria to reconquer the lost town, August 
 IO. 1 The centre of agitation was carried back to the north. 
 Like a tender father, the Pope had only one idea — to make 
 the whole of Romagna the appanage of Count Girolamo. To 
 the principality of Imola, prey of the sensational parasite, he 
 
 1 Navagero, xxiii. 1168; Jacopo de Vol terra, xxiii. 148-152, who especially 
 gives the discourses; Sismondi, viii. 184. 
 
 360 
 
1481] GREED OF RIARIO. 361 
 
 had already joined that of Forli (September 4, 1480), taken 
 from the Ordelaffi, who possessed it for a hundred and 
 fifty years. Whether through want of political spirit or 
 through diverted attention, the Italian states had allowed this 
 flagrant wrong. 1 Would Riario now get Faenza ? The Ten of 
 Venice were not opposed to it. 2 They even allowed that there 
 was a question of the conquest of Naples. It was, they said, a 
 design or a project to be duly weighed and kept secret. 3 To 
 ripen these agreeable reflections, the ambitious Riario had 
 himself sent to Venice under pretext of strengthening the 
 alliance, 4 and there he was received with greater honour, writes 
 one of his ministers in Lorenzo's pay, than would have been 
 rendered to the Emperor. 5 In siding with an aged Pope, the 
 Republic of the Lagoons hoped upon his death to profit by the 
 geographical alterations to which she lent herself. Thus was 
 inaugurated the enterprise against the Duke of Ferrara, of all 
 the princelings the easiest to pluck. 6 
 
 A pretext was wanting ; Venice found several. She remem- 
 bered having possessed Ferrara in 1308. She was vexed by 
 the recent marriage of Ercole d'Este and Leonora, Ferrante's 
 daughter. She complained that a vidame, whom she sup- 
 ported in Ferrara for the protection of her subjects, had, upon 
 
 1 Jacopo de Vol terra, xxiii. in, 112; Diar. Parm., xxii. 345; Sanuto, xxii. 
 121 1 ; Sismondi, vii. 185. 
 
 3 " Si forte intelligeritis D. Comitem Hieronymum aspirare ad statum Faventie 
 sicut aspiravit. . . . Respondeatis Dominum nostrum esse contentum " (Jan. 27, 
 1 481). The Council of Ten to Zach. Barbaro, orator to Rome, in Brosch, Papst 
 Julius II., p. 305, n. 50. 
 
 3 " Reliquum est ut ad earn partem aliquid dicamus, que continent verba vobis- 
 cum D. Comitis super regno et super expulsione regis, etc., que verba et cogi- 
 tata visa nobis sunt digniora maximo silentio et taciturnitate quam conferimento 
 et consultatione . . . bono gravi et modesto modo cum vobis accident hortamini 
 D. Comitem ut conceptum suum in ilia materia cum nemine omnino aperiat aut 
 aliquem nutum faciat" (November 9, 1480, to Barbaro, ibid., p. 305, n. 51). 
 
 4 Jacopo de Volterra, xxiii. 140 ; Sismondi, vii. 185. 
 
 6 Letter of Matteo, Archdeacon of Forli, to Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 226 ; 
 Jacopo de Volterra, xxiii. 143; Pietro Cirneo, Comment, dc Bello ferrariensi, xxi. 
 1 195 ; Cipolla, p. 611. 
 
 6 Brosch, p. 22 ; Reumont, ii. 250 ; Cipolla, p. 611. 
 
362 WAR WITH FERRARA. [1482 
 
 the question of a tax, been excommunicated by the bishop. 1 
 In vain did the Duke arrange the affair of the vidame : for- 
 bidden to manufacture salt in the lagoons of Comacchio, Venice 
 annexed the territory of Ferrara and raised anew the question 
 of the frontier, still in abeyance. 2 Involuntarily we think of 
 La Fontaine's wolf and lamb. 
 
 On May 3, 1 482, war was declared in the name of Venice, the 
 Pope, and his favourite. But the time was past for localising 
 it ; interests had acquired a solidarity. 3 Italy was soon aflame 
 and divided in two camps. Genoa and the Marquis of Mont- 
 ferrat sided with Venice, Sixtus IV., and Kiario ; the King of 
 Naples, the Duke of Milan, the Marquis of Mantua, Benti- 
 voglio and Bologna, Lorenzo and Florence pronounced for 
 Ferrara. 4 The military chiefs on Ercole's side were Alphonsus 
 of Calabria and the old Duke of Urbino, a great lover of the 
 arts, who boasted of having nearly always won his battles ; 5 on 
 the Pope's, Roberto Malatesta, lord of Rimini, Urbino's son-in- 
 law, and of a renown scarcely less than his ; and for Venice, 
 Roberto de San Severino, declared a rebel by Lodovico il Moro, 
 whom he had made regent. 6 
 
 The plan of Ferrara was that Urbino should attack the 
 Venetian state in Lombardy, while Calabria would engage and 
 detain the pontifical army in the neighbourhood of Rome. 
 
 1 A part of a letter of July 10, 1481, in Romanin (vol. iv. p. 402, n. 3), which 
 throws light upon this question. Cf. P. Cirneo, xxi. 1194; Sabellico, Dec, iv. 
 1. i. p. 813. 
 
 2 Cipolla, p. 612; Sismondi, vii. 187. 
 
 3 Antonio Montecatino, orator of Ercole d'Este in Florence, wrote to him later : 
 11 Appartiene a quelli Mci Signori avere maggior cura di questo stato che del pro- 
 prio, perche, perduto questo, il loro anche andera in ruina, e se bene si perdesse 
 Ferrara, non restera che il papa non sia papa, et non si curera de la condizione 
 futura de li successori ; sicche se quelli M ci Signori desiderano di non andare 
 in servitu ne loro ne i suoi figliuoli, bisogna che ci aiutino a conservare questa 
 stato" (December 5, 1482, Atti e memorie, &c, i. p. 264). 
 
 4 Jacopo de Volterra, xxiii. 171 ; P. Cirneo, xxi. 1195-1201 ; Infessura, Diar. 
 Rom., vol. iii. part ii. p. 1149. After having vainly turned the Pope from this 
 war, Lorenzo recalled his ambassadors from Rome : they left May 14. 
 
 5 Ricotti, iii. 229. 
 
 6 Ann. Placenl., xx. 964; Sismondi, vii. 191, 193, 196. 
 
1482] WAR WITH FERRARA. 363 
 
 Lorenzo promised to aid Niccolo Vitelli to reconquer Citta di 
 Castello, while Antonio, Urbino's son, should attempt to regain 
 Forli. Venice, upon her side, more active, already surrounded 
 Ferrara with a circle of fire and sword. Her fleet and her 
 army advanced towards Kavenna ; Malatesta attacked Bagna- 
 cavallo ; San Severino took Castelnuovo and Ficcarolo, follow- 
 ing the left bank of the Po, after a short siege, which Urbino, 
 Ercole, and Bentivoglio were unable to force him to raise. 1 
 Vespasiano, who belonged to the vanquished party, says that it 
 was the finest campaign that had been seen in Italy for long. 2 
 The innocent paper-maker was easy to astonish. The 
 Florentines, in fact, dissented from Urbino's renown. On 
 the other hand, the orator of Ferrara wrote, 3 " Our league is 
 wanting in sense." These malcontents were right. Upon 
 plains broken by marshes, canals, torrents, and bridgeless 
 rivers, whose mouth, encumbered by sand, caused the waters 
 to flow below the level of their bed, with millions of little 
 isles that breathe an air as damp as the stagnant waters 
 that surrounded them, 4 the armies remained isolated, seeking 
 only their separate advantages, whence insignificant and 
 worthless combats. The only risks of danger were the care- 
 lessness and inexperience of the leaders, and the infection, 
 which during the year 1482 is said to have killed 20,000 
 men, among whom were three Florentine commissaries 
 and the Duke of Urbino. The same day (September 10), 
 
 1 Vespasiano, Vita di Fed. d? Urbino, c. 18, 19, 21 ; Spicil. Rom., i. 115, 117 ; 
 P. Cirneo, xxi. 1201 ; Diario Ferrarese, xxiv. 260 ; Sabellico, Dec. iv. 1. i. p. 829 ; 
 Sanuto, Commentari della Guerra di Ferrara, p. 28, Venice, 1829 ; Machiavelli, 
 viii. 128 A ; Ammirato, xxv. 150; Sismondi, vii. 191 sq. See also, on the in- 
 cidents of war, Antonio Montecatino's despatches to Ercole d'Este, August 26 
 and 30, 1482, in Atli e memorie, &c, i. p. 261. 
 
 2 Vita di Fed. d Urbino, c. 19, Spicil. Rom., i. 115. 
 
 3 " Non si contentano molto . . . ma pur con qualche riguardo lo calunianno, 
 di non aver consultato e fatto quello si conveniva. ... La nostra lega ha havuto 
 carestia di senno " (Ant. Montecatino to Ercole d'Este, August 30, 1482, in Atti 
 e memorie, &c, i. p. 260, 261). 
 
 4 The largest is the Isle of Rovigo, bounded by the Adige and the Po. See 
 Sabellico, Dec. iv. 1. i. f. 831; Sismondi, vii. 190; Reclus, Geogr. Univ., i. 
 356-369. 
 
364 THE ARCHBISHOP OF KRAIN. [1482 
 
 Roberto Malatesta. conqueror of Calabria at Torre di Campo- 
 morto, near Velletri (August 21), died in Rome. 1 
 
 This double death of father and son-in-law was a stroke of 
 fortune for Count Girolamo, as Malatesta's illegitimate son, who, 
 according to the custom of this family, was his successor, was 
 thus without protection, and it was a fine opportunity to seize 
 the state of Rimini. Florence did not hesitate to uphold her 
 dead enemy's son against the most formidable of her living 
 enemies. She sent troops to him, but had less faith in her 
 arms than in her negotiations. 
 
 Already Lorenzo had returned to the idea of the Council pro- 
 posed by Louis XI. and accepted by the Emperor. 2 Rather, 
 he stole the proposal of a preacher to reopen the Council of Bale, 
 that had never been closed. This preacher was a German 
 Dominican, Archbishop of Krain, called Andreas. In Rome 
 he had made acquaintance with the dungeons of St. Angelo 
 because he had spoken against the Pope. His proposal had 
 inflamed Ferrante and Lorenzo, as well as the Emperor. They 
 all three sent delegates to Bale, 3 but Lorenzo's delegate, 
 Baccio Ugolini, a veteran in diplomacy, on his arrival saw 
 clearer than the others. No prelates arrived ; the Pope ener- 
 getically recalling the fact that he had already been pro- 
 mised at Mantua that no further Councils should be called. 4 
 
 1 Sabellico, Dec. iv. 1. i. f. 832 ; Diario Ferrarese, xxiv. 263 ; Jacopo of 
 Volterra, xxiii. 179; Navagero, xxiii. 1177 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1224; Allegretti, xxiii. 
 811; Infessura, Diar. Rom., iii. part ii. p. 1157 ; Machiavelli, viii. 128 ab ; 
 Ammirato, xxv. 152 ; Ricotti, iii. 223. 
 
 2 Sismondi, vii. 196 ; Capponi, ii. 148. 
 
 3 Lorenzo sent Baccio Ugolini, who arrived at Bale, September 14, with a 
 delegate from Milan. See Buser, Append., p. 503. Upon this affair, Capponi 
 (ii. 148) mentions Lorenzo's letters in the name of the Ten, dated September 21 
 and October 14, which may be found in the Legazione Manoscritta di Pier Cap- 
 poni a JVapo/i, that is to say, among his family papers. He also quotes from 
 those letters a few words which are an exhortation in a hypocritical religious tone 
 to Pier Capponi to write to the Council. See also J. Burckhardt, Erzbischof 
 Andreas von Krain und der letze Consilzversuch in Basel, 1482-1484, Bale, 
 1852, and on this work a study of Reumont in Arch. Stor.> new ser. ii. part ii. 
 p. 240. 
 
 4 " II papa dice il Re non si aver potuto appellare, perche gia a Mantova 
 quando si fue quella dieta al tempo di papa Pio, tutti li potentati d'ltalia pro- 
 
1482] NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 365 
 
 The Archbishop of Kraia heaped stupidity upon stupidity, ready 
 to yield to whomsoever would go security for him. To push 
 on the affair, added Baccio, would be like giving medicine 
 to a dead man. It was all said in the tone of pleasantry 
 which he knew was agreeable to his master, 1 but at bottom he 
 was very serious. The indiscreet and vapouring prelate was 
 put in prison, and his process only ended when he was hanged. 2 
 Peace could not come from this policy, and Lorenzo, who 
 pursued it, 3 must have known it. Defeated at Campomorto, 
 Sixtus IV. wrote to the princes four days later (August 
 29) praying for peace, and to the Emperor Frederick III. to 
 obtain his mediation. 4 This pacific mood of a warlike Pope 
 was met with incredulity and even discontent. When the 
 Florentines learned that (December 12) peace had been 
 concluded in his chamber, 5 as they ignored Lorenzo's part 
 in the affair, 6 they dared to proclaim themselves dissatis- 
 
 misero non si appellare mai ad futurum concilium. Item che S. M. promise ex- 
 presse a papa Sisto non si appellare mai " (Dep. of the Ambass. of Modena, 
 Florence, September 12, 1482, in Atti e memorie, &c, i. 296). 
 
 1 Baccio Ugolini to Lorenzo, Bale, October 25, 1482, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 
 232-233. There are three of these letters, dated September 20, 30, and October 
 25. Fabroni, Doc, p. 227-233. 
 
 2 November 13, 1484, after the death of Sixtus IV. See Infessura, vol. iii. 
 part. ii. p. 1153 ; Ann. EccL, 1482, § 23, vol. xxx. p. 25. 
 
 3 Ant. Montecatino reports a conversation that he had with Lorenzo : "Mi 
 doglio che a Roma non abbia V. M>a qualcuno che proponesse de li partiti. . . . 
 Lorenzo incominci6 a ridere e disse : Antonio, tu dl il vero, ma lassa passare 
 qualche giorno, forse che tu intenderai vi sara qualcheduno a questo effetto j an- 
 cora spero io avro frutto circa questa pace piu che niuno. . . . E vidi non volea 
 essere da me piu tentato. Dionisio Pucci suo compagno e provveditore de li M c * 
 Signori X., il quale intende ogni cosa, questo di mi disse ragionando che avea piu 
 speranza ne le pratiche di Lorenzo che di niun altro con la pace " (December 4, 
 1482 ; Atti e memorie, &c, i. p. 264). 
 
 4 The letter from Sixtus IV. to the Emperor is found in Ann. EccL, 1482, § 9, 
 vol. xxx. p. 20, and Rinaldi says at the end that the Pontiff addressed himself to 
 the other Christian princes as well. Two other letters from him can be seen, 
 dated the evening of the day following the peace due to the Venetians, Decem- 
 ber 11, the other to the cardinals, December 16, in Malipieri, Arch. Stor., 1st 
 ser., vol. iv. p. 269, 271. The first is also in P. Cirneo, xxi. 1209, and in Ann. 
 EccL, 1482, § 19, vol. xxx. p. 23. 
 
 5 Jac. de Volt., xxiii. 181 ; Sanuto, xxii. 1225 ; Machiavelli, viii. 128 B. 
 
 6 Ant. Montecatino thanking Lorenzo the 13th of December, Lorenzo replied 
 to him that " non accadeva ringraziare, ma che mi volea mostrare una lettera per 
 la quale io vedria cosi essere stato il vero " {Atti e memorie, &c. , i. p. 264). 
 
366 BREAKING UP OF THE LEAGUE. [1482 
 
 fied. 1 The question of Romagna was in abeyance ; the Romag- 
 nese lords remained in the Pope's power, or his son's. Thus they 
 would not form the circle with which Florence hoped again to 
 surround herself in the event of an attack from Lombardy. 
 Lorenzo himself, when he learned the conditions of peace, 
 shared the feeling of his countrymen. He only gave his 
 consent upon the urgent request of Ercole d'Este, 2 and 
 because he did not dare to count upon the King of France. 3 
 " As for me," he said to the orators of Milan, " I should be 
 satisfied with having saved Ferrara. The habits of the day 
 deprive its people of any confidence in the future. They will 
 not court ruin without the hope of some advantage." 4 On 
 the other hand, the Ten of War said they intended to hold 
 themselves in reserve, and not to alienate the Most Christian 
 King because of the numerous Florentine merchants settled 
 in his states. 5 
 
 In the end, matters turned out better than had been ex- 
 pected in Florence, for Venice did not approve of this treaty of 
 peace, and recalled her ambassador from Rome, 6 thus incurring 
 excommunication. 7 War was not ended, but the hostile league 
 was broken, and everybody was now against the ambitious 
 Venetians. 
 
 The winter was given up to preparations. On February 
 28, 1483, a diet met at Cremona, in which Lodovico il 
 
 1 Capponi, ii. 149-150, who quotes the legation manuscript, herein indicated, 
 of his ancestor, Pier Capponi. 
 
 2 See letters of Ant. Montecatino to Ercola, December 17 and 20, 1482, and 
 from Ercola to Lorenzo, January 5, 1483. Atti e memorie, i. p. 265, 266. 
 
 3 Buser, p. 230 ; Cipolla, p. 619, n. 2. 
 
 4 " Salvamo Ferrara, che bene farino. S. Mtia dixe : Quanto a mi bastaria, 
 ma a questo populo li modo d'hora gli fanno manchare la fede in l'avenire et dubi- 
 tare che quando bene Ferrara sia salvata, gli sia dicto come adesso che habino 
 pacientia expectando il tempo, alegando avvi impedimenti, etc. Si che non de- 
 liberano difarsi, dove non sperano uno fructo al mondo " (Letters from the 
 Milanese ambassadors, Antonio Trivulzio et Malatesta Sacramoro, December 23, 
 1482. Arch. S/orz.y copies, No. 1610, f. 321). 
 
 5 The same, December 24, ibid., f. 324. 
 
 6 December 27. Documents shown in Romanin, iv. 411. 
 
 7 Capponi, ii. 150. 
 
1483] ISOLATION OF THE VENETIANS. 367 
 
 Moro, Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of Calabria, Ercole d'Este, 
 the Marquis-Cardinal of Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio, and 
 Lorenzo took part. The last had just returned from Rome, 
 whither he had gone in the capacity of orator, 1 and counted 
 upon a similar commission for Cremona. He held in the diet 
 a higher place than his official position entitled him to, 2 where 
 the superiority of his mind and his eloquence were admired. 
 Perhaps they contributed to some extent to the decision that 
 was taken that the armies should cross the Po and make way 
 upon Venetian territory. 3 
 
 On their side, the Venetians had crossed the Adda, in the 
 hope of provoking a revolt in Milan, while by sea they seized 
 Gallipoli in Apulia. 4 On land the campaign was laughable. 
 The armies encamped opposite each other, and only troubled 
 the friendly populations whose territory they occupied with the 
 evils of war. " One would have said that the Italian soldiers 
 knew of no other means of entering a town than waiting for 
 the enemy to vacate it." 5 Everything contributed to inaction : 
 the unhealthy climate, the continual change of chiefs, 6 the bad 
 feeling between the confederates, and their political calcula- 
 tions. Lodovico il Moro was fretted to impatience by the 
 Duke of Calabria's command in Lombardy, where he protected 
 his son-in-law, Gian Galeaz, against fell designs. Venice, who 
 had suggested to Louis XI. the enterprise of Naples, to the 
 
 1 February 1483, with Bernardo Rucellai. See instructions relative to this 
 embassy, February 5, 1483, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 241. 
 
 2 Ammirato, xxv. 155. 
 
 3 See on this diet Jacopo ofVolterra, xxiii. 184; Ann. Placenta xx. 970; 
 Sanuto, Comment., p. 65. Cipolla (p. 60) indicates other sources. 
 
 4 See Angelo Tafuro, Guerra de' Sign. Viniziani contra la Cettate di Gallipoli, 
 R.I.S., xxiv. 913. 
 
 5 Sismondi, vii. 202. Cf. Ammirato, xxv. 156. 
 
 6 Rene of Lorraine arrived in Venice, April 1483, to replace San Severino, de- 
 parted September 8, under pretext of Louis XL's death, which happened August 
 30. See Malipieri, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vii. 279, 285; Navagero, xxiii. 1182; 
 Sanuto, xxii. 1226, and Comment., p. 77 ; Cipolla, p. 620. In Desjardins (i. 
 200-204) may be read the text of the instructions given, November 8, 1483, to the 
 ambassadors sent to Charles VIII. to condole with him on the death of his father, 
 and congratulate him on his arrival to the throne. 
 
368 THE PEACE OF BAGNUOLO. [1484 
 
 Duke of Orleans that of Milan, and vainly striven to carry out 
 these negotiations with the too busy Anne of Beaujeu, 1 ended 
 by treating with II Moro, whom she saw establishing himself 
 upon Milanese ground. 2 The Duke of Ferrara's displeasure 
 was great when Venice became mistress of the Isle of Rovigo 
 and the mouths of the Adige and Po ; the Pope also, without 
 whose aid the peace he had desired to bring about was con- 
 cluded, 3 was incensed, as was his son Riario, who thought he 
 was robbed of what he was not allowed to take, and who 
 protested to the Pontifical Legate, 4 though on the eve of 
 Sixtus' death, already weakened, 5 if not ruined, by the bad 
 news ; 6 finally, Lorenzo was enraged because he could not 
 obtain the return of Sarzana. 
 
 The disappointment of the last must have been great, for 
 he had mixed himself up with the peace. Calabria, who did 
 nothing without consulting him, had sent him from Bagnuolo, 
 where peace was concluded, Giovanni Albino, diplomatist and 
 Neapolitan historian, with Gioviano Pontano, his secretary and 
 
 1 Letter of Lionetto des Rossi, May 14, 1484, translation in Buser, p. 242, 
 Cipolla (p. 623, n. 1) points out other sources. We must add that the relations 
 between Venice and the Pope were unfriendly; the Venetian orator left Rome 
 " dia mala voglia per non aver potuto parlare a la santita del N. S. dicendo : 
 questo non si saria fatto ad un Turco. Mostrava aver paura che '1 papa non gli 
 publicasse addosso la crociata, e che S, S. lo facesse, non sperasse mai pace, e che 
 prima si accorderiano col diavolo" (Ant. Montecatino to Ercole, February 28, 
 1483. Atti e memorie, &c, i. p. 265). 
 
 2 Treaty of Bagnuolo, a few miles from Brescia, August 7, 1484. See text in 
 Du Mont, vol. iii. part ii. p. 128 sq. 
 
 3 " S. B. volentieri vorrebbe ogni accordo. ... II papa ha gran desiderio di 
 pace, e oggi a tutti noi oratori ha confessato quelle pratiche" (G. Vespucci to 
 Lorenzo, Rome, October 23, 1483, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 250). Malipieri {Arch. 
 Stor., 1st ser., vol. vii. p. 269) speaks of Sixtus' efforts for peace, and Venice's dis- 
 trust of a Pope who did not hold himself bound by oath. We can see in Jacopo 
 of Volterra (xxiii. 196, 198) how the Protonotary Colonna had been beheaded after 
 having been promised liberty if he would give up to the Pope the fortress of 
 Marino, which in fact was in his hands. 
 
 4 Navagero, xxiii. 1 190. 
 
 8 Jacopo of Volterra, xxiii. 200; Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1182; Burselli, 
 xxiii. 904; Sanuto, xxii. 1234; P. Cirneo, xxi. 1218; Machiavelli, viii. 129 B, 
 130 A ; Ammirato, xxv. 155, 162. Nothing could be more severe than Infessura's 
 judgment of Sixtus IV. 
 
 6 See in Jacopo of Volterra (xxiii. 199) how he received the news. 
 
1484] THE DUKE OF CALABRIA. 369 
 
 prime mover in the treaty. 1 But Lorenzo's interests were too 
 involved in the termination of a war that robbed him of men 
 and gold, and turned his attention from matters more personal 
 and pressing, for him to be long put out by a miscalculation 
 of detail. 
 
 If the Medici were not to appear inferior to the Albizzi, 
 whose power they usurped, Lorenzo must have territorial ac- 
 quisitions. Lucca was still uncaptured, but Sienna seemed a 
 readier prey. When the Duke of Calabria had been recalled 
 to the south to retake Otranto and expel the Turks, Lorenzo 
 had replaced him as the officious protector of the Siennese Re- 
 public, which had fallen from the hands of the aristocracy into 
 those of the people, or rather into those of the lower class, whom 
 one of the haughty Ricasoli represented then as " mad, willing 
 to turn to whomever would fill its stomach, and to start twenty- 
 five revolutions a day for a bottle of wine." 2 His protection 
 was purchased by the restitution of Florentine lands occupied 
 during the war ; 3 from officious it might become official, and 
 thus transform itself into a peaceful conquest. Everything 
 depended on the price offered. 
 
 Gold was necessary also, and probably a larger sum, to 
 recover Sarzana, taken by Agostino Fregoso, and retained by 
 the jealousy of its neighbours. Not feeling strong enough to 
 defend this place alone, Fregoso had given it up to the Bank 
 
 1 In his work De Prudentia. See Carlo Rosselli del Turco, Essai sur Pontano 
 in the Rivista Universale, fascic. 181, November 1877, ana " Cipolla, p. 625. A 
 few months later, October 8, 1484, Calabria, returning to the kingdom of Naples, 
 passed through Florence. See Al. Rinuccini, p. 140. 
 
 2 Having given the details of the movement in Sienna to the Ten, Pietro de 
 Giovanni Ricasoli adds : " Loro vogliono ad ogni giuoco essere li maestri. Ma 
 niuno fondamento si puo fare sopra le pazzie loro, che e proprio un brodetto di 
 pazzi, e quella plebe si volgera sempre con chi avra meglio il modo ad empire loro 
 il corpo, che non vi e niuno di quegli plebei che per un fiasco di vino non faccia 
 il di 25 mutazioni" (Letter transcribed by Ant. Montecatino in his despatch of 
 November 2, 1482 ; Atti e memorie, i. 262). 
 
 3 The chief of those places was Castellina. It was the subject of long negotia- 
 tions, in which Sixtus IV. took part. For that matter, it was an old question. 
 See Jacopo of Volterra, xxiii. 164, and in Fabroni {Doc, p. 233) a letter of the 
 Ten, dated February 17, 1483. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A 
 
37© EFFORTS FOR RECOVERY OF SARZANA. [1484 
 
 of San Giorgio, a powerful company which at tho time directed 
 the Genoese traffic, * and whose representative government, 
 wealth, army, and system of administration were much supe- 
 rior to those of the State. 2 As well as Sarzana, it possessed 
 Pietrasanta, a mortgage for a loan to Lucca, and it refused to 
 yield it even for repayment of the loan. 3 Its proximity was 
 intolerable to the Florentines. From 1343 they had lost 
 all right to this place, which they themselves had sold, and 
 which in turn had belonged to Pisa and to Lucca ; 4 but 
 always anxious to put " the bit into the mouth " 5 of Lucca, 
 and in consequence recover Saranza, they were prevented be- 
 cause threatened by the garrison of Pietrasanta, which place 
 was the key of Lunigiana. Happily they remembered in time 
 that a Florentine podestate had built it in the thirteenth century. 
 In default of the substance, they found the shadow of a right. 
 The occasion, besides, was favourable : anarchy reigned at 
 Genoa, 6 and the treaty of Bagnuolo left Florence free scope. 
 As early as September 1484, the condottieri of the Republic 
 were in Lunigiana. 7 Chariots of munition and provisions 
 destined for their troops were attacked and taken on the 
 way by the garrison of Pietrasanta. They were so feebly 
 protected that their passage under the walls of an enemy's 
 town could only have been a provocation to justify ulterior 
 revenge. Autumn reached its end, the season for sieges was 
 past, above all, in a plain between the sea and the mountains, 
 transformed into marshes by an insufficiency of slopes, and 
 breathing malarial fevers. All the same, Lorenzo was not will- 
 ing to wait for the spring ; he was in a hurry to retort upon 
 
 1 Upon this company, Trollope (iii. 425) refers to Serra, Storia di Genova, 5th 
 speech at end of vol. iv. of the Capolago edition, 1835, and to the Descrizione di 
 Genova e del Genovesato, published upon the occasion of the scientific congress 
 held in this town in 1846, part iii. p. 148. 
 
 2 Machiavelli, viii. 130 B ; Sismondi, vii. 232. 
 
 3 Cambi, Del., xxi. 25. 
 
 4 See our vol. iv. p. 352, n. 3. 
 
 • 5 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. vii. vol. iii. p. 70. 
 
 6 See Sismondi, vii. 236 ; Cipolla, p. 639. 
 
 7 Ammirato, xxv. 162. 
 
1484] CAPITULATION OF PIETRASANTA. 37 1 
 
 the Genoese, who had just descended upon Vada and were 
 firing upon the tower of Leghorn. 1 
 
 The start was not brilliant ; the Florentines were always 
 pitiable in war. They avoided fighting, and the batteries were 
 hardly raised before Pietrasanta when the three captains fell 
 ill, one of them carried off by a ball, and two civil commissaries 
 by fever. But the adversaries were neither braver nor more 
 intelligent. On November 5 an assault was made and a bastion 
 taken, and nothing more was necessary to make them yield. 
 On November 8, Lorenzo came and received their capitula- 
 tion, the whole honour of which he took for himself. 2 
 
 The honour was not great, and still less so the profit. 
 Lucca, which during the siege had refused men to Florence to 
 avoid a misunderstanding with Genoa, and provisions because 
 of the famine, supplying them with only meagre forage, 
 claimed Pietrasanta, which she had once possessed. 3 Sienna, 
 too, was getting ready for arms, and the near arrival of Rene, 
 was announced. 4 Every one was weary of the war, which might 
 spread from Tuscany all over Italy. Lodovico il Moro and 
 Ferrante of Naples, seconded by Sixtus IV.'s successor, were 
 in treaty for peace. 5 
 
 The election of a new Pope, whoever he might be, could 
 not but be favourable to Lorenzo. Death delivered him of a 
 great enemy, whom the historian of the Holy See, Infes- 
 gura, calls a monster, or rather of two, for Girolamo Riario r 
 no longer near the pontifical throne, ceased to be formid- 
 able. But the Genoese Giambattista Cybo, Pope by name 
 
 1 Folieta, 1. xi. ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir. , c. vii. vol. iii. p. 70 ; Sismondi,, 
 vii. 237 ; Capponi, ii. 152 ; Cipolla, p. 629. 
 
 2 Cambi, Bel., xxi. 25; Bizarro, 1. xv. p. 358; Valori, Vita Laur., p. 44? 
 Machiavelli, viii. 131 ; Ammirato, xxv. 164. 
 
 3 Gir. Tommasi, Sommario delta Storia di Lucca, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser.,. 
 vol. x. p. 339, and indication of documents, p. 347, note 21 ; Machiavelli, viii. 
 131 B. 
 
 * Aldovrandino Guidoni to Ercole d'Este, Florence, 1485, during the first 
 months ; Atti e memorie, i. 269. 
 
 5 See Capponi, ii. 152, who cites the letters addressed to the Ten by Pier 
 Capponi, commissary of war at Pisa. 
 
372 POPE INNOCENT VIII. [1484 
 
 of Innocent VIII., 1 might have been more useful. If he did 
 no harm, he countenanced it in others. His indolence was 
 scarcely less fatal than the turbulence of his predecessor. 
 His reign was one of favourites, of nephews and sons ; and 
 putting aside all shame and renouncing the cloak of nepotism, 
 he publicly recognised seven illegitimate children that he had 
 had by different women. 2 
 
 In politics his cynicism was as great. Brought up at the 
 court of Alphonsus of Naples, he received his first bishopric 
 from Ferrante — the bishopric of Amalfi. 3 But he was de- 
 termined to be independent, and he did not lack pretexts to 
 break loose. The Neapolitans were irritated, the barons 
 impatient of an odious yoke, and Alphonsus's followers leaned 
 toward the house of Anjou. We must read the contemporaries 
 on the house of Aragon. A Venetian chronicler, Girolamo 
 Priuli, called Ferrante the " god of flesh," and added that it 
 would require more than one " large book " to record " the 
 tyranny, cruelty, luxury, the dishonourable tastes, the betrayals, 
 thefts, and murders of the king, and especially of the Duke, 
 the father of treason and preserver of ribaldry, beside whom 
 Nero was a saint." 4 " No man," writes the cold Comines, 
 " was more cruel than the Duke of Calabria, more wicked, 
 vicious, tainted, or greedy." The father was still more dan- 
 gerous, " Car nul ne se congnoissoit en lui ne en son courroux, 
 car en faisant bonne chere il prenoit et trahissoit les gens. . . . 
 Jamais en lui n'y avoit grace ne miseVicorde . . . et jamais 
 n'avoit eu aucune pitie ne compassion de son povre peuple. 
 Quant aux deniers, il faisoit toute la marchandise du royaume 
 . . . et vendoient le plus cher qu'ils pouvoient. Et si ladite 
 
 1 August 29, 1484. On his election, his letters can be read, written from 
 Rome to Lorenzo. They are in Fabroni, Doc. , p. 256-263. 
 
 2 Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1 190; Sismondi, vii. 217; Gregorovius, Ges- 
 chichte der Stadt Rom., vol. vii. ; Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom., vol. iii. 
 part i. and ii. 
 
 3 Ann. Eccl.y 1484, § 28, 40-46, vol. xxx. p. 68, 72-74. 
 
 4 Priuli, De Bello Gallico, R.I.S., xxiv. 16. Muratori has by mistake published 
 this chronicle under the name of Sanuto. See Cipolla, p. 630. 
 
1485] DEMANDS OF THE POPE. 373 
 
 marchandise s'abaissoit de prix, contraignoient le peuple de la 
 prendre, et par le temps qu'ils vouloient vendre, nul ne pouvoit 
 vendre qu'eux." 1 
 
 This commercial monopoly and scandalous traffic, winked 
 at by Sixtus IV., was not permitted by Innocent VIII. More- 
 over, influenced by Cardinal de la Rovere, all-powerful with him, 
 he haughtily claimed the pecuniary tribute that Ferrante had 
 been allowed to replace by the gift of a pony. 2 He claimed 
 the sovereignty of the kingdom, and invited the feudal barons, 
 who, as in France under Louis XL, defended the spirit of the 
 Middle Ages against the modern spirit, to bring to him their 
 complaints against the king. 3 The rebel inhabitants of Aquila 
 having implored his assistance, he decided for war, and ob- 
 tained as commander from Venice Roberto of San Severino. 4 
 
 Lorenzo was extremely put out by this fresh and unexpected 
 recourse to arms. His treaty with Naples obliged him, as well as 
 the Duke of Milan, if required, to furnish the kingdom with aid. 
 Now this aid was the great hope. 5 The demand was formally 
 made by the ambassadors towards the end of August. 6 Lorenzo 
 did not deny his obligations. 7 His ancient tutor, Gentile Becchi, 
 Bishop of Arezzo, one of the most fluent orators of the day, ad- 
 dressed Innocent VIIL, in the name of the deputies of the league, 
 in a splendid declamatory harangue on behalf of Ferrante. 8 
 But if a few preparations 9 were made, which the wily Lodovico 10 
 
 1 Comines, 1. vii. c. xiii. vol. ii. p. 375-377. Camillo Porzio is later (the first 
 edition of his Congiura df Baroni is of 1565, Rome), and he tries to be indulgent ; 
 he cannot, however, hide the odious side of these two characters. 
 
 2 Ann. EccL, 1485, § 40, vol. xxx. p. 103. 
 
 3 See Sismondi, vii. 219 ; Cipolla, p. 631. 
 
 4 See Capponi, ii. 153. 
 
 5 M. Cipolla (p. 631-632) cites a fragment of a letter from M. Rosselli del 
 Turco : " Et confortamo la magnificenza vostra ad sperare che le cose de qua 
 omne di piglieranno migliore aspetto." 
 
 6 Ammirato, xxv. 169. 
 
 7 The petty details may be seen in the despatches of Aid. Guidoni to Ercole 
 from November 27, 1485 ; Atti e memorie, i. 273 sq. 
 
 8 The text is in Desjardins, i. 205-214. 
 
 9 Ammirato, xxv. 171. 
 
 10 The letter of Lodovico is of October 10, 1485, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 269- 
 271. It was written upon the occasion of the departure of San Severino from the 
 
374 BEHAVIOUR OF LORENZO. [1485 
 
 pressed, although he took no part in them, Lorenzo was want- 
 ing in zeal. To the objurgations and flatteries of Ferrante, who 
 called him his first friend in Italy, 1 he replied by advice and 
 reproaches, expressing regret that the king had no longer the 
 reputation of being rich in men and money, as in the days 
 when he was regarded as the judge of the peninsula. 2 It was 
 much worse when he saw the Duke of Calabria betrayed by 
 the Orsini, after having for all success taken forty mules and 
 occupied one of the Tiber bridges ; 3 when he heard the Count 
 of Pitigliano, captain of the Florentines, accuse the Ten of 
 War of having flung him into the arms of these traitors 4 in 
 order to have a pretext for running away and retreating to 
 Milan. 6 Feigning illness, he refused his ally an interview ; 
 he refused Calabria permission to come to Florence. 6 He 
 went so far as to pronounce these incredible words : u I will 
 have nothing more to do with affairs, for I do not succeed. 
 I will give myself up to pleasure and amusement." 7 
 
 Venetian States to bring assistance to the Pope and the barons. See also letter 
 of A. Guidoni to Ercole, October 22, Atti e memorie, i. 273. It contains exhorta- 
 tions analogous to those of Milan. 
 
 1 Letters of Ferrante, reported by the historian Giov. Albino {De Bello Intestino), 
 his orator at Florence and at Milan. Cf. Fabroni, p. 130, and letter of Fran- 
 cesco Gaddi to Lorenzo, October 23, 1485, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 271-274. 
 
 2 "Dogliomi che lo Sign. Re non habbia quella reputatione aveva altro 
 tempo de' denari et de gente d'arme, che S. M. era stimato lo judice d'ltalia " 
 (Fabroni, Doc, p. 268). Sismondi did not then suspect the real motive of delay 
 when he saw in it the ordinary slowness of the Florentines in getting ready to act 
 (vol. vii. p. 226). " Having an eye to everything," writes Lorenzo, and in 
 certain things feigning not to understand, "lam grieved from the bottom of my 
 heart that the Lord Duke has this reputation for cruelty that is so unjust to him. 
 Let his Excellency study every means to rid himself of it. For instance, if the 
 people will not willingly support the taxes, let him suppress them, and return to 
 the ordinary ones, for it is better to receive one carlin with free will and love 
 than ten with hatred and anger. The people dislike innovations" (Letter of 
 November 3, 1485, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 269 ; Capponi, i. 154, n. 1, has reproduced 
 a part of the text). 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, December 5, 1485 ; Atti e manorie, i. 276. 
 
 4 Ibid., January 18, i486 ; ibid., p. 278. 
 
 6 Ibid. , January 17, i486; ibid., p. 278. 
 
 ' Ibid., and letter of January 25th, p. 279. 
 
 7 " lo non mi voglio piu intromettere in faccende alcune, perche le mie vanno 
 a la rovescia, e voglio attendere a darmi piacere e buon tempo " (words quoted by 
 
i486] NEGOTIATIONS WITH GENOA. 375 
 
 In consequence of this shameless declaration, when Tri- 
 vulzio passed through Florence on his way to join Calabria, he 
 visited him in the " Angel " inn, and spoke to him in pacific 
 terms. 1 If he had not dared to prevent Pier Capponi, who 
 belonged to the camp of the Florentine recruits, from march- 
 ing upon Rome 2 without other results than an indecisive 
 meeting (May 7), 3 he was always, like the rest of the world, 
 looking towards the Alps. Like the rebel barons, who awaited 
 their Messiah in Rene of Lorraine, and like Ferrante, who looked 
 for allies in Burgundy, 4 he expected every moment to see a 
 French army marching upon Milan and Naples, and, like his 
 compatriots, he had too many commercial interests in France 
 to turn his back upon the Most Christian King. 
 
 Lodovico il Moro was no less weary of hostilities con- 
 tinued upon the Neapolitan frontiers, where he had nothing 
 to pretend to, and where, on both sides, competent chiefs were 
 lacking, 5 nor less apprehensive of a Swiss and French invasion, 
 whose ever-suspended menace obliged him to hold his forces 
 in reserve. 6 For this reason, while Lorenzo was negotiating 
 an agreement with Genoa, 7 he proposed to mediate between 
 the belligerents. 8 The Pope received his overtures favour- 
 Aid. Guidoni, January 19, i486 ; ibid., p. 279). We must take note of the date. 
 In comparing it with the preceding ones, we see that it is at the moment of 
 disgrace that this worthless ally went off. 
 
 1 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, February 9, i486 ; Atti e memorie, i. 279. 
 
 2 Vincenzo Acciajuoli, Vito di Piero di Gino Capponi, in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., 
 vol. iv. part ii. p. 22, 23. 
 
 3 See the sources in Cipolla, p. 635. 
 
 4 C. Porzio, La Congiura de* Baroni, p. 69, 70. 
 
 5 " II peggio che vi sia e che ne il papa, ne Milano, ne Fiorenza non si trovano pur 
 un capo, s' egli bisognasse, da poter operare ne l'armi," &c. (Aid. Guidoni, December 
 28, 1487; Atti e memorie, i. 298). This was making very little of Trivulzio. 
 
 6 A letter of Baccio Ugolino to Lorenzo, July 30, 1484 (in Buser, p. 51 1), 
 shows that at the French court Ferrante's ambassador had learnt that the Duke 
 of Orleans meditated an expedition against Milan. 
 
 7 These negotiations with Genoa at least dated from the latter days of 1485 
 (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, January 2, i486 ; Atti e memorie, i. 277). From May 
 8 following hope in this peace "vanished in smoke" (ibid., p. 282). 
 
 8 Letter of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Lodovico's brother, to the Duke of Cala- 
 bria, Rome, March 6, i486, at the end of Pier Capponi's Life, by V. Acciajuoli, 
 in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. iv. part ii. p. 66. 
 
376 DISPUTES OF THE SACRED COLLEGE. [i486 
 
 ably. He had counted on Venice, and he was left to fight 
 alone, exhausting his last resources, betrayed by his captain, 
 whose real or forged letters Lorenzo had cleverly conveyed to 
 him. 1 His wishes were opposed by Eoberto of San Severino, 
 who, retaining his mask, " demanded things that grocers do not 
 own ; " 2 above all, by Cardinal La Balue, who, as a Frenchman, 
 maintained that after having drawn the king of France into 
 the affair, His Holiness could not abandon him. But the 
 Sacred College, half of the opinion of Innocent VIII., engaged 
 in violent altercations with Louis XL's ancient victim. " Do 
 not listen to a drunkard," said the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor, 
 Roderigo Borgia. In return, the drunkard rightly reproached 
 his colleague, " the Spanish miscreant," with his birth, his 
 morals, and his want of faith, so that both nearly fell to 
 blows ! 3 On March 6, i486, in the consistory, Ascanio Sforza, 
 another cardinal, and brother of II Moro, sought to unmask 
 France, whose aim was not to make Ferrante yield to his 
 feudal lord, the Pope, but to substitute another prince in his 
 stead, according to the wishes of the Cardinal of Angiers. 
 Whence a fresh altercation, which, interrupted by Innocent, 
 was continued outside the consistory. " My brother's state," 
 said Ascanio, " does not rest upon the shoulders of frogs. 
 The French may come ; they will find somebody to tackle. 
 But everybody knows that they will never come. We know 
 how they came to the aid of the magnificent Lorenzo in the 
 recent Tuscan war." 4 
 
 To speak in this imprudent way was to play with fire. 
 By defying the French, they risked an overdraught upon their 
 
 1 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, March 22, i486 ; Atti e memorie, i. 280 ; Bruto, 1. 
 viii., in Burm., vol. viii. part i. p. 208 ; Ann. Eccl., i486, § 16, vol. xxx. p. 19. 
 Only Bruto affirms that San Severino's letters were forged ; but this presupposes 
 that the annalist of the Church accepted as true the assertion of the Medici's 
 enemy. 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, June 12, i486 ; Atti e memorie, i. 283. 
 
 3 Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1204. 
 
 4 See two letters of Ascanio Sforza to his brother, March 6, i486, at the end 
 of Pier Capponi's Life in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. iv. part ii. p. 67-71. The 
 passage quoted is in the second of these letters, p. 70-71. 
 
i486] PEACE CONCLUDED. 377 
 
 expectations. Italy, who by so many of her sons for so many 
 years had had a commercial advantage of France, could not 
 but be aware that the States General had complained in 1484 
 of the large tribute that France paid annually to Italian indus- 
 tries, and that the court of the Most Christian King regarded as 
 his the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, and Liguria. 1 
 The question of Naples Louis XL wanted to suppress by 
 marrying his heir to Beatrice, Ferrante's daughter, upon con- 
 dition that Ferrante would help him in his war with John IT. 
 of Aragon. But rather than turn upon a relation, Ferrante 
 preferred to give his daughter to Mathias Corvinus.^ This 
 refusal had embittered the court of France and ripened the 
 projected expedition to Italy. 
 
 This was how the French ambassadors in May i486 came 
 to Florence to fan the flame of war against Naples. 3 Their 
 chief, the Sire of Faucon, had an interview at Lyons with 
 Cosimo Sassetti, Lorenzo's banker, and endeavoured to win him 
 over to the ideas it was his mission to spread along the banks 
 of the Arno. 4 But these ideas were still vague, and above 
 all, of distant promise, since Charles VIII. was a minor. 
 Meanwhile it was necessary to accept the peace that Innocent 
 VIII. as well as his subjects, who had been under siege for 
 three months, 5 Lodovico il Moro, Isabella of Castile, and Fer- 
 dinand of Aragon all desired. Ferdinand dreaded the French 
 in Naples on account of his Sicily and the encouragement of the 
 Turks to bear down upon the coasts of Catania or Palermo, 
 on account of the Moors of Granada. 6 
 
 Thus peace, desired by all parties, was concluded on August 
 
 1 See what M. Agenore Gelli says on this subject, Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., vol. xv. 
 p. 294, ann. 1872. 
 
 2 Louis XL's letter to Lorenzo containing this proposition is dated June 19, 
 1473 ; Ferrante's reply, also addressed to Lorenzo, is of August 9 following. 
 They were published by Fabroni, Doc, p. 66-70, then by Desjardins, i. 161, 163. 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 15, i486; Atti e memorie, i. 282. Cf. Guic- 
 ciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. viii. vol. iii. p. 74, 75. 
 
 4 See Cos. Sassetti's letter to Lorenzo, Lyon, April 6, i486, in Buser, p. 513. 
 
 5 C. Porzio, La Congiura de' Baroni, f. 71 v°. 
 
 6 See Sismondi, vii. 227. 
 
378 DESIGNS AGAINST SARZANA. [i486 
 
 II. 1 Ferrante, glad to have got out of the wasp's nest at the 
 price of his self-respect, 2 thanked Lorenzo with meridional 
 demonstrativeness. " God knows how much our heart and 
 our wishes are anxious to do everything in the world to show 
 our gratitude for your continual friendly services. All that 
 we can do for you and for your house will not reach the 
 thousandth part of that which we ardently desire to do." 3 
 
 In spite of this theatrical payment, in spite of the display 
 of official rejoicings and the bells pealing a gloria, Lorenzo 
 was not more satisfied than II Moro 4 with a peace that gave 
 Florence neither Sarzana nor Sienna. He expressed himself 
 in " strange " words, and an immediate expedition against 
 Sarzana 5 was predicted ; for he usually played the sphinx, and, 
 when he was afraid of betraying himself, refused to see any- 
 body, alleging his horrible sufferings from the gout. In 
 office, where his word was law, he behaved with the same 
 mysterious reserve. 6 The foreign ambassadors knew little, 
 and the Florentines nothing at all. 7 Whence general distrust, 
 
 1 Trivulzio to the Duke of Milan, August 6 and 12, i486, in Rosmini, Vita di 
 THvu/zio, ii. 149, 150 ; Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, August 13 ; Atti ememorie, i. 285. 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, Flor., August 16; Atti e memorie, i. 285; Porzio, 
 La Congiura de' Baroni, f. 63 r° ; Allegretti, xxiii. 829 ; Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. 
 p. 1211 ; Ann. Eccl., i486, § 13, 14, vol. xxx. p. 119. 
 
 3 Ferrante to Lorenzo, August 23 ; text in Desjardins, i. 214. 
 
 4 On Milan, see Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, September 11 ; Atti e memorie, i. 286. 
 
 5 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, August 16 ; Atti e memorie, i. 285. This pretension 
 to Sarzana and Sienna is formally attested by Guidoni. 
 
 6 "Che le condizioni non ce le dicevano al presente, per qualche buono rispetto ; 
 questi signori X. sono uomini che risguardano molto sottilmente il tutto" (Aid. 
 Guidoni to Ercola, January 2, i486 ; Atti e memo He, i. 277). " Li fatti e le 
 pratiche di questi sign. Fior. il piu de le volte si bisognano conietturare e 
 indovinare, perche con li oratori, . . . non dicono mai o ben rare volte cosa 
 alcuna, se non quando la si sa universalmente per ognuno " (ibid., January 3, i486, 
 p. 278). " Questi M ci signori X. a me non vogliono dire cosa alcuna " (ibid. , March 
 4, i486, p. 280). " Poiche V. M za non mi vuoldire a me quello che le domando " 
 (ibid., April 3, 1488, p. 299). "£un uomo che non si allarga a parlare ne a dire 
 niuna sua pratica, se prima non la ha in termine che sia per assettata, . . . e non 
 dire mai quattro se non l'ha nel sacco" (Manfredo Manfredi to Ercole, April 25, 
 1489; ibid.,i. 307). 
 
 7 This is seen by the sterility of contemporaries, Lionardo Morelli, Tribaldo des 
 Rossi, and also Giovanni Cambi. Even Ammirato, who searched the archives, 
 knows very little more. 
 
i486] DISSIMULATION OF LORENZO. 379 
 
 especially in the free towns. His alliance was felt to be 
 uncertain, and was known to depend upon his personal inte- 
 rests ; it was contrasted with that of the Signories of two 
 months, who gave more proof of connected ideas and good 
 faith in speech and action. He ended by deceiving nobody. 
 Of the court of Rome he said that it had ruined Italv, that 
 the whole world was imperilled by its incapacity and ignor- 
 ance in the art of leading men ; l of the Pope, that he had no 
 brains, and governed every day more stupidly, or rather was 
 badly governed himself, 2 and that every possible evil might 
 be expected of him. 3 But in reality he strained every 
 effort to be on good terms with this same Pope of whom he 
 spoke so badly; 4 and of that the king of France was so well 
 aware, that he employed him as a go-between in his relations 
 with the Holy See, 5 and Innocent VIII. himself paid so little 
 heed to the remarks carried by rumour, that he got Trivulzio 
 to say in Florence that he slept with Lorenzo's eyes, and 
 that Lorenzo was occupied in giving him good guidance, lest 
 both of them should be lost. 6 So his duplicity no longer 
 
 1 " Questo stato ecclesiastico e sempre stato la ruina d'ltalia, perche sono 
 ignoranti e non sanno modo di governare stati ; pero pericolano tutto il mondo " 
 (Lorenzo's words to Aid. Guidoni, reported by him November 20, i486; Atti e 
 mem.,i. 291). Lorenzo must not be reproached with this judgment. Trivulzio 
 said much worse : " Dice de la vilta, miseria e tristizia del papa quello che si puo 
 dire de uno gaglioffo, e conclude che se non si tien vivo e non se gli faccia animo, 
 che e perso piii tristamente che uomo vile mai se perdesse. . . . Egli e coniglio " 
 (Trivulzio's words, reported by Guidoni, September 6, 1487, p. 296). 
 
 2 " Sta malissimo contento de li modi del papa e pargli si governi ogni di ed 
 ora piu scempiamente. ... Si vede che '1 papa, senza gente d'armi e con poco 
 cervello, e mal governato " (Aid. Guidoni a Ercole, December 28, 1487, ibid., 
 p. 298). 
 
 3 " Io ne credo ogni male di questo papa " (Lorenzo's words, reported by Gui- 
 doni, November 20, i486, p 291). 
 
 4 " II Mco Lorenzo attende con ogni ingegno a domesticarsi con il pontefice " 
 (Aid. Guidoni, September 9, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 286). 
 
 5 See his letters copied by M. Agenore Gelli in the Carteggio Mediceo, and pub- 
 lished at the end of a speech delivered by him, April 6, 1873, in the Dante 
 Lyceum of Florence under this title : Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 23, n. 17. 
 
 6 " Che esso pontefice dormia con gli occhi di esso Lorenzo, e che volesse pen- 
 sare a goverriarlo bene. . . . Che se lo governava male, seguiria la ruina de l'uno 
 e de l'altro " {ibid., September 6, 1487, p. 296). 
 
380 ATTACK OF THE GENOESE. [1487 
 
 duped, but met indulgent censure because it was so wide- 
 spread ; especially when it was compared with that of King 
 Ferrante, who, upon absurd pretexts, put to death those very 
 barons he had sworn by a solemn treaty to spare. 1 
 
 Even when he thought the hour had come to attack Sar- 
 zana, Lorenzo still endeavoured to deceive the Italian powers. 
 " The intention of our town," he said to the ambassador of 
 Ferrara, " is to undertake nothing against Sarzana for some 
 years, but to temporise until we find our affairs in better con- 
 dition ; for well do we know that Lord Lodovico has concluded 
 a treaty with the Genoese. This lord exposes his ignorance 
 of the way in which Florence governs herself. When we 
 are committed to expense, we face it royally ; but when we 
 are inclined for rest, it takes a good deal to rouse us to dance. 
 Now that the Signory has laid down arms, it will need very 
 grave circumstances to force it to take them up again." 2 
 
 No language could be more precise, and nevertheless those 
 interested were not quieted. Genoa proposed to Venice a 
 secret alliance against Florence. 3 Much displeased, 4 Lorenzo 
 hoped still that the league between Genoa and Milan would 
 bring about dissension, and turn attention from Sarzana. 5 
 This illusion did not last long. In the beginning of 1487, 
 without even waiting for the spring, the Genoese crossed the 
 Magra, invaded, took, and burnt the village of Sarzanello, and 
 with their artillery attacked the rocca where the Florentines 
 on guard had taken refuge. 
 
 It was necessary to repulse this audacious attack without 
 delay. The Count of Pitigliano, captain-general, started for 
 the camp. An appeal was made to the condottieri, to the 
 
 1 See details in Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, July II, 1487 ; Atti e mem., i. 295 ; 
 Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 12 14 ; Porzio, f. 67 ; Burselli, xxiii. 906 ; Comines, 1. 
 vii. c. ii. vol. ii. p. 301 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. viii. vol. iii. p. 76 ; Machia- 
 velli, viii. 132 A ; Ammirato, xxv. 176, 177. 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, November 4, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 290. 
 
 3 Ercole to Guidoni, Ferrara, November 18, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 291. 
 
 4 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, November 20, 1481, ibid., p. 291. 
 8 Ibid., January 10, 1487, p. 292. 
 
1487] SIEGE OF SARZANA. 381 
 
 constables, and to the allies of the Eepublic. Many responded : 
 the Orsini in the pay of Florence or Milan, the lords of Piom- 
 bino, of Faenza, and of Mirandola. Six Neapolitan galleys 
 arrived at Leghorn for a raid upon Corsica. Lodovico il 
 Moro sent four hundred lancers. Lorenzo had hoped for more 
 from the latter, but how could Sforza have wished to see the 
 Florentines masters of Sarzana, and in consequence nearer to 
 Genoa, upon which he had pretensions? 1 Besides, he was 
 aware that Lorenzo complained bitterly of him ; 2 men are not 
 conciliated by recriminations any more than flies are caught 
 by vinegar. 
 
 The Florentines were victorious before Sarzana, an unusual 
 fact in their annals. They took the Genoese captain, Gian Luigi 
 del Fiesco, prisoner, April 13, 1487. Pitigliano undertook 
 the siege at once, but it was a long affair. Not until June 9 
 was the work advanced. Lorenzo, according to his habit, then 
 came to spend a few days in the camp and gather his soldiers' 
 laurels. He was in too great a hurry ; everything was not 
 yet finished. He saw three redoubts raised between the Magra 
 and the place, and five bombards directed against the latter, 
 
 1 " Non li pareva [to the Doria and the Card, of Geneva] che si potesse mettere 
 fede in questa ultima di dare Gienova alia celsitudine vostra " (Stefano Taberna 
 to the Duke of Milan, June 2, 1487, from Ospedaletto, near Volterra, where 
 Lorenzo was staying for his gout. Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, f. 328 r<>, 329 v?. 
 The passage quoted is in f. 328 vo). Many of Taberna's letters show that if, after 
 the taking of Sarzana, he received the order to congratulate Lorenzo, Lorenzo did 
 not believe in his sincerity. Taberna protested that his master had not "uno 
 minimo pensiero ad interumpere il desiderio loro in la impresa di Serzana. " The 
 Signory believed him ; Lorenzo did not : "II M co Laurentio, ben che mi habii 
 quasi risposto in medesima sententia, nondimeno ha dimostrato non havere l'animo 
 ben libero di questa cosa " (July 7, 1487 ; ibid., f. 344). 
 
 - "Io stava tutto allegro e contento de la pace fatta, parendomi che le cose 
 avessero a stare tranquille e quiete ; ma poiche vedo tante cose sorgere, io son 
 disperato e vienmi voglia di andarmene a casa del diavolo, per non udir nominar 
 Fiorenza, poiche non posso stare in pace ne senza affanno uno giorno. Mai non 
 sento da Milano se non minaccie, mo di una cosa, mo di un' altra. . . . Abbiamo 
 sopportate tante cose fuori di ogni dovere da lo stato di Milano. ... E se vi 
 volessi contare di molte altre ingiurie a noi fatte per Milano, quali avemo tollerate, 
 ve ne potrei dire un migliaro. E noi non potiamo essere sopportati di cosa ver- 
 una ; questo ci dimostra malo animo e stomaco verso di noi " (Lorenzo's words 
 to Guidoni, reported by latter, October 12, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 288). 
 
382 CAPTURE OF SARZANA. [1487 
 
 which thundered night and day, but at decent intervals, and 
 the largest of which carried 750 pounds of stones. Discord 
 reigned in the besieged town ; for two days there was nothing 
 to eat but biscuits ; wine was lacking, and water nearly so. 
 No one dared to go out ; prudence was compelled by an archer 
 shot, and two youths only allowed to return by leaving their 
 noses in the enemy's hands. 1 On June 16 the blockade was 
 complete ; the mining continued ; they fired fifty times a day 
 with six bombards. 2 However, this sufficed, and on the 
 22nd the garrison capitulated. 3 On the next day Lorenzo 
 returned to Florence, where he was received in triumph. 4 Such 
 was his easily-won glory at this hour, that it was said — doubt- 
 less by his enemies — that he thought of getting all Italy into 
 his hands. 5 
 
 His enemies were principally the Genoese and the Milanese. 
 II Moro looked askance at the weakening of Genoa, his future 
 conquest, 6 and his orator, Taberna, could not without difficulty 
 clear him of a discontent which betrayed him too soon, 7 and 
 which disturbed the Florentines in their project of crossing the 
 Magra, suggested by the richiesti in full council. " It would 
 be the best means of giving back Genoa to the Duke of 
 Milan," said Pier Filippo Pandolfini, one of the oracles of the 
 day. Taberna laughed bitterly at these hypocritical proposals. 
 " If you pass the Magra," he replied, " the Genoese could easily 
 
 1 Stef. Taberna to the Duke of Milan, June 9, 1487 ; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 
 1 6 10, f. 330. 
 
 2 Stef. Taberna, June 16 ; ibid., f. 338 ro, 339 ro. 
 
 3 Letter of the commissaries, Jacopo Guicciardini and Piero Vettori, Sarzana, 
 June 22, 1487. Copy sent by Aid. Guidoni to Duke Ercole, Atti. e mem., i. 294. 
 Sismondi (vii. 239) is wrong in saying May 22, and Ammirato, whom he quotes 
 (xxv. 179), does not prove him right. 
 
 4 *' II Mco Lorenzo venne la vigilia di San Giovanni qua, fu visto e accarezzato 
 piii che fosse mai da questo popolo, che gli pare avere questa vittoria di Sarzana 
 piii da lui che da altri" (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, Flor., June 26; Atti e mem., 
 i. 294). 
 
 5 Aid. Guidoni informed his master of this proposal (July 7, ibid., p. 295). 
 
 6 M Mi pare che l'avuta di Genova per Milano fara stare questi signori sospesi e 
 li dara che pensare" (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, July 11 ; Atti e mem., i. 295). 
 
 7 Stef. Taberna to the Duke of Milan, June 26 ; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, 
 *"• 338-340. 
 
1487] PROCRASTINATION OF LORENZO. 383 
 
 throw themselves into the arms of France." 1 Caught between 
 the anvil and the hammer, Lorenzo broke out in bad humour, 
 was rude to the ambassadors of the Italian powers, refused to 
 explain himself, feigned despair, wished to find himself some 
 place where for six months he would never hear breathed a 
 word upon Italian matters, and openly desired to see the 
 king of France master of all the peninsula. 2 " Lord Messer 
 Lodovico is doing his best to force the Pope and the Floren- 
 tines to the feet of his majesty the king. Very well, they 
 will kneel, and since Lord Lodovico wishes to imperil Italian 
 affairs, I will help him." 3 
 
 The orator of Ferrara, to whom were addressed these 
 u mortal and despairing " words, as he called them, only 
 replied by the advice that Lorenzo, if he were as wise as his 
 ancestors, would come to an understanding with Milan ; 4 but 
 he must have recognised his failure. Already, a year earlier, 
 he spoke of a " wicked and vicious" upstart hireling, who 
 only feigned anger in order to conceal his intimacy with the 
 king of France, which so disquieted and vexed the Moor. 5 
 For a moment this diplomatist may have imagined that the 
 perfidy of Ferrante towards his barons would be the theriac 
 that would bring about peace between Lodovico and Lorenzo ; 
 " but I do not know what to say," he added; " they are both so 
 diseased, that as soon as one member is cured, the evil flies to 
 another." 6 The evil increased, for in the following October 
 Lorenzo refused to see Stefano Taberna, the ambassador of 
 
 1 SeeTaberna's two letters, June 28 ; Arch. S/orz., copies, No. 1610, f. 341-343. 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, July 7 ; Atti e mem. , i. 294. The spiteful phrase 
 upon the eventual invasion of the French should be quoted textually : "Spera 
 vedere esso re di Francia signore di tutta Italia" (p. 295). 
 
 3 "Che il sign. M. Lodovico facea cio che potea per fare ch' el papa e Fio- 
 rentini si buttassero ne' piedi a la M. R. e che si faria, e che poscia ch' el sign. 
 Lodovico volea le cose d'ltalia pericolassero, che S. Mza etiam aiuteria a peri- 
 colarle" (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, July 18; ibid., p. 295). 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
 5 Guidoni calls Lorenzo " cattivo di nido . . . cattivo e vizioso." See this 
 letter, August 12, 1846; Atti e mem., i. 285. 
 
 6 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, July 21 ; ibid., p. 295. 
 
384 DOUBLE DEALING OF LORENZO. [1487 
 
 Milan, and his friends vehemently complained that Lorenzo was 
 not treated courteously, and that every one sought to place 
 all responsibility on his shoulders. To appease him, Taberna 
 wrote, "We must show a great attachment to the king of 
 Naples, to whom he desires to render an immortal service." l 
 
 The diplomatist believed this ; he was deceived, like every- 
 body else. Upon this board Lorenzo did not play a more 
 honest game than upon any other. His despatches, for a 
 long time unknown, prove that he warned the Pope in this 
 very month of October to be on his guard against a secret 
 treaty proposed by Ferrante and against a private alliance 
 with Naples, and to stick to the league, which alone was capable 
 of securing the peace and equilibrium of Italy. 2 " I have said 
 more than you asked me to say," he wrote to his orator in 
 Rome ; " I have yielded to my good nature, to my obligations, 
 and my affection for our Lord. I quite understand that this 
 is perilous. I would wish His Holiness to make the king 
 understand that my actions have always been in His Majesty's 
 interests. ... I have written this letter so that you can read 
 it entire to the Pope, and I think that you should do so." 3 
 
 But all the united deceit of a little Tartufe and the craft 
 of a Machiavelli manqud did not save Lorenzo from the dis- 
 appointment of seeing Genoa fall into the hands of the 
 Milanese. In August 1488, Agostino Adorno was vested 
 
 1 This important letter is unedited, and it may be well to transcribe a part of 
 it. Taberna writes that he wanted to go to Pisa to rejoin Lorenzo : " Mi venne 
 ad trovare ser Nicolo Michelozi, il quale dolendosi vehementemente cum dire che 
 al Mco Laurentio erano usati modi poco convenienti et che si ciercava di darli 
 tutti li carichi, non usciendo per6 ad alcuna particolarita, mi disse chel parere di 
 quelli quali havea lassato qui il prefato M. Laurentio era che io fossi contento di 
 non voler andare alia sua Mtia per non li adiungere caricha et che volessi aspec- 
 tarlo qui, et volendo io pur intendere di dove nascievano queste doglienze, et per- 
 severando in proposito di volere cavalchare, mi disse che per alhora non mi pos- 
 seva dire piu ultra, ma che poy mi farebbe intendere il tutto, et circha lo andare 
 mio mi parl6 in forma che mi parse bene soprasedere. . . . Liberare la maesta 
 sua di grande affanno et farli uno benefitio immortale " (October 7, 1487 ; Arch. 
 Sforz., copies, No. 1610, f. 356-358). 
 
 2 Lorenzo to his orator in Rome, October 22, 1487 ; text in Desjardins, i. 
 214-219. 
 
 3 Lorenzo to his orator in Rome, ibid., 217-219. 
 
1487] FAMILY ALLIANCES. 385 
 
 with the government for ten years in the name of Gian 
 Galeaz. This result, although foreseen the previous year, 1 
 was very vexing for the Florentines. While independent, the 
 old Republic was not very formidable, but it became so the 
 moment it was only the harbour of the great state of Milan. 2 
 
 It was this grave miscalculation, so soon following a victory 
 which he had hoped to render fruitful, that drew Lorenzo to 
 Innocent VIII. Innocent's interest manifestly lay in this 
 understanding : between his two neighbours of the north and 
 south, he was bound to choose the north, which was the 
 weakest, and which had only accidentally become his opponent. 
 Florence's interest is less apparent : it was not necessary for 
 her, as it was for the Pope, to strengthen herself against a. 
 fresh Neapolitan war, and nothing seemed less probable, less 
 to be feared, than a collision between Naples and Milan. 3 
 Lorenzo's interest in the Pope's friendship was quite a per- 
 sonal one ; 4 he was eager to be more and more intimate with 
 the great families of princes. Certain it is that the princes 
 paid him every honour. At the marriage of Ysabel of 
 Aragon and Gian Galeaz, his son Piero was received more 
 warmly than any of his colleagues, the other Florentine 
 ambassadors; 5 but the courts shrank from contracting matri- 
 monial alliances with a dynasty of merchants. To join the 
 Pope, who was only a second-hand prince, was a middle term, 
 an ingenious shift, with the private advantage of securing a 
 part of the moral authority of the Holy See, the last power 
 which remained to St. Peter's successor. 
 
 1 See supra,) p. 382, n. 6. 
 
 2 Sismondi, vii. 244 ; Cipolla, p. 646, who points out the sources. 
 
 3 G. Capponi, however, says (ii. 157) that the alliance of Innocent VIII. and 
 Lorenzo, who held between them the centre of Italy, was very important in pre- 
 venting the powers of the peninsula from fighting ; but they only separated Naples 
 from Milan. Between these two states a continual struggle was hardly to be 
 foreseen, and Venice in such a case was always free to infest the Neapolitan 
 shores by sea. 
 
 4 The Lettere di Lorenzo il Magnifico al S. P. Innocenzo VIII. , may be seen- 
 Published by Moreni, Florence, 1830. 
 
 5 G. Cambi, Del. , xxi. 39. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B 
 
386 GIOVANNI DE' MEDICIS. [1487 
 
 In this kind of negotiations Lorenzo made a start toward 
 the end of i486 through the medium of the Cardinal of San 
 Marco. 1 Amongst the number of Innocent's recognised illegiti- 
 mate children was one Franceschetto Cybo, a young man of no 
 talent whatever, and not much thought of, who, even under 
 his father's pontificate, made no figure, and who, from a matri- 
 monial point of view, would find it hard to dispose of him- 
 self. 2 Lorenzo settled the matter. In March 1487 Giovanni 
 Lanfredini, Florentine orator in Rome, arranged a marriage 
 between Franceschetto Cybo and Maddalena, Lorenzo's third 
 daughter, the apple of her mother, Clarissa's, eye. 3 At the 
 same time a match was made between Piero de' Lorenzo and 
 Alfonsina, the late Cavalier Orsini's daughter, whose dowry was 
 thirty thousand ducats.* 
 
 In the following month of June another no less delicate 
 negotiation was opened : it was proposed that a cardinal's hat 
 should be granted to the youngest son of Lorenzo, still quite 
 a child. Like the princes and nobles, Lorenzo was bent on 
 having one of his children in the Church, and his secret 
 ambition destined the honour for the cleverest of his three sons. 
 At the age of seven Giovanni de' Medicis received the tonsure. 
 At eight he possessed four abbeys, notably in Italy that of 
 Monte Cassino, an important one, and in France that of 
 Fontdoulce, in the diocese of Saintes. 5 Louis XL would have 
 
 1 Pandolfini, orator in Rome, to Lorenzo, December 13, i486 ; letter indicated 
 by Buser, p. 256. 
 
 2 Franceschetto in one night at play lost 14,000 florins, and accused the Pope, 
 Cardinal Riario, with whom he played, of having cheated. See Villari, Niccolb 
 Machiavelli, Introd., vol. i. p. 77. 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni wrote to Ercole, March 3, 1487, that Lorenzo had urged him 
 to communicate this marriage to his master. Atti e mem. , i. 292. Cf. Reumont, 
 ii. 329 sq. ; Cipolla, p. 643. Franceschetto was born in Naples in 1449. 
 
 4 Lorenzo himself notified this marriage to the orator of Ferrara (Guidoni to 
 Ercole, March 3, 1487 ; Atti e mem., i. 292). 
 
 5 See in Buser, Doc. , p. 506, a letter of Louis XL to the Cardinal-Archbishop 
 of Macon, dated May 27, 1483, telling him to ask the Pope for the Abbey of 
 Fontdoulce, of the Order of St. Benedict, in the diocese of Saintes, for "Jehan de 
 Medicis, fils de mon cousin Laurens." Louis announced that he had also written 
 to the Pope on this subject. See also Hergenrother, Leonis X. Pont. Regesta, 
 Fribourg in Brisgau, 1885 ; but this cardinal often quoted Roscoe as an authority. 
 
1487 THE LITTLE PRIEST. 387 
 
 added the bishopric of Aix but for the objection of Sixtus 
 IV. to place the mitre on the head of a baby ; but to console 
 the father this same Pontiff named the baby apostolic pro- 
 tonotary (1483), and from that day he was called Messer 
 Giovanni. 1 King Ferrante also granted several livings to 
 this little priest, as a just reward, he said, for the services 
 Lorenzo had rendered him. 2 
 
 But if there was a fear of scandal in granting the mitre, 
 how much greater for the gift of the hat? Innocent VIII. 
 hesitated ; he considered that it would be at least premature. 
 In insisting, Lorenzo hid his personal interest behind a 
 Florentine interest. Milan, Venice, Naples, and France were 
 represented in the Sacred College, but Florence was not He 
 pressed for hurry because he felt old before his time. In 
 June 1487 his ambassador, Lanfredini, a well-tried diplo- 
 matist, was supported by the cardinals Sforza, Borgia, La 
 Balue, and Zeno, who, though divided upon all other questions, 
 were united upon this one. 3 Better still, he endeavoured to 
 ameliorate the difficulties of the Pope's position. He begged 
 the princes to show consideration for the father of the faith- 
 ful, and not to despair of him, seeing that he neither wished 
 nor was able to go to war. 4 He prayed " the magnificent " 
 Bernardo Oricellaro, otherwise Rucellai, to complain to the 
 
 1 Ricordi di Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 299 sq. Desjardins (i. 190, n. 3) 
 quotes the sources from the Florentine archives, and published (p. 189, 190) two 
 letters of Louis on this subject, one of February 3, 1483, in French, the other of 
 February 17, 1483, in bad Italian. In both there is mention made of William of 
 Estouteville, Cardinal of Rouen, died at eighty this same year, who exercised a 
 great influence in Rome in favour of the Florentines. On p. 190, note, is 
 indicated a letter of this cardinal to Lorenzo, dated December 17, 1483, in which 
 he implores him to make the law give way in favour of the unfortunate family of 
 Niccolo Buonaparte. 
 
 2 Text in Desjardins, i. 214. 
 
 3 See Reumont, ii. 488-490. 
 
 4 "Cum la santita sua usare bone parole et procedere umanamente, et che la 
 maesta sua (Ferrante) non dovea far signo di disperarsi del papa, ne altre dimo- 
 stratione gagliarde, presertim sapendo che la santita sua non si trovava in termini 
 da fare guerra, la quale, quando volessi fare, non li sarebbe permessa" (Taberna 
 to the Duke of Milan, June 15, 1487 ; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, f. 333 v°). 
 
388 LORENZO'S DAUGHTERS. [1487 
 
 King of Naples of everything that was done to irritate the 
 Pontiff. 1 
 
 To these serviceable words, evidently meant to be repeated, 
 Lorenzo for some time added serviceable actions of an imme- 
 diate efficacy. He was scarcely reconciled with Innocent VIII. 
 when he persuaded Boccolino Gozzoni, citizen of Osimo in the 
 Marches, who had seized his country from the Holy See and 
 had declared himself its lord, to return it for a sum of money 
 — a remarkable triumph of policy, for Boccolino held to his 
 conquest so much, that he was on the point of offering to pro- 
 claim himself feudatory of Bajazet if he would guarantee him 
 Osimo and Jesi. 2 Thus Lorenzo paid in advance — a good 
 method of striking a good bargain. 
 
 If he was in a hurry about the hat, the Pope was in a hurry 
 about the marriage ; between both questions the connection is 
 evident. It was hard to give a cardinal's hat to a child, but 
 it was harder still to give a slip of a girl to a worthless 
 man of forty, 3 not to mention that Florence disliked princely 
 marriages ; and to silence evil tongues, Lorenzo was bound 
 without delay to marry his other daughters, still far from being 
 marriageable, to Florentines. 4 He would have preferred to 
 keep Maddalena a little longer. His wife Clarissa, struck down 
 by a mortal disease, only asked to end her days in peace, and 
 the future son-in-law, in spite of his birth, did not present 
 
 1 "Per l'ultimo cavallaro che expedi ad Napoli, scrisse al M c ° Bernardo 
 Oricellaro in nome de la sua M tia si dolesse col sign. Re de li modi che si 
 usavano ad irritare il pontefice" (Taberna to the Duke, July 27, 1487; ibid., 
 f. 351). Of the same, September 2, 1487, f. 354, fresh instances in the same 
 sense. 
 
 2 The documents referring to this matter are in Rosmini, Vita di Trivulzio, ii. 
 158 sq. Cf. Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 12 1 7 ; Landucci, Diario, p. 62, 63 ; 
 Ann. Eccl.y 1487, § 7, vol. xxx. p. 141. 
 
 3 Franceschetto was thirty-nine years old. 
 
 4 " Lorenzo, per dimostratione che non ha animo a volersi imparentare con 
 potentati altrimenti, pubblicato che avra l'afnnita con il figliuolo del papa, marita 
 le altre sue figliuole, quantunque siano fanciulle, qui in Fiorenza " (Aid. Guidoni 
 to Ercola, March 16, 1487; Atti e mem., i. 293). Lucrezia married Giacomo 
 Salviati ; Contessina, Pietro Ridolfi. Luigia, promised to one of the Medici, died 
 before her marriage (note of Cappelli, ibid., i. 315, appendix). 
 
M8 7 ] MADDALENA DE' MEDICIS. 389 
 
 himself in a favourable light. 1 Nevertheless, in the beginning 
 of November 1487, the dying woman had to start for Rome. 2 
 
 Grave as a Roman matron who had never been influenced 
 by Florentine nobility, she was received, as well as her children, 
 with every honour. Even her father, the turbulent Virginio 
 Orsini, who had from the beginning of this pontificate lived in 
 a state of war with the Holy See, came in for his share. All 
 the Orsini, like him, the object of ruthless persecution, were 
 recalled, and accorded their ancient power in the Eternal City. 
 Upon the occasion of a great banquet given to his guests on 
 Sunday, November 1 8, Innocent VIII. presented his daughter- 
 in-law with a jewel valued at eight thousand ducats, and his 
 son with one worth two thousand. 3 The contract was signed 
 on January 20, 1488. 4 We are not so sure of the date of the 
 marriage, but between these two acts much time cannot have 
 been lost ; Innocent VIII. was in too great a hurry. 5 
 
 Clarissa returned at once to Florence with the too youthful 
 bride, whom she was allowed to keep with her for the few 
 days she had still to live. Lorenzo was vexed by this haste, 
 which made him behind-hand with the dowry, 6 and by the 
 Pope's carelessness in fulfilling his pecuniary engagements, an 
 inevitable worry for the married pair. 7 Franceschetto, who 
 
 1 Lorenzo had an explanation on this matter with his ambassador Lanfredini, 
 and even with the Pope. See some of his letters to Innocent, published by 
 Moreni. 
 
 2 Sunday, September 4, 1487, Guidoni announced to his master Clarissa's 
 departure on the following Sunday, the nth ; Atti e mem., i. 297. 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, November 24, 1487 ; Atti e mem., i. 297. 
 
 4 Gregorovius, Das Archiv der Notare des Capitols in Rom unddas Protocolbuch 
 des Notars Cami/Ius de Beneimbene, Munich, 1872, p. 503 ; Reumont, ii. 347. 
 
 6 Roscoe says that the marriage was celebrated at Rome in 1488 ; Sismondi 
 (vii. 233), Reumont (Tavole Sincrone et Lorenzo il Mco t if, 347), in November 1487. 
 Fabroni (p. 171) speaks of the marriage of Maddalena and those of her two sisters, 
 which he places in 1487. The Roman wedding was thus a little earlier. It seems 
 improbable that this wedding should precede the contract. In any case, it was 
 before April 10, 1488, as a text of this date proves. 
 
 6 Text in Fabroni, Doc., p. 312. 
 
 7 "A me pare che N. S. in questa e nell' altre cose sue vadi molto freddo e che 
 insino a ora abbi a gangheri quel poco che ha ; che oltre al bene del sign. Fran- 
 cesco, mi duole che la figliuola mia abbi a stentare, e sono mezo disperato di questa 
 
39o DOMESTIC TROUBLES. [1488 
 
 knew his father, expected some principality from his father-in- 
 law — Piombino, Citta di Castello, or Sienna even. But his 
 father-in-law would neither break up the Florentine states nor 
 forego any of his most casual expectations. He referred the 
 matter to the Pope, though knowing him indisposed to consider 
 it. " His Holiness," he wrote to the unfortunate Franceschetto, 
 " is so constituted that the least inkling he gets of my affairs 
 fills him with distrust, and disposes him to do exactly the 
 reverse of what I tell him. As for you, I only ask you to 
 remember your children. Do not expect our Lord to do so of 
 his own accord ; he must be pricked like an ox." * Was it 
 really the slowness and uncertainty of an ox ? It looks rather 
 like a fox's trick or a dishonest father's, for whom the marriage 
 of a son or a daughter is only an occasion to cheat or get rid 
 of an encumbrance. 
 
 At this point the Medici entered upon a period of domestic 
 troubles. They sought and offered changes. When Frances- 
 chetto, impatient at being only a husband in partibus, came 
 for his wife, there were feasts in his honour, to the great joy 
 of the Florentines, who had been deprived of them for ten 
 long years, from the tragic day Giuliano fell bathed in his 
 blood. The palace of Jacopo de' Pazzi, who had then been 
 flung into the Arno, henceforth belonged to the Pope's son, for 
 whom was shouted when he passed, " Cybo e Palle ! " 2 But 
 when Piero de' Lorenzo returned to his country with the young 
 wife he had just married, the death of Bianca, his father's 
 sister and the wife of Guglielmino de' Pazzi, was the reason 
 why there was no solemn entry, and why the nuptial banquet 
 
 e dell' altre cose, veduta la lunghezza, la varieta e la poca cura che se hanno alle 
 cose di costa" (Lorenzo to Lanfredini, April 10, 1488). In the preface M. Isidore 
 del Lungo places it before a letter of Matteo Franco, published by him in the Arch. 
 Stor. y 3rd ser., vol. ix. part i. p. 34. The passage quoted is on p. 35. M. del 
 Lungo's work, and the letter of Matteo Franco, Maddalena's servant, show us a 
 touching picture of mistress and servant. 
 
 1 Rome, March 10, 1488; text in Fabroni, Doc. y p. 334-336. The passage 
 quoted is on p. 336. 
 
 2 We know that the palle or balls belonged to the Medici arms. To cheer 
 them was a way of declaring oneself the family's partisan. 
 
1488] DEATH OF CLARISSA. 39 r 
 
 was celebrated at Careggi. 1 In rapid succession Lorenzo lost 
 Luigia, his youngest daughter, betrothed to Pier Francesco de' 
 Medicis, and his wife Clarissa, whose one consolation it had 
 been to have at her death-bed " the apple of her eye," her 
 daughter Maddalena. To get rid of Franceschetto, he was 
 sent on a mission to Perugia, and Lorenzo, a hard-hearted and 
 indifferent husband, went off in this hour of bereavement to 
 nurse his gout at the waters of Filetta. 2 
 
 He so dreaded sombre sights that he only returned four or 
 five days after the funeral, which took place the very day 
 of the death, " without demonstration or pomp." 3 The sad 
 Clarissa had held such a small place in his existence, that the 
 orator of Ferrara, Aldovrandino Guidoni, only informed Ercole 
 d'Este of her long illness after the fatal result, and he added 
 negligently, " I did not trouble to tell you sooner, as it was a 
 matter of so little importance," 4 — an eloquent funeral oration, 
 which shows us the wife's insignificance and the husband's 
 egotism. 5 
 
 The hat waited for another year. Innocent VIII. visibly 
 shrank from placing it on the head of a boy of fourteen, 
 but being pricked like an ox, he yielded, to the great 
 indignation of the pontifical Kinaldi, the annalist of the 
 
 1 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 22 and 29, 1488 ; Atti e mem., i. 301. 
 
 2 Filetta, near Macerato ; Henry of Luxembourg, attacked with the same 
 disease that carried him off, had in olden times drank these waters. See G. Vil- 
 lani, 1. ix. c. 51, vol. xiii. p. 468. 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, August I and 4, 1488 ; Atti e mem., i. 303 ; Isid. 
 del Lungo, preface quoted. Cf. Machiavelli, viii. 132 A, B; Ammirato, xxv. 177 J 
 Reumont, ii. 347. 
 
 4 " Non mi son curato dame awiso con piu celerita, perch e non mi parea fosse 
 cosa importasse altrimenti " (Aid. Guidoni, August I, 1488, p. 303). Fabroni was 
 one of those who helped to spread the legend, " Conjunctissime vixit cum Clarice 
 uxore." She could not come from Cafaggiolo without an express permission. She 
 complained that Poliziano said to her " mille villanie," to which she added, " See 
 di vostro consentimento, sono patiente " (Clarissa to Lorenzo, May 28, 1479, in 
 Fabroni, Doc., p. 288). 
 
 5 From the moral point of view, Clarissa seems to have been her husband's 
 superior, if we may judge from one of her letters that M. Agenore Gelli published 
 in his Lorenzo de' Medici, Discorso letto net R. Liceo Dante, April 6, 1873, p. 
 21-22. See on Clarissa three letters of Lucrecia Tornabuoni to Piero de' Medicis 
 and several others on Lorenzo's marriage, published by M. Guasti, Florence, 1859. 
 
392 CONSECRATION OF GIOVANNI. [1489 
 
 Holy See. 1 The promotion, already known of in Florence 
 towards the end of February 1489, was only officially 
 announced on March io. 2 On the eve, Giovanni de' Medicis 
 was nominated with two others in petto. The Pope demanded 
 secrecy, wishing to defer the publication for three years, 
 and, to secure Lorenzo's consent, promised him, in case of a 
 vacancy in the Holy See, that his son would be proclaimed 
 and take part in the conclave. Lorenzo was dissatisfied ; 
 he preferred a bird in the hand to two in the bush. To 
 tie Innocent's hands he did not keep the secret as requested ; 
 on the very day he communicated the good news to some 
 powerful friends ; he ordered feasting, intending next day to 
 excuse himself to the court of Rome by alleging that he could 
 not prevent it. 8 He regarded himself as having a right to 
 full satisfaction : to gain cardinals and the Pope, had he not 
 spent two hundred thousand florins ? 4 
 
 Indeed, he lost nothing by waiting. The blessed hat 
 arrived after three years had been spent by the young cardinal 
 in study at Pisa. 5 The consecration took place on March 
 10, 1492, in the Abbey of Fiesole, in the presence of the 
 foreign ambassadors ; for it was no simple citizen who was 
 invested in the purple. Afterwards the young cardinal made 
 a magnificent entry into Florence. Before him went the 
 bishops, the priests, three hundred of the laity robed in silk, 
 and five hundred horses. He went first to the Signory, and 
 then to his father's. On the next day, Sunday, splendid cere- 
 monies were celebrated in the Duomo ; eight bishops chanted 
 a solemn mass. After the mass the ambassadors and sixty 
 
 1 Ann. Ecc/., 1489, § 19, 21, vol. xxx. p. 168 ; G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 63. 
 
 3 See Aid. Guidoni's letters, February 23, March 2, 9, 10, 16, '1489 ; Atti e 
 mem. , i. 306, 307. Lanfredini announced the nomination to Lorenzo in a letter 
 dated from Rome, March 7 (Nonse Martii). It is in Atti e mem. t i. 247. Cf. 
 Roscoe and Hergenrother. 
 
 3 Lorenzo to Lanfredini, not dated. Fabroni, Doc. , p. 300 ; Lorenzo to Ercole, 
 March 10, 1489, to announce to him the nomination ; Atti e mem,, i. 247. 
 
 4 Al. Rinuccini, p. 147. 
 
 5 See Hergenrother, Leonis X. Pont. Regesta. 
 
1489] GIOVANNI PONTIFICAL LEGATE. 393 
 
 of the principal Florentines met at a great banquet. Though 
 ill, the host nevertheless welcomed the guests and did the 
 honours. The Cardinal received several presents; from the 
 Signory a piece of wrought silver which weighed more than 
 ten pounds, and was worth more than ten thousand florins ; 
 from the state community, and even from the Jews, rich and 
 handsome silver vases. It is said that he refused everything 
 but the gifts offered by his own family, but the testimony of 
 Giovanni Cambi permits us to doubt this. 1 
 
 Appointed pontifical legate in the Florentine state, Giovanni 
 went to Rome to prostrate himself at the Pope's feet on March 
 I2. 2 His father wrote him a sensible letter upon his new 
 duties : " You are not only the youngest of living cardinals, but 
 the youngest that has ever existed." 3 The success was all the 
 greater for this ; according to Machiavelli, " this affair was 
 the ladder to help the Medici to heaven." i To see the con- 
 clusion, we have been forced to anticipate time. We will now 
 retrace our steps. 
 
 Having established his sons and married his daughters, 
 Lorenzo had still to find a place for his worthless son-in-law 
 in order to accomplish his duty as father of a family. Whose 
 land would he seize to constitute him a principality ? That 
 of the enemy of all times, Count Girolamo, who, since the 
 death of his father, Sixtus IV., had retired to his domains of 
 
 1 "Che cost 6 al comune, con quel gli fit donato dappoi fu chardinale, scudi 
 50 m. d'oro " (G. Cambi, Del. , xxi. 54). 
 
 2 Manfredo Manfredi to Ercole, March 13, 1492; Atti e mem., i. 311 ; Letters 
 of Pietro Delfino, general of the Camaldules ; Flor., March 11, in Fabroni, Doc, 
 p. 305; Rinuccini, p. 145; Cambi, Del., xxi. 63; Ammirato, xxvi. 184, 186; 
 Roscoe, append. 65, vol. iii. p. 336. The ceremonies are given in length in 
 Burckhardt, Diario, ann. 1490, p. 162-177, Florence, 1854. 
 
 3 See this letter in Fabroni, Doc. , p. 308 ; Roscoe, append. 66, vol. iii. p. 330 ; 
 and Capponi, append. 6, vol. ii. p. 528. 
 
 4 Machiavelli, viii. 134 a. See the details in the Lettere di Jacopo da Volterra a 
 Papa Innocenzo VIII., published by Marco Tabarrini in the A re A. Stor., 3rd ser., 
 part vii. vol. ii. p. 11, 17, 18, letters of the nth and 20th September, and of 
 6th October 1487. Five other letters of the same are in vol. x. part ii. p. 7 _I 9 °f 
 the Arch. Stor. They bear the date of January 22, 1488, and treat of the ambas- 
 sador Jacopo Gherardi of Volterra's stay in Milan. Cf. Cipolla, p. 644. 
 
394 MANOEUVRES AGAINST RIARIO. [1488 
 
 Forli and Imola. Girolamo was not unsupported ; his wife 
 being the illegitimate daughter of the last Duke of Milan, he 
 counted on II Moro, and even in Kome the powerful Cardinal 
 Giuliano de la Rovere made a point of honour to defend his 
 relative. But the Church was altogether hostile to him, as 
 to all the barons and lords established upon the ecclesiastical 
 territories. 1 In striving to replace him by Franceschetto Cybo, 
 Lorenzo followed the true Florentine policy of surrounding 
 Florence with inoffensive princelings, gravitating toward its 
 orbit. 2 Indeed this design dated from the far-off day of Inno- 
 cent VIII.'s elevation to the tiara, before there was any idea 
 of marriage ; hardly a month later (September 1 484) Florence 
 made the first overtures to Rome for "la nouveaute de l'etat 
 du Comte," and she found the Pope disposed to do more than 
 allow the authority of his name. 3 The negotiation had dragged, 
 as the pontifical surroundings did not inspire confidence, 4 and 
 the threatened Riario had Forli well guarded. 5 Maddalena's 
 marriage with Franceschetto was a strong stimulus to revive 
 the project, only it was no longer of conquest but of assassi- 
 nation that there was question. The documents speak of 
 sending not an army, but a few sworn men " to do this thing " 
 at Faenza after the feast of Christmas. 6 If " this thing " 
 
 1 See a letter of Aid. Guidoni, April 25, 1488 ; Atti e mem., i. 300. 
 
 2 "Sua M za saria di volonta che Forli ed Imola fossero piu presto di signori 
 particolari che si fossero di altra sign, potente . . . e quando pure detto stato 
 dovesse toccare a verun potentato, che lui saria di parer di voler piu presto Milano 
 che la chiesa " {ibid. ). Guidoni afterwards explains Lorenzo's reasons for preferring 
 Milan. It is like a course in politics. 
 
 3 Mi par comprendere che il papa desidererebbe la novita dello stato del conte, 
 ma non vorrebbe fare sed solum permettere . . . e che quegli signori facessino 
 come da loro" (Guidantonio Vespucci, orator in Rome r -to Lorenzo, September 
 24, 1484; Fabroni, Doc, p. 316). 
 
 4 " Pensate se voi volete stare in sulle parole o un breve di credentia . . . o se 
 pur volete altre maxime circa questo caso, quando vi bisognassi far spesa, perche 
 io non mi fido molto della stabilita di questi che sono presso al papa " (The same, 
 December 14, 1484; ibid., p. 318). 
 
 5 " Che in questo caso siano necessarie questo cose, prima uno grande secreto et 
 una extrema simulatione, non far dimonstratione nessuria adversa alii amici del 
 conte per non lo fare ombrare " {ibid. ). "Si concluse la impresa essere difficile per 
 la gran guardia sa fare il conte fuora di Furli" {ibid., p. 317). 
 
 6 "Si e concluso che facte le feste Savello si parta et sia con voi et vada a 
 
1488] ASSASSINATION OF GIROLAMO RIARIO. 395 
 
 came to nothing before three years of study, it was because 
 Lorenzo wanted more than a verbal adhesion from the Pope 
 before striking. 1 
 
 Had he obtained it, or was he weary of waiting ? As a 
 fact, on April 14, 1488, Riario, surrounded by conspirators, 
 fell under their daggers. His naked body was flung out of 
 the window, and the populace dragged it by the hair through 
 the town, so hated were his cupidity and cruelty. 2 
 
 Without knowing anything of the plot, the people knew the 
 result. 3 Florence felt keenly surprised, and still more keenly 
 satisfied : " Of the Count's family she wanted nothing to 
 remain." 4 As for the Pope, if he showed displeasure, he was 
 not inconsolable, 5 and only the directly accused assassins might 
 fear his threats. 6 Marino Sanuto in his daily chronicle formally 
 accuses Lorenzo. 7 The two. principal murderers, Lodovico and 
 Checco dell' Orso, wrote to him (April 1 9) that they had accom- 
 plished " this more divine than human work " for the good of 
 the Republic and for their own interest, to draw the people 
 out of hell. "The Pope is pleased," they wrote, but to obtain 
 his support and help, they implore the intervention of the magni- 
 
 Bologna, et che, parenclo a voi, si deputi el luogo a Faenza, dove se debba pratichare 
 questa cosa con huomini fidati" {Doc, p. 318). 
 
 1 See Cipolla, p. 646, on the facts preceding this murder. 
 
 2 The principal authorities on the murder are Leone Cobelli ( Cronache Forlivesi, 
 p. 307 sq.), who was present, and two letters addressed to Lorenzo on April 19 
 and 21, and published in Fabroni, Doc, p. 318, 320. See also Borselli, xxiii. 907 ; 
 Allegretti, xxiii. 823; Sanuto, xxii. 1244; Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1219; 
 Bruto, 1. viii. , dans Burm., vol. viii. part i. p. 213 ; Machiavelli, viii. 133 A, and 
 Discorsi, 1. iii. c. vi. p. 262 A. 
 
 3 " Nientedimeno non intendo che di tale trattato se ne sia sentito cosa alcuna 
 di qua innanzi il fatto" (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, April 24, 1488; Atti e num., 
 i. 300). 
 
 4 "A questa citta e piaciuto il caso successo del conte, et sia certa V. Ecc. che 
 qui si vorria non gliene rimanesse coda de la famiglia del conte " {ibid. ). 
 
 5 " II papa mostra gli rincrescesse il caso del conte Girolamo, e sin qui se ne 
 passa molto leggermente" {ibid.). 
 
 6 " II Mco Lorenzo per le cose di Forli e in parere che il papa faccia per effetto 
 molto peggio che non dica in parole" (ibid., April 25, p. 300). 
 
 7 " Si diceva ch'era stato opera di Lor. de' Med. e di Giov. Beritivoglio, per 
 dare quelle terre al sign. Franceschetto Cybo" (Sanuto, xxii. 1244). This 
 formal testimony does not prevent Roscoe from invoking the worthless authority 
 of Pignotti to prove that Lorenzo was not accused by his contemporaries. 
 
396 LORENZO AND THE ASSASSINS. [1488 
 
 ficent Lorenzo. 1 Stefano of Castrocaro, whom he had formerly 
 sent to the lord of Faenza, begging him to see the conspira- 
 tors, and show them every consideration, 2 giving him also the 
 details of the drama (April 21); and when the anxious mur- 
 derers asked what the Florentines would do, " They will dance," 
 Stefano replied, " to the music of the others ; the magnificent 
 Lorenzo wishes to end his days in peace." 3 The music of this 
 lord, who sought repose in the blood of others, was not such 
 as would please all his instruments. He refused them access to 
 Florentine territory, and forced them to seek shelter in Rome, 4 
 which they did, sending a Parthian shot after him. " They 
 are satisfied," they say, " that they have avenged the innocent 
 blood of Giuliano de' Medicis." 5 This indirect reproach did 
 not move the prudent Lorenzo ; he had not shown himself in 
 the matter, and he escaped the danger of the consequences. 
 Since he had satisfaction, this was a clever stroke. 
 
 He was forced to content himself, however, with a sterile 
 vengeance. The fruit he had watched ripen he did not gather. 
 Caterina Sforza, the victim's widow, was more far-seeing than 
 the rebels who essayed to draw the chestnuts out of the fire for 
 Lorenzo and Franceschetto. She persuaded them to let her 
 enter the rocca to induce those who commanded to give them- 
 selves up. They consented, thinking they had nothing to fear 
 from her, and retained her children as hostages. But once 
 entered, she fired upon the besiegers. These threatened to kill 
 her children ; she replied that she had one still at Imola, one on 
 the point of birth, and she added, with an indecent gesture, the 
 means of producing others. Thus she intimidated her enemies, 
 
 1 See this letter in Fabroni, Doc, p. 319. 
 
 2 " Io le dissi che havendomi V M l » a mandato al sign, di Faenza, mi havea anche 
 commesso vedessi di aboccharmi con loro et farli intendere per quanto potevate, 
 che naturalmente eravate disposto al favore et benefitio loro" (Letter of Stefano of 
 Castrocaro, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 220). 
 
 3 " In ultimo me adomandorono quello faranno e Fior. Io li dissi : loro baller- 
 anno secondo che altri sonera. . . . V. M. intendeva vivere in piu tranquillita e 
 pace che li fussi possible questo resto dell'eta" {ibid., p. 323). 
 
 4 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 8, 1488 ; Atti e mem., i. 301. 
 
 5 Letter of Stefano, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 324. 
 
1488] MARRIAGE OF CATERINA SFORZA. 397 
 
 and remained mistress or recovered her position, and on April 
 29, Ottaviano, her son and Kiario's, was proclaimed lord of 
 Forli and Imola. 1 Lorenzo did not show annoyance. As a poli- 
 tician he measured the worth of this virago, resolved to become, 
 if necessary, a Mother Gigogne, and he married her at once to 
 Giovanni de' Medicis, grandson of one of Cosimo's brothers, and 
 father of that other Giovanni who was later celebrated in the 
 wars as the chief of the Black Band. 2 This was how the valiant 
 Caterina entered the powerful family which her first husband 
 wished to destroy, and which, by its ambitious reprisals, had 
 undertaken to destroy both him and her. 3 
 
 As for Franceschetto Cybo, he remained the landless Fran- 
 ceschetto as before. If his father-in-law, Lorenzo, succeeded 
 better elsewhere, it was on his own and on Florence's account. 
 Galeotto Manfredi wanted to sell Faenza to the Venetians, a 
 matter of alarm for Florence, who by this would become the 
 neighbour of Venice. On May 31, 1488, he was assassinated 
 by his wife, Francesca, whose father, Giovanni II., Bentivoglio 
 of Bologna, had given the arms into her hands. Feminine 
 jealousy thus came to the aid of the victorious policy, and the 
 Florentines gained nothing ; their near neighbours, the Benti- 
 vogli, seized Faenza. Upon this news, known next day in 
 Florence, " all the town was excited," and manifested a desire 
 that Galeotto's son should succeed him. 4 As this was also the 
 wish of the people, and the peasants of the valley of Lamona, 
 those faithful subjects, virtually relying upon the neighbouring 
 Republic, seized the government in the name of the young 
 Astorra Manfredi, placed themselves under the protection of 
 
 1 Cobelli, Cronache Forlivesi ; Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1220; Bruto, 1. 
 viii. , in Burm., vol. viii. part i. p. 213 ; Machiavelli, vii. 133 a, and Dzscorst, 1. 
 ii. c. vi. p. 262 a; Sismondi, vii. 251 ; Capponi, ii. 156. 
 
 2 Giovanni of the Black Band was baptized Lodovico. See the genealogy of 
 the Medici in Litta, Reumont, &c. 
 
 3 On this marriage see Pietro Nasi's letters to Lorenzo, Faenza, February 3, 
 1489, and of Dionisio Pucci to the same, Faenza, August 29, 1489, in Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 325, 328, as well as other documents of 1489 and 1490, quoted by 
 Reumont, ii. 374. Cf. Sismondi, vii. 254. 
 
 4 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, June 2, 1488 ; Aili e mem., i. 301. 
 
398 GIOVANNI BENTIVOGLIO. [1488 
 
 Florence, and easily obtained soldiers, 1 all the more easily as 
 reward was anticipated. Lorenzo retained on the frontier the 
 stout fortress of Piancaldoli, once taken from the Florentines 
 by Count Girolamo. 2 This time, by an unusual chance, right 
 was upon their side, as the orator of Ferrara recognised : the 
 restitution had often been promised. 3 
 
 This place retaken, Lorenzo could afford to show clemency 
 to Bentivoglio. He had insisted on holding him, and retained 
 him in spite of the demands of the prisoner's wife and the 
 ambassadors themselves. 4 When the rocca of Faenza fell at 
 last (June 9), he opened the cage and let the prisoner out, 
 after some long conversation with him, " in which everything 
 between them was well thrashed out ; " 5 a thrashing for which 
 Bentivoglio paid well, for he neither obtained that his daughter 
 should be re-established at Faenza nor that his gracious gaoler 
 should allow her by marriage to ally herself with the Medici ; 6 
 which was not the way to make a friend of this neighbour. 
 
 But what did that matter to Lorenzo ? Henceforth recog- 
 nised as the protector of Forli, Imola, and Faenza, he ruled 
 over the little states of Romagna, and his weight and influence 
 were everywhere recognised. Increasingly fond of pleasure, 
 and bored by business, which interfered with his enjoyments, 
 he smoothed down all differences, and always threatened to 
 side with the offended party. The menace generally sufficed 
 to establish equilibrium. His glory, certainly not an untar- 
 
 1 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, June 5, p. 302. 
 
 2 Before Galeotto's murder, April 3, this affair of Piancaldoli was the subject of 
 a long letter of Aid. Guidoni ; Atti e mem. , i. 298. On this fact see Ricordanze 
 di Tribaldo de' Rossi in Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani, xxiii. 241. 
 
 3 " Si seguita la impresa di Piancaldoli, quale gia fu-loro, e piii volte le fu 
 promesso restituircelo " (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, April 24, 1488; Atti e mem. , 
 i. 300). 
 
 4 The same, June 9, p. 302. 
 
 5 The same, June 15, p. 302. 
 
 6 The same, August 17, p. 303, in note 2 of Cappelli. On this affair see as 
 well Cronaca di Faenza, p. 240 ; Cronaca Forlivese, p. 346 ; Burselli, xxiii. 907 ; 
 Allegretti, xxiii. 823; Graziani, Cronaca Perugina in Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. 
 xvi. part i. p. 675 ; Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1221 ; Diario Ferrarese, xxvi. 
 280 ; Bruto, 1. viii. in Burm., vol. viii. part i. p. 214 ; Ammirato, xxvi. 183. 
 
1489] PEACE AND TRANQUILLITY. 399 
 
 nished glory, and stained by perfidies, faithlessness, violence, 
 and crimes, but none the less indisputable, was his foreign 
 policy. 
 
 At the very time ' that the Emperor's war with Venice 
 drew to an end, Lorenzo softened the mutual resentment of 
 Innocent VIII. and of Ferrante, the one as much, and perhaps 
 more, irritated by the tribute refused than by the massacre 
 of the Neapolitan barons, the other threatening to appear before 
 Rome sword in hand. The mediator could count upon Fer- 
 rante, remembering that he had been the means of ending 
 the last war and preventing its renewal ; upon Innocent VIII., 
 whom he had rid of a son that no prince could accept as a son- 
 in-law ; upon Louis XL, who was attentive to the common eco- 
 nomical interests of the two states, and had kindly meddled 
 in the negotiations for the hat ; 1 and upon Lodovico il Moro, 
 whom he had largely served in persuading the Duke of Cala- 
 bria not to rush to arms in defence of his son-in-law, Gian 
 Galeaz. His relations with Mathias Corvinus were of a friendly 
 nature. The Sultan of Egypt showed his esteem by sending 
 him a giraffe and a tame lion ; 2 and we have seen that he 
 enjoyed Mahomet II. 's favour. Thus he secured peace abroad 
 and tranquillity at home, though his country had hitherto been 
 too much accustomed to the clash of arms. This peace lasted 
 from the taking of Sarzana until his death. 
 
 The least contented of the Florentines thanked him for this 
 respite, and were at the same time flattered by the honours 
 rendered to the first of their citizens, to him who henceforth 
 personified the Republic. If his negotiations, as we have seen, 
 were kept secret, as much from personal interest as from political 
 necessity, there is no reason to rob him of the honour as well 
 as the responsibility, as Sismondi does, with the intention of 
 
 1 Buser (p. 288 sq. ) rapidly sums up the correspondence between) Lorenzo and 
 Sassetti, his envoy in France, who had done good service there, as did in Florence 
 Comines. 
 
 2 Pietro Bibbiena to Clarissa naming the Sultan's presents, undated, in Fab- 
 roni, Doc, p. 337. See also Sismondi, vii. 275 ; and Capponi, ii. 159. 
 
400 MEDIATIONS OF LORENZO. [1489 
 
 raising by comparison his beloved Albizzi, whom he makes the 
 champion of " liberty," and even of the democracy. It is un- 
 just to see nothing but intrigue in Lorenzo's letters to Lan- 
 fredini, published by Fabroni. The clever statesman, taken up 
 with projects of foreign intervention, schemed and wished to 
 avert all possible danger. The Duke of Lorraine's victory 
 seemed very great to him, 1 though less than that of the King 
 of Naples, for Ferrante depended on Spain more than Rene on 
 France. 2 He pointed out to the Pope three possible courses : to 
 settle matters with the King of Naples by arms, to agree with 
 him, or temporise while awaiting more favourable circum- 
 stances. " But in no case," he added, " should His Holiness 
 ask the support of Spain or France." 3 An advice as oppor- 
 tune as it was wise. On the next day (September 11, 1489), 
 in presence of the Neapolitan ambassador, Innocent VIII. 
 made public the protest of August 1 1 , which accused Ferrante 
 of having violated the peace, and pronounced him a fallen 
 prince. 4 While complaining to the Most Christian and Most 
 Catholic kings of his wrongs at the hand of the Neapolitan, he 
 was in treaty with them, 5 although he recognised that the 
 Most Catholic King was unreliable, and that the Most Chris- 
 tian King aspired to the possession both of the Republic of 
 Genoa and of the kingdom of Naples. 6 
 
 That Lorenzo was mixed up in these negotiations is a fact 
 beyond doubt ; it was to a Florentine ambassador that the 
 Duke of Calabria declared his father the king ready to treat 
 with the Pope upon reasonable conditions. 7 This intervention 
 
 1 Lorenzo to Lanfredini, March 24, 1489, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 359-361. 
 
 2 The same, October 17, 1489 ; ibid., p. 366. 
 
 3 Ibid. Cf. another letter the same to the same, August 8, 1489 ; ibid., p. 
 361-365, and the analysis in Buser, p. 268-269. 
 
 4 Infessura, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1229. The Bull of September 11 is in Fabroni, 
 Doc, p. 340 seq. 
 
 5 Innocent VIII. himself expresses it to Lanfredini (Lanfredini to Lorenzo in 
 Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., 1872, vol. xv. p. 296). 
 
 6 Lanfredini to Lorenzo, October 23, 1489 ; letter published by Ag. Gelli in 
 Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., vol. xvi. p. 386. 
 
 7 Declaration made January 29, 1490. C art eggio Medic eo, filza 49-228, in C. de 
 Cherrier, Histoire de Charles VIII., vol. i. p. 341, 2nd edit., Paris, 1870. 
 
i49i] MEDIATIONS OF LORENZO. 401 
 
 was delicate, for Lorenzo held strongly to Ferrante's friendship, 1 
 and Innocent VIII. spoke of granting Charles VIII. the in- 
 vestiture of the kingdom, and declared himself ready, if he did 
 not obtain the sincere support of the Italian potentates, to 
 cross the Alps and return at once to Italy, escorted by the 
 Ultramontanes. 2 So bitter was the quarrel, that on the Feast 
 of St. Peter in 1491, Ferrante having, according to custom 
 and treaty, offered a pony, the Pope refused it, because the 
 tribute, fallen into desuetude, had not been added. 3 However, 
 peace was made in the beginning of the following December, 
 thanks to Lorenzo. 4 It was not his fault if in the North this 
 great success was counterbalanced by disaster ; if Lodovico il 
 Moro, by his reconciliation with the Duke of Orleans, deprived 
 Florence of the direction of events. The patient spider re- 
 commenced at once its broken web, and perhaps, had it not 
 been for death, would have brought it to a happy ending. 
 
 Deceived or not in his calculations and hopes, Lorenzo was 
 none the less a very great figure in Europe. He passed for 
 what indeed he was, the master of Florence. The public 
 officers, the Priors, the Ten of War, continued to send out their 
 despatches to the ambassadors of the Republic ; but Lorenzo, 
 on his side, sent out his own, aud these were considered as so 
 much more important, that the others referred to them. 5 It 
 was he the neighbouring lords and all those in the pay of the 
 commons recognised and obeyed. With him alone the crowned 
 
 1 Pier Vettori to Lorenzo, Naples, Mareh 9, 1489, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 344-347. 
 
 2 " Dichiarando che quando sia offeso del Re et non ajutato come si conviene, 
 delibera partirsi et andarsene di la da' monti, dove sara ben visto, et dove spera 
 non solo poter procedere contra al Re in ogni altro acto, ma ancora si rende certo 
 in breve tempo poter ritornare con favore di ultramontani " (Pandolfini to Lorenzo, 
 July 28, 1490, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 335. Cf. the same, July 8, 1490; ibid., p. 
 
 352). 
 
 3 Manf. Manfredi to Ercole, July 3, 1491 ; Atti e mem., i. 309. 
 
 4 The Pope published the treaty of agreement, January 28, 1492. See Ann. 
 Eccles., 1492, § 10, vol. xxx. p. 190 ; and Manfredi's letter to Ercole, December 6, 
 1491, January 31, 1492 ; Atti e mem., i. 310. 
 
 5 " Delle cose seguite di qua sappiamo Lor. de' Medici v' informa a pieno ; pero 
 per ora altrimenti non ci distenderemo. . . . Alle sue lettere ci riferiamo " (De- 
 spatch to Francesco Gaddi, December 5, 1480, in Desjardins, i. 189). 
 
 VOL. I. 2 C 
 
4 o2 HOME POLICY. [1491 
 
 heads corresponded ; in their eyes he was as much a prince as 
 those who openly bore the name. 
 
 At home, on the contrary, Lorenzo was reduced to evasion, 
 and humbly to advance step by step. This is the other side 
 of the picture, but from one point of view it is the right side, 
 for it is rather by his life as a Mecasnas than by the success 
 or importance of his negotiations that he plays such a remark- 
 able part in the history of Florence, we may almost say, in 
 the history of humanity. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DOMINATION OF LORENZO OB' MEDICIS IN FLORENCE 
 UNTIL HIS DEATH. 
 
 I48I-I492. 
 
 The increasing and ill-concealed absolutism of Lorenzo — Conspiracy repressed (June 
 1481) — Difficulties in trade — Bad financial state in public and private — The pro- 
 gressive tax or scala (1480-87)— Affair of the Gonfaloniers of company (1489) — 
 Lorenzo punishes the Gonfalonier of justice — He maintains order in the public 
 place by severity — The Balie of Seventeen placed above the Council of Seventy 
 (1490) — Reform of the coinage — Jobbing on the monti — Lorenzo places and 
 increases his fortune — He protects arts and letters — His literary education — His 
 dilettanteism — His love of pleasure — Angelo Poliziano— Marsilio Ficino and the 
 Platonic Academy — Pico de la Mirandola — Lorenzo's patronage — Opposition to 
 the Pagan spirit — Girolamo Savonarola (1483-90) — His self-imposed mission 
 and prophecies — His opposition to Lorenzo — Fra Mariano of Ghinazzano op- 
 poses him (1491) — Interview between the dying Lorenzo and Savonarola (April 
 1492) — Death of Lorenzo (April 8) — The judgment of his contemporaries and of 
 posterity. 
 
 Lorenzo's power, which we have seen increase abroad, was 
 strengthened at home from the time of the conspiracy of the 
 Pazzi. The failure of the conspirators and their punishment 
 had been a lesson for those who aspired to imitate them. 
 There was no further danger, as the authors recognise (the 
 most ancient as well as the modern 1 ), in a town peopled with 
 men more taken up with private trade than with public affairs. 2 
 Lorenzo felt this too well for him to dream of abdicating in 
 favour of his son, as his hardly critical biographer, Eoscoe, 
 asserts. He even projected, when he had arrived at the legal 
 age of forty-five, to have himself elected for life Gonfalonier 
 
 1 See J. Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. i. p. 25 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., 
 c. iv. vol. iii. p. 43 ; P. Marchese, Scritti Vari, San Marco di Firenze, 1. ii. p. 
 125 ; Canestrini, p. 238. 
 
 a J. Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. i. p. 25. 
 
 403 
 
4 o 4 TACTICS OF LORENZO. [1481 
 
 of justice, 1 or rather injustice, as Binuccini says, 2 a queer 
 legal scruple in committing the most flagrant illegality, and 
 one the most contrary to Florentine traditions. Meanwhile, 
 he received the princes and the foreign ambassadors, and feasted 
 them with princely magnificence. He did not like others to 
 hold sumptuous receptions, even at marriages or domestic re- 
 joicings. He jealously supervised the actions, friendships, and 
 interests of his compatriots. He formed sects and secret 
 societies unknown to each other, who equalised the balance 
 between the factions. The orators of Florence were named 
 " his orators." 3 Ammirato called him the " prince of the 
 government," 4 which in reality he was. This he wished to 
 be, and, if he were not, at least to enjoy the appearance and 
 consciousness of power. 
 
 Herein lies his peculiarity. He feigned humility, and 
 lived with his family and friends as a simple citizen ; he gave 
 way and yielded the path to everybody older than himself, 
 and he recommended his son to imitate him in his embassies, 5 
 although he well knew he would be received on the same 
 footing with the greatest personages, even with the Duke 
 of Milan. 6 He even did not neglect to recommend him, 
 when necessary, to adopt an attitude that would distinguish 
 him among his colleagues. 7 When he was not angry or ill- 
 humoured with them, he modestly visited the messengers from 
 Italian powers, and even simple captains of war in their inn. 
 
 1 J. Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., vol. i. p. 26. 2 Al. Rinuccini, p. 137. 
 
 3 " Li oratori soy ..." (The Milanese orator to the Duke of Milan, December 
 23, 1482; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, f. 321. The name of this orator is not 
 in the document. It is probably Sacramoro. ) 
 
 4 Ammirato, xxvi. 184. 
 
 5 ' • Portati gravemente e costumatamente e con umanita verso gli altri pari tuoi, 
 guardandoti di non preceder loro, se fossino di piu eta di te ; poiche per essere mio 
 figliolo, non sei pero altro che cittadino di Firenze, come sono ancor loro " (Lorenzo 
 to Piero, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 264). 
 
 6 G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 39. Capponi (ii. 159) quotes a letter found in Fabroni 
 (Doc, p. 296), but which says nothing of the rank of Piero at the Milan festivities. 
 
 7 " Ma quando poi parra a Giovanni di presentarti al papa separatamente, prima 
 informati bene di tutte le cerimonie si usano, ti presenterai/'j&c. (Lorenzo to Piero, 
 in Fabroni, Doc, p. 264). 
 
1481] THE " ORATORS OF LORENZO." 405 
 
 In the assemblies, where he shrank from appearing, Pier Filippo 
 Pandolfini, "the first citizen of the town, after him and his 
 voice in the councils," wrote Aldovrandino Guidoni, 1 served 
 him as spokesman. In each office he maintained, according 
 to the habit of his father and grandfather, a confidential 
 chancellor, who knew his thoughts and wishes, and was the 
 real chief of the office to which he belonged. As well, he had 
 beside him another chancellor, his secretary-general, as we 
 should call him to-day, Piero de' Bibbiena, through whose 
 hands everything passed. 2 In this way he spread his net 
 everywhere, and for the moment at least reduced his victim 
 to resignation and insensibility. 
 
 The most singular thing is, that men usually far-seeing 
 accepted the change. u He is not a lord of Florence," wrote 
 a Milanese orator, "but a citizen, and though he has rather 
 more authority than he should have in his position, he is 
 bound to show patience, and to be ruled by the wishes of the 
 majority." 3 Now, in the same despatch the writer of these 
 lines calls those who had hitherto been called " orators of the 
 Eepublic " " orators of Lorenzo," 4 a naive contradiction, which 
 shows us what we ought to think upon the subject. Lorenzo 
 was the real master, and a master who henceforth punished 
 without encountering any resistance, though he struck upon 
 the slightest suspicion. Let us give an example of his seve- 
 rities, often so little justified. 
 
 On June 2, 148 1, there were arrested, Marotto Baldovinetti 
 and Battista Frescobaldi, two citizens of good family, but fallen 
 from their rank. They were accused of having conspired, 
 like the Pazzi, to kill Lorenzo in the Duomo during the Feast 
 
 1 " P. F. Pandolfini in consiglio e il cuor del M co Lorenzo, ed egli e il primo 
 cittadino della citta" (To Ercole, May 14, 1488 ; Atti e mem., i. 301). 
 
 2 Capponi, ii. 161 ; Cipolla, p. 666. 
 
 3 " Attento che la non e signore di Firenze, ma cittadino, et licet de qualche 
 auctorita piu che non li tocharia per la sorte sua, tamen in simili casi e necessitate 
 anchora luy ad havere patientia et conformarse col volere de' piu " (To the Duke of 
 Milan, December 23, 1482; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, f. 321). 
 
 4 See supra, p. 404. 
 
 \ 
 
 ) 
 
4 o6 SEVERITIES OF LORENZO. [1481 
 
 of Pentecost with poisoned daggers. 1 Marotto was suspected 
 of having seen recently, in Rome, Girolamo Riario, the old 
 enemy of the Medici. 2 As for Battista, once a devoted ser- 
 vant, and an envoy of the Republic at Pera, he had helped 
 Lorenzo in obtaining the scandalous extradition of Bandini. 
 But the proverb says, " A friend as far as the purse." He 
 pretended to have given his own money for that mission, 
 and he could not obtain a reimbursement. Was this enough 
 to arm his hand ? and was his hand armed ? We do not 
 know, but torture loosened his tongue, and made him con- 
 fess the untrue as well as the true. He accused Veri Accia- 
 juoli and exculpated Riario, but from the confession itself it 
 was seen that Neri could not have been very culpable ; a 
 strange conspirator, who advised that the ancient accomplice 
 of the Pazzi should be left out of the plot, in virtue of this 
 other proverb, " A scalded cat dreads cold water." 3 
 
 But in order to condemn, nothing more was necessary ; the 
 two inculpated persons were hanged, on June 6, from the 
 windows of the Bargello, and as their friend Francesco Bal- 
 ducci had taken flight, his brother was hanged with them, 
 although he had condemned the plot. 4 Such was the distribu- 
 tion of justice by the Medici. Antonio Montecatino, orator of 
 Ferrara, believed in the reality of this conspiracy, which would, 
 he said, have made everything topsy-turvy, for " these poor 
 
 1 Bartolommeo Sgrippi, Chancellor of Montecatino, to Montecatino, then at 
 Ferrara, June 6, 1483 ; Atti e mem., i. 253. Rinuccini (p. 134) states that 
 the attempt should have taken place May 31, Ascension Day. He is mistaken, 
 since the preventive arrestation was on June 2nd. The testimony of the Modena 
 chancellor is conclusive, written as it was at the same time. Luca Landucci 
 confirms it. See Diario, p. 38. 
 
 2 " E ancora non si e potuto intendere se questi aveano pratica con il prefato 
 conte" (Bartolommeo Sgrippi, June 3, 148 1 ; Atti e mem., i. 253). " Hieronymus 
 quoque comes belli tempore ejus vitse ssepius per sicarios insidiatus est " (Nic. 
 Valori, Vita Laur., p. 60). 
 
 3 " Perche il predetto conte avea avuto assai carico, che al presente rifiuteria 
 questo" (B. Sgrippi, June 6, 1483 ; Atti e mem., i. 254). 
 
 4 Bart. Sgrippi, June 6; Atti e mem., i. 254. Cf. Al. Rinuccini, p. 134; 
 Allegretti, xxiii. 808; Ammirato, xxv. 148. Leon. Morelli {Del., xix. 196) places 
 this execution on June 13. He is contradicted by Sgrippi, Rinuccini, Landucci, 
 and the priorista Rinuccini, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 224. 
 
i4*i] SUBSERVIENCE OF THE SIGNORY. 407 
 
 people (poveretti) had come with too much ardour." He relates, 
 that to the visitors who came to console them, they replied that 
 they regretted not their life, but the freedom of Florence, which 
 they had desired to obtain, as all Florentines should do ; he 
 adds, however, they could not legally be put to death, as, not 
 having committed any overt act, they did not deserve it. 1 
 
 It was no less upon that occasion that the Signory and the 
 Seventy, by order or by flattery, formally declared that who- 
 ever offended Lorenzo committed the crime of high treason, 
 which in the opinion of more than one, writes the same Monte- 
 catino, injured more than served him ; "for the more he affects 
 domination, the more enemies he makes." 2 He did not fear 
 those enemies. His apologists mention other conspiracies, in 
 which, as usual, Girolamo Kiario was given a part; 3 but so 
 little is said about them, and they have left so slight traces 
 in history at a time when suspects were hanged, that it is 
 very difficult to regard as serious such stories as were probably 
 invented to justify persistent severities. 
 
 Since everybody could be threatened, every citizen who 
 had not succeeded in being considered a friend was full of 
 anxiety, and together with anxiety reigned uneasiness, the 
 causes of which were Lorenzo's impotence and incapacity to 
 improve the financial situation. In spite of his foreign rela- 
 tions, he did not obtain from his allies a favourable treatment 
 for Florentine traffic. Even in France, where this traffic was 
 supposed to enjoy real immunities, its condition was precarious, 
 and depended upon caprice and the circumstances of the hour. 
 The result was that unexpected duties were frequently imposed 
 
 1 " Non poteano de jure morire, perche non essendo venuti ad altro atto estrin- 
 seco, non meritavano la morte " (Ant. Montecatino to Ercole, June 9 ; Atti e 
 mem., i. 255). 
 
 2 "E cosi dichiararono expresse che chi offende Lorenzo ed offendera com- 
 mettera crimen lesae majestatis, che pure tribuisce onore e riguardo a Lorenzo, 
 quantunque sia che dica che questo piu presto gli nuoce, perche quanto piu se le 
 fa atto di dominare li altri, tanti piu inimici si fa" {ibid.). 
 
 3 Nic. Valori, Vita Laur., p. 60, and after him Ammirato, xxv. 148, speak of 
 a conspiracy of a certain Baldinotti of Pistoia, in which Girolamo Riario is said 
 to have taken part. 
 
4 o8 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. [1481 
 
 upon Florentine cloth. 1 On one occasion Florentine vessels 
 were captured by the French marine. 2 If trade was kept in 
 such perpetual alarms by friends, what could be expected from 
 the indifferent or from enemies ? 
 
 Internally the effects of the bad direction of finances were 
 keenly felt. During the war the monte was obliged to sus- 
 pend payment of interest. This was excused in the preamble 
 of the decree which instituted the order of the Seventy upon 
 the ground of the plague, and the expenses it had caused. 
 Ought it not to have been charged upon a war undertaken by 
 Lorenzo less for the Eepublic than for himself ? 3 There was 
 no other remedy for the evil than expedients that remedied 
 nothing; such as terminating the sale of the goods of the 
 Parte Ckoelfa and of the office of the Tower, and collecting 
 the debts in arrear of the debtors of the commune, although 
 they had made arrangements with the officers of the monte, 
 the violation of which was an injustice. 4 
 
 But how could Lorenzo have managed public finances with 
 success when he managed his own so badly ? The former, 
 besides, served him to repair the damage made in the latter. 
 His apologists have asserted that he had a horror of trade, 5 and 
 upon their testimony Machiavelli does not hesitate to affirm that 
 he had not continued his business. This is an error, as proved 
 by documents. In 1489 he was still engaged in commerce. 6 
 He remained associated with Francesco Sacchetti and other 
 merchants established in Lyons. The director of the bank in 
 this town was Leonatto de' Rossi, married to a natural sister of 
 Lorenzo. 7 Only, with a nobleman's carelessness, he left full 
 
 1 Despatch of December 27, 1483, analysed in Desjardins, i. 204, 205. 
 
 2 1485. Despatch analysed in Desjardins, i. 205. Capture of the two vessels 
 belonging to the merchant Bartolommeo Frescobaldi. 
 
 3 See a fragment of the text in Capponi, ii. 145, n. 1. 
 
 4 Alam. Rinuccini, p. 135, 137. 
 
 5 "Mercaturam exhorruit" (Nic. Valori, Vita Laur., p. 38). 
 
 6 See in Atti e mem., i. 315, append., a despatch signed B. Des. al banco de' 
 Medici Florentie. 
 
 7 Docamenti di Storia Italiana, copied by Giuseppe Molini, Florence, 1836, 
 vol. i. p. 13-16, and cited by Cappelli ; Atti e mem., i. 316, append. 
 
1481] FINANCIAL OPERATIONS. 409 
 
 power to his agents, and as they were in no fear of unexpected 
 visits of inspection and supervision from their chief, they 
 neglected in turn the interests confided to their care, and even 
 compromised them by their extravagance, luxury, and pleasures. 
 At Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, with a deficit of more than a 
 hundred thousand ducats, came very near causing the Medici 
 bank, which was already compromised by other branches, to fail. 1 
 If, as Capponi believes, 2 the firm of Bernardo Cambi and An- 
 tonio des Rabatta at Bruges was independent, it did not com- 
 promise the capital of third parties, especially Lorenzo's, 3 when 
 it was almost reduced to bankruptcy by the loan to Marie of 
 Burgundy, the Emperor Maxmilian's wife, of sums that were 
 never repaid. 4 
 
 Hence for Lorenzo the necessity of leaving no stone unturned ; 
 all the more so as he neither wished to suppress nor suspend 
 his vast projects of ambition. He borrowed from his friends 
 and relations. In 1478, his cousins, the sons of Pier Fran- 
 cesco de' Medicis, lent him sixty thousand ducats, and received 
 as security his villa of Cafaggiuolo and his possessions in the 
 Mugello. 5 The worst was that he covered the deficit in his 
 private fortune by operations in which public officers were his 
 accomplices and abettors. He seized the taxes, the capital of 
 the Monte — in a word, he cooked the accounts of the State. 
 When, in the month of December 1479, Tommaso Soderini, 
 " a detestable citizen, an old screw, a wicked tyrant," being 
 Gonfalonier of justice, repealed a tax in order to relieve the 
 governors, 6 he was only an instrument. Niccolo Valori, chief 
 panegyrist, confesses himself that his hero dipped into the public 
 
 1 " Riparare a Bruggia alia sua ragione, la quale ghovernava Thomaxo Por- 
 tinari, che v'ando piu di fior. 100 m. tra quivi e altre ragioni, perche bisogniava 
 si schoprissino falliti" (Cambi, Del., xxi. 2). 
 
 2 Stor. di Fir., ii. 145, n. 3. 
 
 3 See letter from Antonio Pucci to Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 212, and 
 Cambi, Del., xxi. 2. 
 
 4 Al. Rinuccini, p. 136. 
 
 6 Letter of Ant. Pucci to Lorenzo, in Fabroni, Doc, p. 212; G. Cambi, Del., 
 xxi. 2 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix. vol. Hi. p. 87. 
 6 Al. Rinuccini, p. 131. 
 
410 THE MONTE. [1481 
 
 treasury. 1 Lorenzo suppressed the pious foundations established 
 by the Eepublic and a great number of families. 2 He had the 
 soldiers paid by the Bartolini bank, in which he had an in- 
 terest, but upon the pay he retained 8 per cent. Can it be 
 wondered at that the condottieri, who also knew how to count, 
 only served him for his money's worth, and all these abuses, 
 these prevarications, this squandering did not profit him ? In 
 1484, to escape bankruptcy, he was constrained to borrow 
 four thousand ducats from Lodovico il Moro, and in order to 
 have four thousand more he sold the house he possessed in 
 Milan, a gift of Francesco Sforza to Cosimo. 3 
 
 Thus it was that Lorenzo to a great extent was the 
 cause of the troubles of the monte and of his country. As 
 Sismondi has said, 4 to avoid private bankruptcy he provoked 
 public bankruptcy. What he did himself he could not, or 
 would not, prevent his friends from doing also. He allowed 
 them to rob the commune of those funds which came from the 
 blood and the bones of the poor citizens. 5 The accusations 
 with which his instruments were charged included himself, and, 
 at times, the numerous agents whom he maintained in the various 
 markets of Europe. 6 Florence was wrong, which is no novelty 
 in this world, in confiding the management of her finances to 
 one who did not know how to manage his own, and Lorenzo- 
 mixed up everything, designedly perhaps as much as through 
 incompetence. To compromise the public funds and involve 
 private fortunes is often a means of security against revolutions. 
 
 With a master in debt and financiers as little talented as 
 honest, the art of finance can only be confined to the crea- 
 tion of resources by multiplying taxation or by changing its 
 system, with the one single reserve, usually practised by popular 
 
 1 " Fuit necesse ejus quoque rationibus ne fides deficeret, ex serario publico pro- 
 videre" (Nic. Valori, Vita Laur., p. 38). 
 
 * Sismondi (vii. 276) gives the figures too doubtfully for us to reproduce. 
 
 «* Al. Rinuccini, p. 147 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix., Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 
 87, 88. 
 
 4 Sismondi, vii. 276. 
 
 5 Guicciardini, Del Reggim. di Fir., 1. i., Op. ined., ii. 43. 
 
 6 Cappon, ii. 146. 
 
i4»i] THE SCALA. 411 
 
 governments of sparing the people, and this reserve was only 
 theoretic. One of the chancellors or numerous notaries de- 
 pendent upon the Medici, whom they maintained in the monte 
 and the commune to serve their financial ends, Piero Cennini, 
 wrote the following note after the minutes of a project of 
 taxation : " Whoever you may be, from the moment that you 
 are rich and make large sums, you are not a friend of the 
 poor, though you may pretend to be. As you have few sons, 
 you condemn, you spurn the catasto ; you impose a heavy burden 
 upon the wretched." * 
 
 If the catasto were preserved, it was only in appearance. 
 It made taxation proportional, while it should have been pro- 
 gressive — or rather, progressive taxation existed already. The 
 Medici always had a taste for this system, which permitted 
 them to favour their partisans, oppress their enemies, and 
 appear well-disposed towards the lower class. 2 On May 18, 
 1480, it was established under the name of scala, a poll-tax, 
 for seven years, but levied only upon the income. 3 There were 
 three classes taxed. The first comprised those whose income 
 was from 1 to 50 florins, they were taxed 5 per cent. ; the 
 third, incomes from 1200 florins upwards, these were taxed at 
 i6f per cent. But in no case might this taxation exceed the 
 tenth of the revenue. 4 
 
 Unfortunately these decisions are never stable. A few 
 months later, on January 31, 148 1, the tax upon the third class 
 was raised to 22 per cent. The latitude allowed to the asses- 
 sors was limited by the fiscal exigencies, for it was settled that 
 the scala should produce a tenth of the whole revenue, or at 
 
 1 " Quisquis es, quia dives es, et plurimum lucraris, non es amicus pauperum, 
 tametsi simulas amicissimum ; quoniam vero paucos filios habes, catastum damnas 
 atque explodis, et cervicibus inopum grave onus imponis " (Text in Canestrini, p. 
 228). To understand the part of the phrase as to the small number of children, 
 we must remember that 200 florins of the capital liable to taxation was withdrawn 
 for every child a citizen had. Even then the wealthy seem to have been the 
 reverse of prolific. 
 
 2 Capponi, ii. 144 ; Reumont, ii. 239 sq. ; Cipolla, p. 610. 
 
 3 See on the scala under Cosimo, supra, chap. i. p. 59. 
 
 4 Canestrini, p. 232-233, which gives the sources. 
 
412 NEW TAXES IMPOSED. [1482 
 
 least twenty-five thousand florins. This was called the decima 
 scalata or a scala. 1 The poll-tax was equally progressive, and 
 followed the same progression. Whoever paid 7 per cent, upon 
 his income, paid 1 florin 4 half-pence, 4/5 in the poll-tax. 2 
 The poll-tax for those who paid 22 per cent, upon their income 
 was 4 florins 4 halfpence, 4/5. 8 This scala lasted until 1487, 
 not without being modified according to the need of the hour. 
 On March 5, 1482, it was decided to gather in 150,000 ducats 
 a year for two years, and even that what was due in a year's 
 time could be demanded in the first six months. 4 
 
 In the following June, as if this were not arbitrary enough , 
 Lorenzo invented the dispiacente sgravato, 5 an ingenious arrange- 
 ment that left everything, or nearly everything, to the decision 
 of the assessors. As they were free to go beyond the estab- 
 lished scala, the master through them was free to favour or 
 crush those he wished, and to hold every one in his power. 
 This was the operation; a dispiacente of 1479, and a sixth 
 sgravato of 1482 were combined. Of the whole, three-fifths 
 were taken, which gave the figure of the new dispiacente, with 
 right of exemption of a fourth. If the assessors thought fit to 
 make a larger exemption for more, they had to obtain the 
 authority of the Signory and the colleges. This dispiacente 
 sgravato , joined to the decima scalata of 1480—81, constituted 
 the new tax, which was paid in one of its two parts alternately 
 
 1 Canestrini, p. 234, 235. He gives the scales from 1 to 50 florins. 
 
 2 That is, one florin plus the twentieth part of a florin. 
 
 3 Canestrini, p. 235. 
 
 4 Filippo Sacramoro to the Duke of Milan, March 6, 1482; Arch. S/orz., 
 copies, No. 1 6 10, f. 320. 
 
 5 These two words, untranslatable in French, need to be explained. The 
 aggravo and the sgravo were the faculty that the assessors had to charge or 
 exempt those liable for taxes. The piacente and the dispiacente were the names 
 of the taxes when an ancient duty was renewed, or a combination of taxes already 
 gathered was made, leaving the citizens the right to pay one rather than the other. 
 Naturally, the least onerous was chosen, which was called piacente ; but in certain 
 cases a decree compelled the payment of the heavier, which for this reason was 
 called the dispiacente or displeasing. See Canestrini, p. 185-187, who shows the 
 documents, and also Leon Say, Les Solutions Dimocratiques de la Question des 
 Impdts, vol. i. p. 214, Paris, 1886. M. Say was helped by Canestrini to explain 
 in Florence these financial questions, which he so well understood. 
 
1482] BAD FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS. 413 
 
 each month, and even oftener than once a month, until 
 November 1488. 
 
 Thus, from September 1482 to November 1488, forty- four 
 dispiacenti and thirty-three h&li-decime scalate were gathered 
 in, the whole paid in money down, or in the interest of the 
 sums that the taxpayer had in the monte ; but as the monte 
 sometimes retained these interests, or the half, the third, or 
 the quarter, under pretext of redemption, it resulted that from 
 1485 to the end of 1487 there were twenty-six payments in 
 ready money. 1 
 
 We should be much surprised if the financiers of our days 
 regarded this arrangement as sound. But money was needed 
 at any cost for the public expenses, which were all the greater 
 as the political horizon broadened, and the policy was to reward 
 or punish, and hold every one in suspense between the hope of 
 favours to be paid for and the fear of these mobile taxes that 
 could at any time be raised. By these means Lorenzo became 
 more and more absolute master, and, which was more novel, he 
 less and less feared to let it be seen. We cannot here enter 
 into details of all the facts that prove this assertion. It will 
 suffice to quote two, both occurring in the year 1489. 
 
 Concerning lot-drawing in the bourses, an invitation had 
 been sent to the members of the colleges not to absent them- 
 selves. So lax were the notions of obedience, that when the 
 hour of meeting arrived, the Gonfaloniers were not of the 
 number for legal deliberation. The absent were sought for ; 
 they were found and brought, all but one, the sexagenarian 
 Piero Borghini, who when found later than the rest, five miles 
 off, sensibly remarked, that during the time spent in this hunt, 
 the Gonfaloniers ought to have mustered and the drawing 
 taken place. It could have taken place, but it did not ; they 
 were bent upon waiting for the late-comer. After a fresh 
 message, Borghini came at last, late in the evening, in boots 
 and a black hood. The names of the new Signory were drawn. 
 
 1 Canestrini, pp, 241, 242. 
 
414 NERI CAMBI. [1489 
 
 But the departing Signory, who presided at the operation, did 
 not pardon the person who had checked it. Neri 'Cambi, 
 Gonfalonier of justice, supported by the colleges, in vain 
 adjourned decision to the morrow ; night brought no counsel. 
 Next morning the nine beans, in other words, the unanimity 
 of the Signory, struck Piero Borghini and three other Gfon- 
 faloniers with ammonizione for three years. 
 
 Lorenzo, at Pisa, learnt of this act of authority. He was 
 shocked, as at an encroachment upon his rights. He sent his 
 chancellor to make known his wishes ; but the lords, wounded 
 in turn, and bent on the game, refused to receive the message, 
 or the messenger. In vain did his friends advise the master 
 thus defied to be prudent. He insisted that Neri Cambi, the 
 Gonfalonier of justice, should be condemned ; by the Seventy and 
 the Eight of Practice to the ammonizione for three years in 
 retaliation, and re-established in their office the four ammoniti 
 Gonfaloniers. 1 An accurate glance showed him that he could 
 dare everything against the one who had taken the initiative 
 in rough treatment, and even against the one who for a 
 moment had opposed it. Neri Cambi, " perverse and hypo- 
 critical," says a contemporary, " a prevaricator, soiled with 
 every vice, even a nameless vice, was known for his countless 
 nasty habits, blunders, and wickedness, so that his condemna- 
 tion was a delight to the entire people." 2 Rinuccini, in 
 speaking thus, although he execrated Lorenzo, traduces rather 
 than calumniates. But where was public morality when the 
 choice of governors, no longer drawn by lots, placed a man so 
 abused at the head of the principal office ? 
 
 As for the other characteristic fact showing Lorenzo's pur- 
 pose, we will let the orator of Ferrara speak. 
 
 " As I went towards the place there was a great uproar, 
 
 1 G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 39-47; Al. Rinuccini, p. 144. The latter even says 
 that Neri Cambi was ammonito for life. Giovanni Cambi, Neri's son, and author 
 of the chronicle we so often quote, does not mention the number of years. Cf. 
 Ammirato, xxvi. 184. 
 
 2 Al. Rinuccini, p. 144. 
 
1489] PROGRESSIVE ABSOLUTISM. 415 
 
 because a young man was being brought to justice who had 
 killed a follower of the Eight. He had flown to Sienna, but 
 Sienna had given him up, according to the convention. The 
 people cried, ' Scampa ! Scampa ! ' * and even helped him to 
 escape. The Eight in person came by the place, and ordered, 
 under pain of death, that he be executed instantly. The 
 orators of Milan and Genoa intervened to beg pardon. Lor- 
 enzino, Giovanni, and Pier Francesco de' Medicis likewise 
 interceded. Lorenzo replied favourably, but, returning to the 
 palace, he ordered the prisoner to be hanged from one of the 
 windows of the Bargello. Then he caused four of those who 
 cried ' Scampa ! ' to be arrested. Each received four strokes of 
 the whip, and was banished for four years. He refused to 
 leave the place until order was completely restored." 2 This 
 was how he established it for the moment and assured it for 
 the future. He no longer wore a velvet glove upon his iron 
 hand. 3 Clemency with him is rare, and always a matter of 
 interest. 
 
 Feeling his strength, and having proved it, the following 
 year (1490) he went a step farther, and a marked one, toward 
 absolute power. The Council of Seventy, his creation, was 
 composed of his creatures. He only granted it a small share 
 of authority ; but this council, elected for life, self-renewing, and 
 too numerous for his taste, had some right to think itself 
 independent, and might contain doubtful friends. Lorenzo 
 was mistrustful, and relieved it of the power of creating the 
 Signory. This was reducing it to the position of a consulting 
 body, which it was not necessary to consult. The precaution 
 seemed insufficient; soon he annihilated it (August 13) by 
 means of a balie of seventeen accoppiatori, of which he took 
 care to be a member, to dispose of everything in the town. 4 
 
 1 That is, "Save yourselves." 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, January 19, 1489 ; Atti e mem., i. 305. 
 
 3 Sismondi (vii. 290-291, note) enumerates thirteen acts of violence with which 
 Lorenzo is charged, and assuredly this list is not complete. 
 
 4 "Che potessino disporre di tutte le cose della citta" (Guicciardini Stor. di 
 Fir., c. viii. vol. iii. p. 80). 
 
4 i6 REFORM OF THE COINAGE. [1490 
 
 Of all the reforms accomplished by this balie, the financial 
 reform alone deserves our attention : above all, Lorenzo wished 
 to dispose of the treasury to remedy the persistent disorder in 
 his affairs and in the affairs of his family. 1 The " Keformers," 
 as they insisted on being called, cried down the current coin, 
 under the pretext that they were old and blackened. They 
 decided that they would only be accepted in the public offices 
 at the loss of a fifth of their value, while the State would con- 
 tinue to give them in payment at the market price. The 
 excises had to be paid in new silver money, in which were two 
 ounces of silver in the pound, and which was worth a fourth 
 more than the other. 
 
 Thus the public revenues were fraudulently augmented by a 
 fifth, and the receipts of the town sensibly increased, but the 
 people cried out loudly, for all the necessaries of life grew dearer. 
 There were other complaints. In reducing the interest of the 
 debt from 3 to I J per cent., the luoghi di monte or shares 
 were discredited. These shares of 100 crowns were sold for 
 2 7 crowns ; they fell to 1 I J. The money placed by fathers in 
 the monte delle doti to constitute a dowry for their daughters 
 was a daily temptation. Means were sought not to pay it 
 when due. Three-fourths of the interest went in the payment 
 of taxes. The rest was only payable in twenty years, at a 
 rate, it is true, of 7 per cent. But the result of this long 
 delay was that marriages became rare, as the aspirants 
 demanded money down ; it was all very well to mention the 
 figure of the distant dowry, which was generally from 1 1 00 
 crowns to 1 500, 1800, and soon 2000. Besides, it was 
 necessary to obtain Lorenzo's consent. 2 
 
 These dishonourable practices re-established a compro- 
 mised fortune. It needed yet to be protected in the future. 
 
 1 Ammirato (xxvi. 185) says formally upon the subject: " Fu necessario rime- 
 diare a disordini della casa Medici." 
 
 2 G. Cambi, Del., xxi. 54; Al. Rinuccini, p. 147 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir. t 
 c. viii. ix. vol. iii. p. 80 sq. ; Machiavelli, viii. 134 A ; Ammirato, xxvi. 185; 
 Sismondi, vii. 276, 277 ; Capponi, ii. 158. 
 
M90] WEALTH OF LORENZO. 417 
 
 Lorenzo succeeded by withdrawing it as much as possible 
 from the uncertainties of trade. A portion of it he converted 
 into real estate. He sank the returning and appropriated 
 capital in vast lands and houses, above all in the provinces and 
 ruined towns, at Pisa and in its neighbourhood, for instance, 
 where the prices were very low. To raise the value of these 
 properties, he often resided in them, gave himself up to 
 agriculture, and ordered the cleverest architects to build, 
 repair, and embellish ; he spent enormous sums, which his 
 countrymen provided, without knowing it ; at Pisa he rebuilt 
 the deserted Studio, and transformed it into a flourishing 
 university (1472). 1 Pisa profited by this, but he much more. 
 For this management of his recovered wealth he showed more 
 aptitude than for trade. 
 
 It was in reconstituting his fortune, per fas et nefas, that he 
 showed himself unrivalled. All the same, he would not have 
 succeeded without the clever use he made of his treasures. 
 The people were grateful to him for re-establishing peace without 
 and maintaining tranquillity within, as well as for the big profits 
 this tranquillity brought the traders. They were still more 
 grateful for the splendid feasts of a classical style that he gave 
 without creating jealousy, 2 and the lucrative encouragement 
 that he afforded a large number of writers, painters, and sculp- 
 tors. Nobody was vexed by the display and liberality of a 
 man who, having reached the top of the ladder, was no more 
 a simple citizen, and every one longed for the beneficent shower, 
 which most of all benefited him who rained it. It was at this 
 price that he purchased the praise of those contemporaries 
 who dictated their judgment to posterity. 
 
 Lorenzo had received a literary education. Learned masters 
 had cultivated his youth : Gentile Becchi d'Urbino, later on 
 Bishop of Arezzo, and an eloquent orator in many an embassy ; 
 
 1 See Fabroni, Doc, p. 72-90; Ammirato, xxvi. 185. 
 
 2 On the fetes that contributed to Lorenzo's popularity see Ricordi cfuna 
 giostrafatta a Firenze a di 7 febbr. 1481, MS. of the Magliab., published by Fan- 
 fani in 77 Borghini, vol. ii. p. 473-483, 530-542, Florence, 1869. 
 
 VOL. I. 2D 
 
4i 8 EDUCATION OF LORENZO. [1490 
 
 Cristoforo Landino, the celebrated scholar; Marsilio Ficino, a 
 priest and creature of the family, who opposed Platonism to 
 the reigning Scholasticism, and sought to reconcile it with the 
 doctrines of the Church. 1 He also received lessons and help 
 from other remarkable men who passed through Florence or 
 spent a little time there : Demetrius Chalcondyle, Guidantonio 
 Vespucci, Bartolommeo de la Scala. So many teachers natu- 
 rally made him a singular mixture of contraries. He professed 
 certain religious opinions that may be called principles, 2 and 
 he also wrote sacred poems ; but by temperament and a 
 natural gaiety inclined to pleasure, 3 he also wrote profane and 
 licentious verses. We have seen how business wearied him, 
 because it drew him away from pleasure. 4 Even in ripe age 
 he took an interest in the amusements of his children. He 
 delighted in nonsense, and only liked the society of facetious 
 and sarcastic men. 5 To please him, serious matters must be 
 treated lightly. His house was as much devoted to immoral 
 purposes as to art and learning. 
 
 1 Ficino published in 1482 a Latin translation of Plato, for which Filippo Valori 
 paid. See Cipolla, p. 662 ; Capponi, notes to the documents at the end of J. 
 Pitti, Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 318; Leop. Galeotti, Delia Vita e degli Studi di 
 Marsilio Ficino {Arch. Stor., new ser., vol. ix. part ii. p. 27-91). On p. 37 
 we are shown that he entered the Medici family at eighteen. 
 
 2 See details and proofs furnished by Cipolla, p. 662. 
 
 3 There is no doubt on this point : " Fu libidinoso e tutto venereo e constante 
 negli amori suoi che duravano parecchi anni, la qual cosa, a giudizio di molti, gli 
 indeboli tanto il corpo, che lo fece morire, si puo dire, giovine" (Guicciardini, 
 Stor. di Fir., c. ix. vol. iii. p. 88) ; Machiavelli (viii. 34 b) speaks of the "vizi che 
 maculassero tante sue virtu (!), ancora che fusse nelle cose veneree maravigliosa- 
 mente involto. " Alessandra Macinghi speaks of his youthful intrigues with married 
 women (Letters 44, 45, 46, 68, and Ces. Guasti's notes). Two years later (Sep- 
 tember 26, 1467), his tutor, Becchi, warns him " che in re venerea tu havessi 
 riguardo . . . t'importa la vita." See this letter in Buser, Lorenzo il Magnifico 
 als italienischer Staatsmann, Leipzig, 1879. In this work there are many other 
 proofs of the lax lives of Lorenzo and his brother. Married, he was no steadier. 
 Francesco Nacci announced to him from Naples the coming of fifty beautiful slaves 
 (December 24, 1482, in Buser, ibid.). Perhaps they were servants, it has been 
 suggested. Possibly, but something more too. 
 
 4 See preceding chapter, p. 374, n. 7. 
 
 5 "Ancora . . . che si dilettasse d'uomini faceti e mordaci, e di giuochi puerili 
 piii che a tanto uomo non pareva si convenisse, in modo che molte volte fu visto 
 intra i suoi figliuoli, tra i loro trastulli mescolarsi" (Machiavelli, viii. 134 B). 
 
i49o] MODERN ESTIMATE OF LORENZO. 419 
 
 A modern historian who is not an enemy, draws the following 
 picture of his complex life. Having passed a law for the de- 
 struction of any vestige of liberty that remained, and pronounced 
 confiscations or sentences of capital punishment, 1 he would enter 
 the Platonic Academy, discuss virtue and the immortality of 
 the soul, mix with fast youths, sing and compose carnival 
 songs, give himself up to women and wine, frequent feasts 
 where verses were recited and poetry discussed, and each of 
 these occupations into which he plunged seemed to be the sole 
 object of his life. The most singular of all is that in the 
 entire course of this existence we cannot quote a single act of 
 true generosity or honesty towards his people, his followers, or 
 even his relations. If there were one, his indefatigable pane- 
 gyrists would not have forgotten it. His was an evil nature, 
 and he lived in a very evil time. 2 
 
 In the following chapter we shall see that he had a sincere 
 taste for art and letters for their own sake, rather than for love of 
 the men of letters whom he feebly protected ; but we may not 
 doubt that satisfaction of this taste was calculated in his 
 policy ; he well knew that in leading minds in this direction, 
 he turned them from affairs of state, and that in amusing as 
 
 1 See in Guicciardini, Del Reggim. di Fir., Op. ined., vol. ii. p. 43, the names 
 of his victims. Mark that Guicciardini, always cold, never shows any strong feeling 
 against Lorenzo. 
 
 3 Villari, i. 45, 46. Among the number of Lorenzo's panegyrists, we are sur- 
 prised to find one of our most competent contemporaries, M. Agenore Gelli, in a 
 speech delivered at the Dante Lyceum, and already quoted. It is one-sided, but 
 the notes are useful. We only find a trace of kindly feeling in Lorenzo towards 
 his mother at her death (Lorenzo's letters to the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara, 
 March 25, 1482 ; Atti e mem.,i. 244) ; towards his old tutor, Gentile Becchi, whom 
 he recommended to the Duchess, but in his own interest, for Gentile had become 
 one of his principal agents (April 23, 1487, ibid., p. 247); towards his children, 
 if it be a proof of fatherly tenderness to express a wish that his daughter should be 
 comfortably off (Lorenzo to Lanfredini, in the preface to the letter of Ser Matteo 
 Franco, published by M. Isid. del Lungo in the Arch. Stor. , 3rd ser. , vol. ix. part 
 i* P* 35)- Of' Letters of Poliziano in the Prose volgari inedite, published by M. 
 Del Lungo, Florence, 1867. M. Dantier (ii. 200) quotes, and many fine words 
 written by Lorenzo can be quoted. See chiefly the letter to his son the Car- 
 dinal, instructions to Piero (in Fabroni), and a letter to Poliziano : "Si ferae partus 
 suos," &c, also in Fabroni, p. 166. But the most perverse princes are often cap- 
 able of excellent advice. 
 
4 2o SAVONAROLA. [1490 
 
 well as corrupting Florence, he strengthened his rule. Sur- 
 rounded by so much brilliancy, men found the yoke easier to bear. 
 
 There were, however, some who demurred ; the spirit of 
 opposition is never quite silenced. It was a " foreigner " who, 
 towards the end of Lorenzo's life, represented this spirit in the 
 name, it is true, of a general principle which knows neither 
 walls nor frontiers — the Christian principle. A Dominican 
 monk, he was of Paduan origin, and born at Ferrara, September 
 21, 1442, whither the generosity of Niccolo III. of Este had 
 tempted his father, a renowned doctor. He was called Hier- 
 onymo or Girolamo Savonarola. 1 
 
 Of a vigorous and independent mind, he had resisted the 
 Pagan current, and even the Classical current, because he saw 
 that the one determined the other. In 1475 he entered the 
 convent of the Preaching Friars at Bologna, and he wrote to 
 his parents, in despair of his resolution, " that he could not 
 endure the great wickedness of the blind people of Italy." 2 
 Of too warlike a nature to turn away simply from the things 
 
 1 See the genealogical tree of Savonarola, very carefully traced by M. Cittadella, 
 in the Nuovi Documenti e Studi intorno a Girolamo Savonarola, gathered by 
 P. Bayonne, and published by M. Al. Gherardi, Florence, 1876. On Savonarola 
 see ouxJerSme Savonarola, sa Vie, ses Predications, ses Ecrits, Paris, 1853, 1st ed., 
 2nd vol. (the two following editions are abridged) ; P. Villari, La Storia di 
 Girolamo Savonarola e di suoi Tempi, Florence, 186 1 (new edit, in 1887). Much 
 has since been written about Savonarola. See, among others, Rev. William R. 
 Clarke, Savonarola and his Life and Times, London, 1878 ; P. Ceslas Bayonne, 
 £tude sur Jerome Savonarole, Paris, 1879, works without criticism; Ranke, 
 Savonarola und die Jlorentinische Republik gegen Ende des fiinfzehnten Jahrhun- 
 dert in Historisch-biografische Studien, Leipzig, 1877 ; Glaser, Savonarola, Leipzig, 
 1882, &c. M. Cittadella has published a biographical bibliography of Savonarola, 
 which contains no less than 119 articles. To be accurate, it comprises the works 
 of imagination and the letters of Savonarola. 
 
 2 See this letter in his own lesson, Villari, vol. ii., documents, No. I, p. 3 sa. 
 It has already been often published, chiefly by Burlamacchi, La Vita del P. 
 Gir. Sav., ed. of Venice, 1829, work published first in vol. i. of Baluze's Mis- 
 cellanies. We have translated and published this letter (see our vol. Jer. Sav. y i. 
 7) after Burlamacchi's text. It is not useless to say here that the authenticity of 
 Burlamacchi's work is disputed by recent writers — Palermo, Ranke, &c. ; but it 
 matters little regarding this letter whose autograph has been found in the Gondi 
 Palace of Florence by Count Carlo Capponi, and published in his short treatise, 
 Alcune Lettere di Era. Gir. Sav. In addition, upon, the authenticity and value of 
 the old biographies of Savonarola, doubted by Ranke, see M. Villari's memoir in 
 
i49o] SAVONAROLA. 421 
 
 he blamed, he faced them, and made war upon the invading 
 Paganism, which, in his opinion, was the cause of the general 
 depravation. Did he not see in Bologna, the town where he 
 lived, a celebrated professor, Antonio Urceo, making a display 
 of his incredulity, and still more, of his contempt of faith ? 1 
 Savonarola was then upon a mission at Ferrara ; but he would 
 not stay there, for, as he afterwards wrote, he well knew that 
 no man is a prophet in his own country. 2 Chance favoured 
 his wish. At the time when at Ferrara an assault was feared 
 from the Venetians, and the massacre of the inhabitants was 
 threatened, the Dominicans who resided there, or happened to 
 be there, were dispersed over the allied towns, and Savonarola 
 was sent to Florence. This decided his future. 3 
 
 At Florence, in 1483, in the Church of San Lorenzo, he 
 preached as he had preached elsewhere. 4 But his speech was 
 rough, unadorned, and harsh. His style was heavy, his voice 
 weak, and his intonation false, while he lacked clearness of 
 expression. Therefore hardly twenty-five persons heard his 
 sermons. 5 How could he have pleased this race of frivolous 
 and elegant Athenians ? He fell back on himself, and had 
 ample time to nurse his dreams at a period when all heads 
 were more or less turned. 6 
 
 No. I of the Rivista Storica Italiana, in which the illustrious historian's doubts 
 are attacked by solid arguments. This discussion is also to be found in the pre- 
 face of the new edition to his Savonarola, given in 18S7 by M. Villari. It is 
 certain that the work attributed to Burlamacchi cannot be his ; but for want of 
 another, his name is given to a work whose historical value has resisted all hostile 
 criticism. 
 
 1 Carlo Malagola, Delia Vita e delle Opere di Antonio Urceo, detto Cordo, Bol- 
 ogna, 1878, p. 186 so:, quoted by Cipolla, p. 666. 
 
 2 See letter to his mother, January 25, 1490, in the collection of P. Marchese, 
 Lett ere Inedite, p. 40. We have given the translation injer. Sav., i. 14, n. I. 
 
 3 Burlamacchi, p. 38. 
 
 4 P. Bayonne says that it was in 1484, but without proofs to support a statement 
 contrary to that of other writers. See A. Gherardi on the date of Savonarola's 
 first arrival in Florence ; Nuovi Documenti e Studio intorno a Gir. Sav. , p. 45, 
 Florence, 1878. 
 
 5 Burlamacchi, p. 38; Rastrelli, Vita del P. Gir. Sav., c. ii., Geneva, 1781. 
 Savonarola himself recognised his defects as an orator in his De Veritate Pro- 
 phetica, c. vi. The text is in our Jer. Sav., i. 42, note. 
 
 6 See Tommasini, La Vita e gli Scritti di N. Machiavelli, i. 106, Turin, 1883. 
 
422 PROPHECIES OF SAVONAROLA. [1490 
 
 In the convent of San Giorgio d'Oltrarno, where his Order had 
 been established since 1435, he believed that a plague threat- 
 ened the Church, for eight reasons. 1 The clergy, when things 
 are not to their liking, have the habit of predicting cataclysms. 
 The prophecy of a coming plague was an ordinary resource for 
 pulpits and convents at the end of this corrupt century. 2 
 Later on, Savonarola went further ; leaving the hackneyed 
 path, he prophesied Lorenzo's death from an incurable disease, 3 
 and Innocent VIII. 's and Ferrante's at an advanced age. 4 
 By this means he passed for a prophet in earnest. As his 
 honest life was known, he inspired more confidence than the 
 other preachers of a Church where corruption reigned no less 
 than among the laity. 5 If, sceptical and mocking, Florence 
 turned a deaf ear to him, it was not so with the other towns ; 
 they were carried away by his ardent sincerity, 6 which was 
 explained by the visions of his contemplative life and his 
 ascetic's cell. He believed that Heaven ordered him to 
 announce the plagues that he foresaw. But even in Flor- 
 ence a few choice minds divined the fruit under a rough 
 bark. Pico de la Mirandola said he could not live without 
 him, 7 and pressed Lorenzo to recall him and fix him in the 
 Dominican convent of San Marco, quite close to the Medici 
 palace. 
 
 Lorenzo hesitated. Doubtless he remembered the annoy- 
 ances that in 1487 the Franciscan Bernardino of Feltre had 
 caused him, whose Lenten sermons in the Duomo had set a 
 
 1 Edition of his first process, published by Villari, vol. ii. ; Doc, p. 251. Savo- 
 narola himself made this declaration. 
 
 2 See P. Marchese, Scritti vari. San Marco di Firenze, 1. ii. p. 1 14. 
 
 3 Poliziano, letter to Jacopo Antiquario, May 18, 1492, in Roscoe, vol. ii., 
 append, n. 72. 
 
 4 See in Villari indication of sources, i. 139, 140. In the index of our first 
 edition will be found all of Savonarola's predictions at the word predictions, and for 
 that in question here, vol. i. p. 48, 55, 60 of the same work, Jcrdme Savona- 
 role, &c. 
 
 5 P. Marchese {ibid., p. 115) recognises it, though shading off the tints for 
 state reasons. 
 
 6 P. Marchese, p. 120, 123 ; our Jer. Sav., c. ii. vol. i. p. 21, 34. 
 
 7 Burlamacchi, p. 39. 
 
1496] SAVONAROLA A REFORMER. 423 
 
 match to the hatred of the Jews, who were perhaps only- 
 saved from massacre by the intervention of the Eight. 
 The incendiary preacher had been dismissed, which had 
 greatly annoyed the people. 1 Others, even beggars, prophesied 
 at random. 2 But these memories were not lasting. Lorenzo 
 yielded to oft-repeated prayers, 3 and easily obtained Savona- 
 rola's change to Florence from his Lombard superiors. The 
 prophet returned thither in June 1490. 4 
 
 In announcing his prophecies at San Gemignano, at Keggio, 
 Genoa, Brescia, he had already expressed his thought with 
 clearness. He wished to reform morals by faith, to reform 
 the clergy by himself, and the faithful by the clergy. He 
 summed up his argument in three propositions : The Church 
 of God would be reformed ; Italy would be thrashed ; both 
 events would happen shortly. In consequence, he was called, 
 and not without reason, the preacher of the dissatisfied or 
 despairing. 6 He represented those moral and religious interests 
 that Lorenzo did not understand or to which he was indifferent. 
 The Platonic philosophy, the only religion of the upper 
 class, remained a closed book for the majority ; the people, 
 turned by example and advice from the old beliefs, were left 
 anchorless. Plunged into the void, shaken in their hopes of 
 a hereafter, they were like an army without a head and eager 
 for one, ready in any case to follow a man full of enthusiasm 
 and energy, more anxious to strike boldly than to insinuate 
 cleverly. Savonarola was such a man. His speech, always 
 
 1 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 53. 
 
 2 See Tommasini, i. 106, 107. 
 
 3 M. Al. Gherardi {Nuovi Docwnenti e Studi, &c, p. 251-253) proves that Pico 
 cannot have made this proposition to Lorenzo before 1488 or 1489. There was 
 perhaps an interval of a year or two between the proposal to Savonarola and his 
 return. Cf. on this disputed question our Jer. Sav., i. 37, 38, 52, and Villari, i. 
 81, n. 2. M. Gherardi has the last word on this subject. However, M. Ant. 
 Cosci, in a work on this important publication {Arch. Stor., 4th sen, 1879, vol. 
 iv. p. 285), seems to believe little in this regard. 
 
 4 Marchese, p. 124, 125, 129; out Jer. Sav., i. 34. Cf. Al. Gherardi, p. 249. 
 
 5 Jacopo Nardi, speech delivered in Venice in 1 534 in Villari, vol. ii. ; Doc, 
 P- 59- 
 
424 SAVONAROLA IN FLORENCE. [1491 
 
 simple and rather coarse, was fit to touch an ignorant crowd 
 not made fastidious by the study of antiquity. 1 
 
 Seeing in himself the future reformer, and living at Flor- 
 ence, he necessarily regarded this town as the predestined 
 centre of reformation. Without any hope of gaining the 
 dissolute Lorenzo, he could not help loathing in him one of 
 the principal causes of evil. Let us make no mistake. It 
 was the obstacle to his projects that irritated him, not, as 
 his biographers say, the rule of a city, once free, by a usurper, 
 son and grandson of usurpers. 2 But fear restrained his lan- 
 guage, and prevented him from coming to an open quarrel. 
 He contented himself with preaching the reform of morals by 
 means of parables, after Scripture, 3 without proclaiming him- 
 self inspired by God. 4 Prophet of the probable, if he foresaw 
 a revolution, it was because he saw the Medici drained, their 
 disagreements, and the aversion that they inspired. If he 
 announced the invasion of Charles VIII., it was because the 
 preparations were being openly made. 5 He waited for Lor- 
 enzo's death to predict that the reform would spread from 
 Florence throughout Italy, and thence to the East. 6 Until 
 then he only dared utter these words : " God's will is that 
 Florence be governed by the people, and not by tyrants." 7 
 
 It was torture for one of his fiery temper to restrain him- 
 
 1 Cerretani and Guicciardini admired Savonarola's eloquence, and deemed it 
 novel ; doubtless because they knew little of the Middle Ages and its allegorical 
 mania. They also called it "natural." This is truer. The orator lived in the 
 trash of the Middle Ages like a fish in water. 
 
 2 See P. Barsanti, Delia Storia del P. Gir. Sav., 1. i. c. xxii. p. 26, n. 3, 
 Leghorn, 1782. 
 
 3 See text in our Jer. Sav., i. 44. In the same work (p. 51, n. 2) may be found 
 a striking proof of the little importance the question of usurpation of the Republic 
 had for Savonarola. It is a most submissive letter to Piero, Lorenzo's son, 
 now master, and whom he hoped to use. 
 
 4 See Cipolla, p. 668, and n. 4, and Cerretani in Ranke, Historische Biogra- 
 phische Studien : Savonarola und die Jlorentinische Republik, p. 336. 
 
 5 Terza predica sopra i Salmi, January 13, 1495, Venice, 1517, f. 12 r°. Text 
 in om Jer. Sav., vol. i. p. 48, n. 3. 
 
 c Prediche sopra Aggeo, predica 18, p. 132 r°, 138 v°, 140 ro, Venice, 1 5 14. 
 7 Ibid., p. 140 r°. Compare the following prediche, which are a continual 
 appeal to emancipation. See also Marchese, p. 1 30 ; Cipolla, p. 667 n. 
 
M9I] SAVONAROLA'S DISLIKE OF LORENZO. 425 
 
 self thus ; but what was restraint to him must have appeared 
 audacity to Lorenzo and his courtiers. More or less disguised, 
 the threats were intelligible, and this seditious preacher might 
 in turn be threatened. This was why, in 1491, to protect 
 him and show that they shared his views, his brothers of San 
 Marco chose him for their superior. 1 
 
 This, of course, gave him fresh strength, which emboldened 
 him. Already, despite the persistent defects of his eloquence, 
 he became the fashion ; he owed this to the novel, inflamed, 
 and prophetic turn of his preaching. From the convent 
 garden, which was at first his narrow theatre, he entered 
 the vaster church (August 1, 1490), and then the following 
 Lent, the immense cathedral. Much more striking was 
 the ill-will he so openly showed Lorenzo. He refused to 
 follow the custom of waiting upon him in his house, and even 
 refused to come down from his cell when the master came to 
 the convent. 2 He did not reject the presents which that liberal 
 ruler made the Dominican community, but from the pulpit he 
 declared himself exempt from gratitude. " The good watchdog," 
 he said, " always barks to defend his master's house. If the 
 robber, to soothe him, flings him a bone or anything else, the 
 good watchdog continues to bark and to bite the robber." 3 
 
 In despair of conciliating this barbarian, and, as a bio- 
 grapher of the latter says, "of finding a spot on which to 
 plant the vine," 4 Lorenzo decided to counteract the poison of 
 an envenomed tongue by another poison. He thrust into 
 the pulpit an Augustinian of San Spirito, Fra Mariano of 
 Ghinazzano, who could refuse him nothing, 6 and whose fame 
 was so great that he was called " God's angel on earth." 6 
 
 1 Marchese, p. 131. 
 
 2 See oxxxjer. Sav., i. 51, 54, and Villari, i. 119, taken from other biographies. 
 
 3 These words are in the sixteenth predica sopra Amos, delivered March 4, 1496, 
 consequently after Lorenzo's death (f. 78 v<>, Venice, 15 19). But Burlamacchi 
 (p. 45) says that he often repeated them, and Marchese (p. 132) affirms that they 
 were delivered during Lorenzo's life. Cf. Villari, i. 121. 
 
 * Burlamacchi, p. 46. 
 
 5 Lorenzo built the convent of San Gallo. See Machiavelli, viii. 134 B. 
 
 6 Letter of the Consules Populi vetuste Nursei, May 1, 1489, in Reumont, ii. 525. 
 
426 ILL-HEALTH OF LORENZO. l*& 
 
 Savonarola's apologists assure us that he had the best of this 
 struggle. In any case, it had the drawback of proving to the 
 audiences of the two rivals that the same text might plausibly 
 be developed in contrary meanings — a disastrous lesson, since 
 the reformer wanted to substitute a blind faith in his word, 
 the word of God, 1 for the kindly pillow of doubt, of which 
 Montaigne speaks. 
 
 The progress of hereditary gout, aggravated by a life of 
 pleasure, kept Lorenzo from joining in these oratorical jousts. 
 The disease which obliged him to stop in his travels, to seek 
 the curative waters of some spa, to suspend his business for 
 a while, and even postpone the reception of ambassadors, 2 was 
 complicated by unforeseen accidents, the more formidable as 
 they were little known. 3 ' The doctors whom he sent for, or 
 who visited him from afar, at Careggi, whence he had not 
 stirred since 1492, treated him as a millionaire, and made him 
 swallow solutions of precious stones, which made <#' hole in his 
 purse without improving his health. Every one wondered how 
 he bore up under such cruel sufferings. 4 According to an old 
 habit, they were put down to the weather and his excesses ; 5 
 but, in spite of transient improvements, 6 he was regarded as 
 
 1 See details in Marchese, p. 134 ; our Jer. Sav., i. 57, 58 ; Villari, i. 122, and 
 all the apologists, Pico, Burlamacchi, Barsanti, Razzi, &c. 
 
 2 See despatches of Stefano Taberna, dated from Ospedaletto, near Volterra, 
 June 2, 1487; Arch. Sforz., copies, No. 1610, p. 328, and MSS. letters of 
 Lorenzo, preserved in the library of G. Capponi, indicated by himself; Stor. di 
 Fir., ii. 163. " Lorenzo si gode le sue gotte, le quali li danno da gridare in modo 
 che ancora non vuole che veruno gli parli " (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, December 
 17, 1488; Attie ?nem., i. 305). 
 
 s Rinuccini (p. 146) speaks of great pains in the stomach and through the body. 
 Poliziano of pains "iis qui quoniam viscerum cartilagini, inhsereant, ex argumento 
 hypocondrii appellantur" (Letter to Jacopo Antiquarino, May 18, 1492, inRoscoe, 
 vol. iii. 370, append, n. 77). 
 
 4 Manf. Manfredi to Ercole, February II, 1492 ; Atti e mem., i. 310. Niccol6 
 Michelozzi to Piero de Lorenzo, Naples, March 22, 24, 29, 1492, in Desjardins, 
 i. 429-432. 
 
 6 From the same, March 8 y p. 311. 
 
 6 February 11, he was thought dying ; on the 16th he was much better, and it 
 was hoped he would return to affairs. March 5, relapse ; the 8th, improvement ; 
 the 25th, better still ; on April 5, serious relapse. These changes can be followed 
 in Manf. Manfredi's despatches to Ercole ; Atti e mem., i. 310-312. 
 
1492] INTERVIEW WITH SAVONAROLA. 427 
 
 doomed.* On April 5 he was so ill that he could not even 
 receive Ercole d'Este, who came from Florence, and sent his 
 son Piero to him. 2 It was a fine boast of Savonarola's : " It 
 is he who will go, and I will remain." 3 
 
 When death approached, whose presage was read in every 
 incident, 4 Lorenzo wanted to see his enemy. He doubtless 
 thought that a reconciliation in extremis with this monk of 
 increasing authority would secure his support for Piero, the 
 miserable heir to the power of the Medici. What passed 
 between these two men ? Did Savonarola offer the dying 
 man peace with the Church upon unacceptable conditions ? 
 Ordinarily the Church is not so harsh to those who implore 
 her supreme benediction. The inflexible character of the 
 Prior of San Marco assuredly permits us to believe that he 
 was severe, but the assertions being contradictory, we cannot 
 decide. 5 The probabilities even are that the dying man had 
 
 1 " E vero che li medici non dubitano che sia infirmitas ad mortem" (The same, 
 February 11, p. 310). 
 
 2 Manfredi to Eleanor of Aragon, Ercole's wife, April 5 ; ibid., p. 312. 
 
 3 " Io ho a stare qua e lui se ne ha andare" (22nd Predica sopra Exodo, 
 March 18, 1498, f. 274 r°, Venice, 1540). It was later, we see, that Savonarola 
 admitted he had uttered these words, but they are not less likely than these other : 
 "Io predissi parecchi anni innanzi la morte di Lor. de' Medici" (3rd Predica 
 sopri i salmi, January 13, 1495, f. 12 ro, Venice, 1517). Cf. our Jer. Sav., i. 
 49, n. 3 and 56. Any one might make this prophecy ; the question was to remain 
 vague enough regarding the date not to be exposed to error. 
 
 4 See Valori, Vita Laur., p. 67 ; Cambi, Del., xxi. 68 ; Leon. Morelli, Del., 
 xix. 198 ; Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix. vol. iii. p. 83 ; Ammirato, xxvi. 186. 
 
 5 In 1853 we thought fit to adopt Poliziano's opinion, who states that the blessing 
 was given, and since then M. Villari(i. 155) has furnished good reasons for proving 
 the uncertainty of this testimony. But he seems to me to go too far in giving faith 
 to the contrary testimony : I. He is wrong in accepting as different authorities the 
 assertions of Savonarola's apologists ; they only repeat what Savonarola said. 2. 
 He supposes that Lorenzo could only send for the monk to confess. Now nothing 
 proves this, Lorenzo having a serious political motive, in the interest of his son, 
 for seeking an understanding with the monk. If it had been confession, the 
 version unfavourable to Lorenzo could only have been known to Savonarola, who 
 would thus have broken a professional secret. If there was no confession, every- 
 thing is explained, the indiscretions committed and the blessing demanded. 3. 
 He admits that the blessing was not given ; but here again the assertions are 
 contradictory, and how in this case explain certain words of Poliziano, " Simul 
 demisso capite vultuque et in omnem piae religionis imaginem formatus, subinde 
 ad verba illius et preces rite ac memoriter responsitabat " (Letter to Jacopo Anti- 
 
4*8 DEATH OF LORENZO. [i49« 
 
 sent for him, not to make his peace with God, but to con- 
 ciliate for his son the good-will of the powerful man whose 
 ill-will he only had known, and that at the moment of parting 
 he asked for the ordinary blessing that many miscreants desire 
 or beg on the verge of the great unknown. 
 
 On April 8, 1 492, Lorenzo died, at the age of forty -four, "after 
 a long illness," as his son Piero wrote dryly to Ercole d'Este. 1 
 Although expected, the dissolution of such a great personage 
 made a sensation. On the next night, the renowned doctor of 
 his last hours, Pier Leoni of Spoleta, professor of Pisa, was 
 found at the bottom of a well. He was accused of poisoning. 
 A servant wished to kill this emissary of death, and was pre- 
 vented by Piero. 2 However, the story of suicide seems im- 
 probable ; doctors kill, but they do not kill themselves.3 
 
 King Ferrante, they say, exclaimed that Lorenzo had lived 
 long enough for his glory, but not long enough for Italy. 4 
 Even then it was understood that the son was not worth the 
 father, that Florence would decline, and the entire peninsula 
 
 quario, quoted above). 4. Could Savonarola ask Lorenzo to give the Florentines 
 freedom before dying? Lorenzo had no official authority, and he could not 
 influence his son upon so grave a question. 5. Poliziano, says M. Villari, could 
 not admit an account differing from his protector's, and thus compromise his 
 future. But if Savonarola's version were true, would he, as Lorenzo's friend, have 
 spoken in praise of his enemy, a sure means of compromising himself with 
 Lorenzo's son ? The question remains doubtful at least, and the proof is that 
 since the publication of M. Villari's work, M. Dantier (ii. 202), M. Reumont (ii. 
 559)> M. Tommasini (i. 92), far from following him, accept our hypothesis as the 
 more probable. Also M. Cipolla (p. 669), who exposes, discusses, and indicates 
 in a note the different opinions of the various authors, abstains from pronouncing. 
 For details see our Jir. Sav., i. 59-63; Villari, i. 136^., 155-158; Reumont, 
 
 ii. 559- 
 
 1 See this letter in Atti e mem., i. 248. Lorenzo's last moments and death 
 have been described by Poliziano in his letter to Jacopo Antiquario, which was 
 published by Roscoe, iii. 370-384, append. 77. Cf. Ex Diario Anonymi, in 
 Roscoe, iii. 386, append. 79 ; Valori, Vita Laur. , p. 66, 67 ; Reumont, ii. 
 551 sq. 
 
 2 Ricordanze di Tribaldo de' Rossi, Del. , xxiii. 275. 
 
 3 " Si disse lo giptorono in un pozzo. . . . Di poi chavorono bocie fuori s'era 
 giptato per disperato " (Cambi, Del., xxi. 67). Cf. Rime di Jacopo Sannazaro 
 fiella morte di Pier Leone Medico, in Roscoe, iii. 381, append. 78 ; Nic. Valori, 
 Vita Laur. , p. 66 ; Allegretti, xxiii. 825. 
 
 4 Fabroni, p. 212, who does not give his authority. 
 
1492] FUNERAL OF LORENZO. 429 
 
 would feel the absence of the great balance. The friends and 
 men of letters who had done so much for his fame, the painters, 
 sculptors, and architects who had obtained or sought his 
 patronage, were dispersed, and some prematurely followed him 
 to the grave. 1 
 
 He was buried without pomp, probably in accordance with 
 his wishes, for he dreaded provoking envy, lest it should fall 
 upon his son. But he received the highest honours ; the entire 
 population, forgetting his wrong-doing, his defects, and his vices, 
 followed the funeral of him they called in this decisive hour of 
 fame u the father and master of the town." 2 They rendered 
 him the still greater homage of bringing to his son of twenty- 
 one the respect of which he could not then, and never did, show 
 himself worthy. 
 
 It is easy to explain the various opinions of Lorenzo. In him 
 there were two men, we may even say four, when we remem- 
 ber his foreign and domestic policy, his character now frivolous 
 and now serious. Abroad he succeeded in reconciling his 
 country with the Holy See, and in making it feared by the too 
 powerful potentates of Italy, the Duke of Milan and the King 
 of Naples, between whom he kept equal 3 the balance of which 
 he often spoke. 4 He was so successful in the game of see-saw, 5 
 that the princes implored his intervention in their differences, 6 
 and when once he was dead, Machiavelli declared that there was 
 
 1 Cambi, Del., xx. 67; Machiavelli, viii. 134 b. Poliziano and Pico died in 
 1494, though younger. Ficino, already quite old, did not long survive him. 
 
 2 " Pubblico padre e padrone della citta" (Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., iii. 93). 
 Reumont in the Arch. Stor., 1883, vol. xii. disp. 4, has published a note on 
 Lorenzo's burial. In 1559, Duke Cosimo had the remains of Lorenzo and of his 
 brother Giuliano placed in the sarcophagus of Giuliano the younger in the new 
 sacristy or depository chapel. 
 
 3 " Era venuto in tanta riputazione che e' signori di fuori, cioe el Re di Napoli, 
 el ducha di Milano lo temevano, perche apichandosi da una parte di questi due 
 principi, dava di poi trachollo alia bilancia" (Cambi, Del., xxi. 67). 
 
 4 See Atti e mem., &c, vol. i. passim. 
 
 5 See the remarkable letter addressed by Lorenzo to his ambassador at the Holy 
 See, October 22, 1487, in Desjardins, i. 214-219. 
 
 6 The Duke of Calabria said to Pier Vettori, the Florentine orator at Naples, 
 "che si conosceva manifestamente per tutta Italia quanto voi (Lorenzo) potessi 
 nel papa, e che lo amb. fior. quodam modo lo governava ... e si credeva che se 
 
430 CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES. [1492 
 
 nobody else to suppress the ambition of Lodovico il Moro. 1 
 His cleverness gained him the glory of the policy of equili- 
 brium that Florence for centuries had practised in her relations 
 with the still independent Tuscan towns, and also with the 
 larger States with which she was surrounded when she was a 
 State. The very misfortunes that followed his death added to 
 his glory ; the people were persuaded that he would have made 
 that madman Charles VIII. reasonable, or at least have arrested 
 him in his folly. He had the precious advantage of eloquent 
 men, curious of all things, and capable of speaking well upon 
 them ; they are considered lit to lead, and the deceptions in 
 this respect are added to the account of chance or fatality. 
 
 It was the opinion entertained of him abroad that made him 
 so great at home. 2 The grocer-apothecary, Luca Landucci, 
 reflects in his Journal the common feeling : " This man was, 
 according to the world, the most glorious that could be found, 
 the richest, the most exalted, and the most renowned. Every 
 one said that he ruled Italy, and truly he was a wise man ; 
 he succeeded in everything. Not only has he made his house, 
 but our entire town illustrious." 3 Evidently oppression is 
 pardoned to the man who offers glory. 
 
 But as a fact the oppression cannot be denied. Lorenzo 
 smothered in blood the factions which were dormant from the 
 date of the great punishment of the Pazzi. He only knew two 
 methods of conquering — cutting off heads and leaving bones to 
 rot. Now, useless severities are odious, and the old practice 
 of panem et circenses is justly loathed, neither the economist 
 nor the moralist can approve of Lorenzo. What would it be 
 if, as has been said, the favours he granted were at the cost of 
 
 voi facessi quello che voi potete, che le cose si assetirebbono " (Pier Vettori to 
 Lorenzo, May 9, 1489, in Desjardins, i. 215, note). 
 
 1 Machiavelli, viii. 134 B. 
 
 2 " La riputazione del prefato M«> Lorenzo e la stima che ne facciano li poten- 
 tati d'ltalia e signori di fuorvia ; che non la avendo, non saria de la estimazione 
 ne la terra che e" (Ant. Montecatino to Ercole, December 17, 1482 ; Aiti e mem., 
 i. 265). 
 
 3 Luca Landucci, Diario, p. 65. 
 
1492] CONTEMPORARY ESTIMATES. 431 
 
 the public treasury, and that " when he had to open his own 
 purse, he leaned much more upon the side of avarice than upon 
 that of liberality ?"} It was not his generosity that made the 
 splendour of art ; we have seen that it was anterior to his day. 
 If the men of letters owe him more, because he was more of a 
 litterateur than a collector, he did not prevent them from fall- 
 ing. In his time philosophy and literature degenerated into 
 philology, erudition, and imitation. Thanks to him, the writers, 
 yielding to his power, immoral after his example, were virtuosi, 
 and not men or citizens. 
 
 It has been said that liberty only existed in name. We 
 may say not even in name, for only the opposers pronounced 
 the word, whereas in Cosimo's time the " governors " never had 
 it out of their mouths. Such was the progress of subjection, 
 that this hypocrisy was no longer necessary ; and such that of 
 absolute power, that if a resolution were taken without consult- 
 ing him, Lorenzo insisted on its being revoked and a contrary 
 decision adopted. A simple servant could not be replaced 
 without his permission, and his choice must be accepted, 2 which 
 brought about among the degraded citizens a contempt of 
 public matters. Giovanni Cambi, son of one of his victims, 
 impartial enough, however, to recognise his art as equaliser 
 abroad, 3 calls him " a haughty tyrant, worse than the Duke of 
 Athens, who, had he lived longer, would have ruled the people 
 with an iron hand, as was his intention." 4 
 
 Kuled the people with an iron hand ! He had already done 
 this, and Cambi's last words are very feeble after the first. His 
 contemporary Rinuccini, who was also an enemy, but who had 
 no further reason, at least to such an extent, since he admitted 
 
 1 Quello concedeva, non del suo, ma del publico, sanza modo o misura alcuna 
 . . . Dove avea a spendere di suo, piu presto pendeva, e non poco, nell' avarizia 
 che nella liberalita" (Rinuccini, p. 147). 
 
 2 Al. Rinuccini, p. 147, 149. 
 
 3 See supra, p. 351-354. 
 
 4 "Divento tiranno solo di tanta alturita che il ducha d'Atene non ebbe tanta, 
 e se vivea piu ... si facieva signore a bacchetta, sechondo al suo disegnio" 
 (Cambi, Del., xxi. 67). 
 
432 COSIMO AND LORENZO COMPARED. [149 
 
 that the honours due to him were not refused, 1 declares 
 " that Lorenzo was for many years the most pernicious and 
 cruel of tyrants ; " he even accuses him of " having done 
 more damage, and risked his country's reputation more than 
 any other citizen for a long while." 2 In view of these concur- 
 rent testimonies of men who suffered under this rSgime, of what 
 weight the subsequent panegyrics, commissioned and interested, 
 of the flatterers of the reigning family, or the still more recent 
 biographers, who, among so many authentic documents, have 
 only selected those that glorified their hero ? 3 One of these 
 flatterers, the historian Guicciardini, wrote, without beating 
 about the bush : "In spite of Lorenzo's precautions, the aspect 
 of Florence was not that of a free town, but of an enslaved one ; 
 Lorenzo was not like a private individual, but a tyrant." 4 
 
 The grandfather has often been compared with the grandson. 
 Rinuccini regards the latter as the equal of the former. On the 
 contrary, Guicciardini prefers Cosimo, who, as clever in trade 
 as in politics, was able to maintain and increase his private 
 fortune while increasing the public funds ; whereas Lorenzo, 
 in ruining himself, ruined the state, and this state, upheld 
 by Cosimo unostentatiously, was only upheld by Lorenzo with 
 great risks, such as the conspiracy of the Pazzi and the voyage 
 to Naples. 5 Guicciardini writes the truth, but not the whole 
 truth. It is just to add that Cosimo reached the summit in that 
 fortunate hour when all things succeed, even faults ; and that 
 
 1 " Alcuni onori debitamente a me appartenenti " (Al. Rinuccini, p. 147). 
 
 2 " E in somma si puo conchiudere lui essere suto molti anni perniziosissimo e 
 crudelissimo tiranno alia citta nostra e a quella aver fatto danno e diminuzione di 
 reputazione quanto facesse gia e gran tempo alcuno cittadino " (Al. Rinuccini, 
 p. 147). 
 
 3 M. Villari, one of the most recent in Italy who has written competently of 
 these times, is very severe upon Lorenzo, and we are glad to be able to support 
 our opinion by his. See Niccolb Machiavelli, Introd. , vol. i. , notably p. 52. 
 
 4 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix., Op. ined., vol. iii. p. 91. 
 
 5 Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix. vol. iii. p. 93. Capponi (ii. 161, note, and 
 65) points out that Guicciardini is only so severe in a work written at the age of 
 twenty-five, and that he is more favourable at the beginning of his great history of 
 Italy, the work of his maturity. However, the severity does not seem excessive to 
 us, except perhaps in the part showing his preference for Cosimo. 
 
H92] CHARACTER OF LORENZO. 434 
 
 Lorenzo only reached it when the lingering remembrances of 
 the Albizzi era, which in the distance seemed more liberal, 
 inspired a certain regret for liberty, a certain dislike of the 
 government of a single person. With him began the era of 
 difficulties, and he triumphed over the greater part of them. 
 
 Also, if he proved a much worse trader, he was infinitely 
 more of a prince, even in his defects ; for princes are allowed to 
 manage their finances badly, and make havoc of life as well as 
 human dignity. His vices and defects were those of his rank 
 and his times, the rank of crowned heads, and the times when 
 a man's word was no pledge, when cynical debauchery was the 
 rule of life, and religion nothing but the grimace and instru- 
 ment of rule, when murder became assassination, perfidy was 
 added to cruelty, and the dagger gave place to poison. But 
 to his natural gifts he added qualities acquired from his most 
 remarkable contemporaries. As much, and even better than 
 any one else, he understood and practised the complicated art 
 of politics and diplomacy ; he excelled others in command, 
 in intellect, and in that taste for letters and arts which 
 quickens the broad current of civilisation, of the growing civili- 
 sation which, to posterity, will ever be the best defence of this 
 century, from many points of view so revolting. 1 
 
 1 The two members of the Guicciardini family who, with Canestrini, have pub- 
 lished the unedited works of their ancestor, have collected Lorenzo's letters con- 
 cerning his government (not the others, which are too numerous), and announced 
 their intention to publish them by-and-by. See note to the unedited works of 
 Guicciardini, vol. iii. p. 85. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTERS AND ARTS UNDER LORENZO DE' MEDICIS. 
 
 Piero de' Medicis the gouty— Poetical competition (1441)— Piero protects men of letters 
 — Lorenzo reconstitutes the University of Pisa (1472) — He retrenches the Studio of 
 Florence — The examinations — The masters and readers— Filelfo recalled (1481) — 
 Angelo Poliziano, courtier, poet, and reader — Lorenzo a dilettante in erudition — 
 His followers— Representations of the ancient theatre — Progress of the Platonic 
 Academy— Bernardo Rucellai— Pico de la Mirandola — Return to the vulgar 
 tongue — Lorenzo a poet — The songs of carnival and festival — Luigi Pulci and the 
 Morgante maggiore — Predominance of the Tuscan dialect — Decadence of art — 
 The remains of antiquity — Lorenzo's caprices— The facade of the cathedral 
 adjourned (1491) — Lorenzo's theories — Realism : Antonio and Piero del Pollajuolo 
 — Andrea del Verrocchio — Cosimo Rosselli — Sandro Botticelli — Filippino Lippi — 
 Return to progress by a return to the past : Ghirlandajo — Crisis in art : return to 
 religious feeling (1480) — Involuntary vandalism provoked by Savonarola — His 
 aesthetic doctrine — Art after him — Architecture arrested by Lorenzo's death — The 
 painters whom he did not patronise : Leonardo da Vinci — Fra Bartolommeo della 
 Porta — Lorenzo de Credi — Andrea del Sarto and Michael Angelo — Character of 
 Florentine art — It predominates in all Italy. 
 
 It is a mistake to speak of the movement of letters and arts 
 under the three first Medici without distinguishing between 
 them. If their efforts had the same personal aim, there were 
 both in the impulse and in the results obtained serious differ- 
 ences that should not be overlooked. The direction and ten- 
 dency of letters under Lorenzo were quite other than under 
 Cosimo, and we cannot, without an imprudent disdain of 
 chronology, refuse to recognise that art under the grandfather 
 completed a remarkable evolution which has no equivalent 
 under the grandson. 
 
 As for Piero the gouty, son of one and father of the other, 
 he held the reins for too short a time to contribute much to 
 the impulse which is the glory of his family. But already 
 in his youth he showed an interest in letters. In 1443 he 
 even took the initiative in a sort of poetical competition, a 
 
LETTERS UNDER PIERO. 435 
 
 novel fact in this history. Conjointly with Leone Battista 
 Alberti, a mathematician and a man of letters as well as an 
 architect, he proposed a silver crown of olive leaves as a prize 
 for the best verses on true friendship. 
 
 The particulars of this competition deserve attention. On 
 October 18, the compositions were left sealed with certain speci- 
 fied notaries. On the 22nd, which fell on a Sunday, they were 
 publicly read in the Duomo, richly decorated for the occasion, in 
 the presence of the Signory, the ambassadors, the prelates, and 
 the people. The apostolic secretaries of Eugene IV., then pre- 
 sent at Florence, were named judges. The competitors were 
 Francesco Alberti, Antonio Alii, Mariotto Davanzati, Francesco 
 Malecarni, Benedetto d'Arezzo, Michele de Gigante, and Leo- 
 nardo Dati. The latter was not allowed to read his sonnet to 
 the end. The pronouncement had been decided upon long 
 before, we may believe, for the judges declared that several 
 poems were of equal merit, and awarded the crown to the very 
 basilica in which that absurd competition had taken place. 1 As 
 Ginguene' says, " Each one played his part : Medicis proposed 
 the prize, the poets strove for it, no doubt one of them merited 
 it, and it was the Church that obtained it." 2 
 
 But Piero rendered more substantial services to letters. He 
 ordered Ficino to publish his translation of Plato ; he added 
 to his father's collections ; he maintained the establishments 
 founded by the latter, and, like him, accepted the dedication of 
 new works. 3 Above all, he jealously superintended the educa- 
 tion of his two sons. 4 
 
 Left alone, thanks to the Pazzi's dagger, Lorenzo differed from 
 his grandfather ; where Cosimo always acted from interest, he 
 often acted from taste. Nevertheless, he too calculated when 
 necessary; his antipathies as well as his sympathies were 
 
 1 The fact is proved by a document which Lami published and Tiraboschi 
 reproduced, vol. vi. part i. lib. i. c. ii. and Prezziner, i. 106. 
 
 2 Ginguene, iii. 374-375- 
 
 3 Prezziner, i. 135, 136. 
 
 4 See preceding chapter on Lorenzo's masters, pp. 417, 418. 
 
436 THE FLORENTINE STUDIO. 
 
 dictated by interest. If he disliked the Studio and the 
 Sapienza College, it was because he found therein a remnant 
 of the free corporations of the Middle Ages, a creation un- 
 favourable to his family. This is clearly seen by his actions. 
 He gave over the Sapienza to a manufacturer of sails a la 
 holonaise} In 1471 the Grand Council brought about the 
 nomination of five officers commissioned " to organise a hand- 
 some and worthy Studio in Florence, and nowhere else." 2 The 
 following year everything was changed. " Seeing the com- 
 plaints made to the Signory by the ambassadors of the Com- 
 mune of Pisa ; having seen by experience that the Studio could 
 not easily be started in Florence, because of the lack of houses 
 and the distractions of the town ; seeing that no place was so 
 convenient as Pisa, whither strangers could come by sea, and 
 where all things necessary to life abounded " (it was forgotten 
 that Florence had possessed all these advantages when she 
 wanted to attract the Council to her 3 ), the Florentine Studio 
 was transferred there for five years from the 1st November, 
 with a budget of 6000 florins. 4 What had happened to turn 
 the weathercock so abruptly ? Lorenzo had acquired lands 
 upon the Pisan territory, and, as we have said, he wished to 
 increase their value. 5 
 
 That the Florentine Studio was reduced is incontrovertible. 
 Its budget was only 400 florins ; the same officers presided over 
 
 1 Gherardi, parti, p. 180; Rondoni, p. 208. Later the Sapienza became the 
 stables of the horses and lions of the Grand-Dukes. To-day it is the seat of the 
 superior Institute of Studies. 
 
 2 " Abbiano autorita di provvedere all' ordine d'uno bello e degno Studio nella 
 citta di Firenze e non altrove." This proposition obtained 92 beans against 33 in 
 the Council of the Hundred ; in the Council of the People, 161 against 80 ; in the 
 Council of the Commune, 103 against 48. See Gherardi, part i. p. 179 ; Rondoni, 
 p. 201. 
 
 8 See supra, p. 43. 
 
 4 Gherardi, part i. p. 181 ; Rondoni, p. 210, 21 1 ; Prezziner, i. 138. The 
 decree will be found in Fabroni, Hist. Acad. Pis., i. 409. 
 
 5 See preceding chapter, p. 417. M. Rondoni does not doubt the selfish 
 motive of this translation. He believes that Lorenzo liked the Studio, and only 
 wanted to break with the traditions of the Middle Ages. Prezziner (i. 149) says 
 the same. 
 
THE STUDIO OF PISA. 437 
 
 the studies at Florence and at Pisa, under the superintendence 
 of the councils, that is to say, Lorenzo. 1 Whereas the number 
 of chairs increased in the favoured university, they diminished 
 in that which suffered disgrace. A decree contemptuously 
 admitted that " three or four masters of grammar, and some one 
 to give an idea of the orators, poets, and ornaments of the 
 Latin tongue," 2 were necessary. Lorenzo suppressed scientific 
 education, and we might add, if the witnesses agreed, that he 
 counted on allowing, in the study of literature, only Greek, 
 with the intention of reserving Latin for Pisa. 3 What is 
 certain is, that he emptied Florence of good readers in order 
 to benefit Pisa. The engagements of those who taught juris- 
 prudence, medicine, and other sciences in Florence were 
 annulled until the opening of the new Studio (November 
 1473). 4 Thrown out of work, many were glad to accept an 
 asylum and salary near at hand. 5 It is said, but not proved, 
 that the professors of eloquence returned to their chairs a 
 little later ; but of the chairs of science there only remained 
 that of theology, which was under the protection of the arch- 
 bishopric — theology being then regarded as a science. 6 
 
 If the injury was to a certain extent repaired, it was 
 because Lorenzo and his family soon became its victims. 
 
 1 Gherardi, part i. p. 181 ; Rondini, p. 211, 212. 
 
 2 " E perche gli e necessario avere nella citta di Firenze almeno tre o quattro 
 maestri chi insegnino grammatica e qualche uno che dia lumi degli oratori e poeti, 
 e degli ornamenti della lingua latina a quegli cittadini che piu oltre non vogliono 
 seguitare gli studi, pero si provvede : che per gli ufficiali dello Studio s'abbia non 
 solamente a provvedere di quelli che legghino nello Studio a Pisa nelle facolta 
 necessarie negli studi generali e degni, ma ancora di quegli che nella citta di Fir. 
 addottrinino nel modo detto e cittadini fior. e chi nella citta di Fir. abitasse" 
 (Decree of December 19, 1472, in Fabroni, Hist. Acad. Pis.> i. 411, and Prezziner, 
 i. 150). 
 
 3 See Roscoe upon this matter (ii. 96, n. I, Fr. trans.), who indicates the texts. 
 
 4 " Intendendo per vigore della presente le condotte di coloro che a Firenze inseg- 
 nano salariati de' denari dello Studio, essere finite a di i° di novembre proximo 
 futuro, se durassino piu tempo, e piu la non durino" (Decree of December 19, 
 1472, loc. cil.). 
 
 6 " Si portarono altrove ed alcuni di essi furono trasferiti alia nuova Universita" 
 (Prezziner, i. 151). 
 
 6 Prezziner, i. 151, 152. 
 
438 DECADENCE OF THE STUDIO. 
 
 When his son, Giovanni, the future Leo X., at the age of 
 thirteen, wanted to obtain the laurea in canonical law, the 
 Canonical College no longer existed, and it was necessary for 
 this little lad, already too great a personage to be removed, 
 that Rinaldo Orsini, the vicar-general of the archbishopric, 
 should himself name two Florentine doctors to examine him 
 in the Archbishop's palace. 
 
 With the exception of this needed innovation, all the cus- 
 tomary rules were observed. 1 The bridge once made, many 
 others crossed it. 2 Private interest on this occasion came to the 
 assistance of sacrificed public interest ; but can we recognise in 
 this a statesman, and, if we must give him the title, a prince, 
 celebrated amongst all others for his attainments ? The 
 freedom which he and his ended by annihilating helped to 
 raise again, in a short-lived renaissance, the diminished Studio, 
 too old and feeble to support so grave a mutilation with- 
 out danger. 3 
 
 Its existence was prolonged by the presence of a few of those 
 masters who lent a certain splendour to its slow agony. To the 
 learned and greedy Argyropoulos 4 succeeded in 147 1 Andronicus 
 of Thessalonica, called Callisto, who was the greatest Hellenist of 
 the times after Theodore of Gaza, and who had a large number 
 of pupils. 5 In 1475 Lorenzo engaged Demetrius Chalcondyle, 
 whose salary, soon increased, commenced at 168 florins. 6 Cristo- 
 
 1 Prezziner, i. 166. 
 
 2 Prezziner says (i. 173) that in 1475 Fra Aless. Balducci, conventual friar, and 
 afterwards others, obtained the theological laurea. From 1473 to 1492 more than 
 fifty persons went back to the theological college of Florence. 
 
 3 M. Rondini (p. 218) pretends that Florence was too important a centre for the 
 Studio to flourish there. He forgets that the University of Paris was for a long 
 time, and is still perhaps, the first in Europe. 
 
 4 See Angeli Politiani Miscellaneorum Centuria Una ; Bale, undated, in 8° ; 
 Hody, p. 202, text reported in Roscoe, ii. 99, note. It is true that our authority 
 upon Argyropoulo's vices is Paul Jove {Elogia Doctorum Virorum, No. xxvii. p. 60, 
 Antwerp, 1557), and Paul Jove, Roscoe recognises, is too vindictive to be accepted 
 upon his own word. See Roscoe, ii. 99, and Hody, p. 198. 
 
 6 Raffaello Maffei of Volterra, Comm. Urban., 1. xxi.; Prezziner, i. 137. 
 
 6 Chalcondyle remained long in Florence. He was still there in 1488, but in 
 1492 we find him at Milan. See Fabroni, Hist. Acad. Pis., i. 163 ; Prezziner, i. 
 152, 154. 
 
FIDELFO RECALLED. 439 
 
 foro Landino, who had contributed to forming Lorenzo's youth, 
 translated Pliny, expounded Horace and Virgil, Dante and 
 Petrarch, already regarded as ancients, 1 and thus helped to 
 restore to honour the vulgar tongue, disdained through a fanatic 
 admiration of Latin, and prepared the desirable reaction at the 
 end of the century, of which we shall speak later. 
 
 It appears that, in spite of the fatal blow struck at the 
 Studio by a hand so sure, the learned men preferred a sojourn 
 in Florence to Pisa, since in 1478, after the Pazzi conspiracy, 
 we find the whimsical Filelfo renewing already ancient steps 
 to get back his post of reader. 2 While congratulating Lorenzo 
 upon having escaped from the hands of the assassins, he 
 reminded him that Cosimo, his enemy, had intended to recall 
 him. 3 Having suffered much, he wanted to give up his chair 
 at Rome and leave that city, where the plague reigned. 4 " I 
 would be as useful to you at Florence as the small number of 
 your friends. I am yours in soul and body. 5 You know well 
 that in my line nobody can be compared with me." 6 Lorenzo 
 took the matter in good part. He could not retain more 
 rancour than his grandfather, and he no longer feared a 
 bilious old man of eighty- four. He appointed him to the chair 
 
 1 The first Florentine edition of Dante appeared in 1481, with commentary of 
 Landino. See Cipolla, p. 662 ; Capponi, notes to the documents at the end of 
 J. Pitti (Arch. Stor., 1st ser., i. 318). The Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo il 
 Mag>iifico e ad altri may be seen, published by Sal vat ore Bongi, Lucca, 1867. 
 They are calculated to show us the literary development of the times, and the part 
 taken in it by the Medici. 
 
 2 " Quanto sia stato el dispiacere ho ricevuto del vostro acerbissimo caso, per 
 due altre mie lettere ho havete potuto comprendere " (Filelfo to Lorenzo, Milan, 
 May 20, 1478 ; text in Fabroni, Lanrentii Vita, Doc, p. 102). 
 
 3 See above, chapter on letters and arts in the time of Cosimo, p. 191. 
 
 4 Elsewhere may be found the vicissitudes of Filelfo, his three marriages, his 
 twenty-four children, his poverty in Milan under Galeaz-Maria, who did not 
 patronise him like Francesco Sforza, his installation in Rome, where Sixtus IV. 
 gave him a chair of moral philosophy. See chiefly Rosmini, Vita di Filelfo. 
 
 5 ' ' Ben ve avviso che io ve sarei cosi utile in Firenze quanto pochi amici voi 
 habiate. Io ve ho dedicato el corpo e l'animo" (Filelfo to Lorenzo, Milan, May 
 20, 1478 ; text in Fabroni, Laur. Vita, Doc, p. 103). 
 
 6 "Voi sapete che in questa etate niun altro se po mettere a comparatione 
 mecho in la mia facholta" (Letter quoted by Prezziner, i. 156). 
 
440 THE NEW MASTERS. 
 
 of rhetoric and philosophy in Florence, with a salary of 500 
 florins, much more than Landino, a constant friend, had 
 obtained. Filelfo began his course of lessons again, but it 
 was a sort of swan's song. It was easy to foresee his approach- 
 ing death, 1 and Lorenzo did not lose much in offering him a 
 golden bridge. 
 
 It was not this aged man of learning who reflected glory 
 upon the feeble Studio of Florence, but Landino, Chalcondyle, 
 Bartolommeo Fonte, already celebrated, though to-day obscure, 2 
 and above all, Angelo Ambrogini of Montepulciano, who, 
 according to the fashion of the day, called himself Poliziano, 
 after his native town (1454—94). An erudite philologist 
 and philosopher of Ficino's school, he was more of a poet than 
 any of his contemporaries, and made his name by poetry. He 
 secured it by a harmonious poem in the vulgar tongue, in 
 which he celebrated Giuliano's victory in a tournament in 
 1475, and which he dedicated to the survivor of the two 
 brothers. 3 Before the poem was finished the author became 
 Lorenzo's secretary and librarian, the tutor of his children, 
 and was lodged in the palace free of all cost. The end 
 achieved, he renounced the idea of finishing the work. 4 His 
 
 1 Filelfo was reinstalled in his chair July 15, 1481. He died on the 31st. See 
 Prezziner, i. 157. 
 
 2 Verino has written these mediocre lines on Fonte : — 
 
 " Fontius est rhetor, pubis moderator hetrusae, 
 Judicio et nulli morum probitate secundus." 
 
 — {De Illustribus Florentinis, L ii., in Prezziner, i. 164). 
 
 3 It is the poem known as the Stanze. It concerns a joust that took place at 
 Florence in 1475, anc * which must not be confused with that of 1469, in which 
 Lorenzo was conqueror, and was described by one of the brothers Pulci. Giuliano 
 was conqueror in the second. See Em. Giudici, i. 445 ; Isidoro del Lungo, Uno 
 Scolare dello Studio Fiorentino {Nuova Antologia, vol. x. p. 215, ann. 1869); La 
 Patria e gli antenati di Angelo Poliziano {Arch. Stor., 3rd ser., vol. xi. p. 9) ; 
 Villari, Nic. Afac/i., i. 206. 
 
 4 With much naivete Sismondi {De la Lift, du Midi, ii. 44) pretends that 
 Poliziano left aside his poem because he felt the unworthiness of his hero. Doubt- 
 less, as this hero, being Giuliano, the conqueror in the second tournament, and 
 dead, could no longer bestow favours. See Reumont, ii. 81 ; Cipolla, p. 665 ; 
 Lombardi, Delle attinenze Storic/iefra Scienza ed Arte in Italia, Bergamo, 1879, 
 p. 230 sq. 
 
ANGELO POLIZIANO. 441 
 
 next poetical adulation was in Latin upon his protector's 
 unjust and cruel triumph in Volterra, 1 an unworthy flattery, 
 which, whatever may be said of it, had not even the excuse of 
 gratitude, since he had already flattered, before he had received 
 favours, in order to receive them. 2 
 
 As a reader of the classics in the Studio, he was regarded 
 as superior to Filelfo, Guarino, and others. It was because he 
 preached by example as well as by precept. 3 If, as he stated, 
 thanks to others, many spoke Greek at Florence 4 (probably an 
 exaggeration), thanks to him, Latin written, if not spoken, 
 almost reached the excellence of the models. He does not 
 imitate any one, he seems to be one of them, and they inspired 
 him as much as the Italians when he wrote in the vulgar 
 tongue. From them he caught the secret of elegance and 
 style, of taste and art. 5 He not only knew the ancients, but 
 he belonged to them, a marvellous superiority in " this orator 
 of erudition and poet of criticism," 6 this respected professor 
 and corrupted canon, who was employed in embassies, and 
 merited his master's favours through the unenviable talents of 
 the learned courtier. 7 
 
 1 Sylva, 1. iii. p. 45 sq. See edition entitled Prose Volgari inedite e Poesie Latine 
 e Greche edite ed inedite di Angelo Poliziano, raccolte ed illustrate da Isidoro del 
 Lungo, Florence, 1867. 
 
 2 See on Poliziano Ginguene, iii. 378, 515 ; Em. Guidici, i. 446 ; Villari, i. 46 ; 
 Manly, Angelus Politianus, Ein Culturbild aus der Renaissance, Leipzig, 1864, 
 translated into Italian by the Abbe Brunetti, Venice, 1865 ; Bonafous, De Angeli 
 Politiani Vita et Operibus Disquisitiones, Paris, 1845. See a ^ so our Histoire de la 
 Littirature Italienne, and that of M. L. Etienne. 
 
 3 If ranks were judged by salaries, Landino would be the first with 300 florins, 
 Poliziano the second with 250, then Chalcondyle with 200, and Fonte with 60, 
 Filelfo remaining without a rival. See Fabroni, Hist. Acad. Pis., i. 373 ; Prez- 
 ziner, i. 163. 
 
 4 " Primse nobilitatis pueri . . . ita sincere attico sermone, ita facile expedi- 
 teque loquuntur ut non deletse jam Athense atque a Barbaris occupatse, sed ipsse 
 sua sponte cum proprio avulsse solo, cumque omni, ut sic dixerim, sua supellectile 
 in flor. urbem immigrasse, eique se totas penitus que infudisse videantur" {Oraiio 
 in expositione Homeri, in Prezziner, i. 167). 
 
 6 See G. Capponi, ii. 178. 
 
 6 Villemain, La Litterature au Moyen Age, lecon xxii. See F. O. Mencken, 
 Historia Vitce A. Politiani, Leipzig, 1736. 
 
 7 See Villari, Nic. Mach., i. 209. 
 
442 LORENZO'S DILETTANTEISM. 
 
 He did not make his master familiar with Greek and 
 Latin, but he inspired him with a taste for both. To a large 
 extent he helped to make of him a refined dilettante, who, like 
 his ancestor, hunted for precious manuscripts henceforth in 
 Italy — an arduous hunt, since all the lords and princes shared 
 the same passion. 1 Upon this subject the authentic docu- 
 ments contain curious information. We find Lorenzo begging 
 Ercole d'Este to lend him Dion Cassius, and Ercole refusing, in 
 spite of their friendly relations, only allowing him to have a 
 copy. This refusal seemed so natural that Lorenzo was not 
 offended by it; later, he returned to the charge, but more 
 modestly asked, instead of the original, Niccolo Leoniceno's 
 translation, 2 and he prepared the way by lending himself to 
 the Duke of Ferrara a manuscript copy of Leone Battista 
 Alberti's book on architecture. The Duke, decidedly averse 
 to lending books, devised an ingenious method of compliance ; 
 he hastily ordered a copy of the solicited translation, and only 
 sent it to Florence on condition that it was neither printed 
 nor lent to any one. 3 
 
 Abroad, in oppressed and barbarous lands, Lorenzo was 
 more successful. In his name, and with the permission of 
 Bajazet II., John Lascaris scoured all Greece in the search for 
 manuscripts. In a second voyage he acquired two hundred 
 
 1 In 1470, Niccolo Roberti, orator of Ferrara at Florence, had the third decade 
 of Titus Livy translated in the vulgar tongue, copied, and paid forty bolognini 
 in gold per quire. The copyist wanted forty-five, or a florin of suggello. He 
 demanded five months, and it was foreseen that he would take six. There were 
 fifty-two pages to be copied. With the miniatures and the pamphlets, each quire 
 cost a ducat (Roberti to Alberto d'Este, March 2, 1470 ; Atti e mem., i. 250, 251). 
 This same Roberti found the first decade of Titus Livy, and paid eighteen ducats 
 for it (March 10, 1470 ; ibid., p. 251). 
 
 2 Leoniceno, doctor and philologist, born at Lonigo, in the Vicentine, in 1428, 
 one of the first to return to the method of the Greek doctors, Hippocratus, Paul 
 of Ephesus, &c. See Angiolgabriello, Biblioleca degli Scrittori Vicentini, ii. 188 ; 
 P. Jove, Elogia, No. 70 ; Papadopuli, Hist. Gymnasii Patavini, i. 297 ; Fabricius, 
 Bibl. lat. med. et infinite cetatis ; Tiraboschi, vol. vi. part ii. 1. ii. c. iii. § 20. 
 
 8 Lorenzo to Ercole, February 5, i486; Atti e mem., i. 246 and 247, n. 1. 
 This translation was only printed in 1532 at Venice, and the Greek text in Paris 
 in 1548. 
 
LORENZO'S FOLLOWERS. 443 
 
 in the Greek tongue, of which eighty were quite unknown. 1 
 Mathias Corvinus's library, on his death (1490), afforded 
 numerous and valuable acquisitions. In spite of his finan- 
 cial difficulties, Lorenzo annually expended on books 30,000 
 ducats, and maintained a number of copyists, who, upon his 
 death, were thrown out of work. Even during his lifetime the 
 extent of his services in this path were felt. " Your zeal in 
 having Greek books copied and in protecting the learned," 
 Poliziano wrote to him, " does you more honour than any other 
 man has earned for years." 2 When Fra Giocondo of Verona, 
 architect and archasologist in one, made a precious collection 
 of ancient epigraphs, till then unequalled, he dedicated it to 
 Lorenzo. 3 Called thither by Lorenzo, or attracted by the 
 renown of his circle, and sure of finding in his palace a library 
 rich in precious manuscripts, a real museum of antiquities, and 
 encouragement, learned men from all parts of Italy crowded to 
 Florence. Amongst others were Bartolommeo Scala, Ermolao 
 Barbaro the younger, and Lorenzo Valla. 4 They helped to 
 edit the acquired books. Through the efforts of Demetrius 
 Chalcondyle and Bernardo Nerli, the Homeric poems were 
 published for the first time in Florence. The latter defrayed 
 the expenses, and offered to dedicate them to Piero, Lorenzo's 
 young son (1488). These were followed by other handsome 
 editions of the Greek classics in capital letters. 5 There was 
 no longer any need to go to Constantinople to learn Greek. 
 Masters and books abounded even at Ferrara and Milan. Petty 
 noblemen and rich burghers, as well as the princes and great 
 lords, attracted the learned at their personal expense, less 
 
 1 Lascaris himself reports it. Prcefatio ad Anthologiam, Florence, 1494. See 
 Prezziner, i. 148. 
 
 2 Venice, June 20, 1491. See Prose Volgari, ed. Isid. del Lungo, note 30, 
 Florence, 1867. 
 
 a Cipolla, p. 665. 
 
 4 On Lorenzo Valli there were special works : Zumpt, Leben und Verdienste des 
 Laurentius Valla, in the Journal des Sciences Historiques of Prof. Schmidt, vol. iv. 
 p. 397-434, 1845 ; Bahlen, Lorenzo Valla, Vienna, 1865. 
 
 6 Capponi, ii. 176. 
 
444 THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS. 
 
 perhaps from a sincere and individual love of letters than from 
 ostentation and the spirit of imitation. 1 
 
 In imitation of the writers and poets of Home, who formed 
 an academy, and in 1470 had some of Plautus's comedies repre- 
 sented in Latin, Ferrara and Florence, going a step further, 
 produced translations upon the stage, rather to popularise the 
 old Roman comedies than to propagate the vulgar tongue ; 
 just as, from the need or the desire to be heard, the French 
 preachers of the Middle Ages began to preach in French in 
 spite of their preference for Latin. In i486 Ercole d'Este 
 had played at Ferrara the Menechmi of Plautus in an Italian 
 translation made to order for the occasion. Two years later 
 the same play was played in Florence, possibly in the same 
 translation. 
 
 But the object in view was only partially accomplished ; the 
 idea was not yet conceived of giving frequent and regular repre- 
 sentations for which the spectator paid. As in France and in 
 Rome, the theatre was a part of the public festivities ; princes, 
 with an eye upon their neighbour, in the hope of surpassing 
 him, raised and decorated the scaffolding for a single represen- 
 tation. Italy was proud if one or two took place in the year 
 in one of her great towns. To taste this solemn pleasure 
 crowds came from all parts. The spectacle being free, nobody 
 had the right to find fault. The local chronicles only express 
 universal admiration. Criticism, however, would not have 
 been out of place ; the choice did not always fall upon works 
 of art. Seneca was preferred to Sophocles, and in Seneca the 
 futile declamations on those general ideas, unknown in the 
 Middle Ages, fresh fruit of the Renaissance gathered from the 
 ancients, 3 were applauded with frenzy. 
 
 1 See Leo, ii. 244. 
 
 2 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 12, 1488; Atti e mem., i. 301. In 1528, at 
 Venice, an Italian translation of the Menechmes was printed, whch was perhaps 
 this one (Cappelli's note to pages 301 and 309 of vol. i. Atti e mem.). 
 
 3 See Sismondi, De la Lt'tt. du Midi, ii. 50-52. It was the same with the 
 French theatre of the sixteenth century. 
 
THE PLATONIC ACADEMY. 4 45 
 
 Lorenzo's particular distinction was his protection of the 
 Platonic Academy, founded by his grandfather, and its develop- 
 ment under his care. He did not confine himself, like Cosimo, to 
 offering an asylum to philosophic innovators ; he disputed with 
 them in his gardens, and often at his table ; for his banquets 
 were frequently a pretext for philosophising 1 and the perilous 
 assertion 2 of the most audacious opinions. 3 His guests and 
 interlocutors were the friends already named, Christoforo 
 Landino, whom Machiavelli calls the second father of the 
 Florentine Academy, 4 Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, Luigi 
 Pulci, and his two brothers, Luca and Bernardo, Girolamo 
 Benivieni, Leone Battista Alberti, of whom more later, and 
 finally Bernardo Rucellai and Pico de la Mirandola, of whom 
 we must say something here. 5 
 
 Bernardo Rucellai (1449— 15 14) was the grandson of Pall a 
 Strozzi, and Lorenzo's brother-in-law. When scarcely eigh- 
 teen, he had married Giovanna de' Medicis. A merchant, 
 diplomatist, cultured, a good writer, and author of small 
 historical works, 6 under his Latinised name, Oricellarius, he 
 
 1 Marsilio Ficino speaks of two banquets of this kind, one at Careggi, Lorenzo's 
 villa, the other at Florence, organised by Francesco Bandini, whom Lorenzo called 
 his steward. See Bandini, ii. 38 sq., who quotes (p. 63) a letter of Ficino on this 
 subject. Prezziner, i. 169, gives the notes. 
 
 2 See in Janitschek, p. 103, note 31, the text, which shows the accusations 
 against the Platonists in the persecutions they underwent from Rome under 
 Paul II. 
 
 3 Later, Giovanni Nesi, in a dialogue, De Moribus, dedicated to Piero de 
 Lorenzo, wrote : "Si auctoritate incedendum est, Christi auctoritatem omnibus 
 antepono ; si ratione, apud Platonicos rationes quse veritati nostrae magis con- 
 sonent, prsecipue reperturum me esse confido ; post Platonem vero Aristotelem " 
 (MS. of the Laurentiana, Plut. 77, cod. 24, in Janitschek, Die Gesellschaft der 
 Renaissance in Italien, und die Kunst, p. 103, note 30, Stuttgart, 1879. There 
 are four lectures.) 
 
 4 Prezziner, i. 133. 
 
 6 In Bandini we find, Specimen Literatures Florentines, the names of the members 
 of the Academy, and many details about their works, their feasts, and their fate. 
 Cf. Sieveking, Gesckichte der Platonischen Akademie zu Florenz, Gottingen, 1812 ; 
 Puccinotti, Di Marsilio Ficino e delV Accademia Platonica Florentina nel secolo 
 xvo, Prato, 1865. This is an extract of the Storia della Medicina from the same. 
 
 6 De Bello Italico, De Bello Pisano, De Urbe Roma. The latter work is both 
 elegant and erudite. 
 
446 PICO DE LA MIRANDOLA. 
 
 was destined to replace Lorenzo as the protector of the 
 Academy, and to throw open his beautiful gardens to the 
 philosophers, 1 amongst whom were the poet Luigi Alamanni 
 and the immortal historian Niccolo Machiavelli, until a sen- 
 tence of exile after an abortive conspiracy closed the Academy 
 
 (1522). 2 
 
 Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola was one of the last 
 arrivals in the corrupted society of the Medici. He only 
 joined it in 1484, then hardly twenty-two. Fed upon the 
 severest teachings, above all by Savonarola, whom he loved 
 and admired, he was regarded as a man of learning and a 
 saint. 3 A man of learning he certainly was ; as for a saint, 
 that is another thing, and he soon lost that reputation. He 
 caused a scandal by a love affair, with which he was reproached 
 by those the most capable of a like offence. The adventure 
 deserves notice as it is characteristic of the times. 
 
 Pico had gone to Arezzo, where he had a very handsome 
 mistress, who had been twice married, first to " a grocer who kept 
 horses for the races of the palio" and afterwards, in the year 
 of her widowhood (i486), to one Giuliano de' Medicis, a poor 
 exciseman at Arezzo, to whom she had brought money. A 
 few months later she fell violently in love with Pico, cieca di 
 si bel corpo, according to the passably coarse despatch which 
 acquaints us with the story. The fair Margherita resolved to 
 abandon her husband's roof. One fine day she left the town 
 to take a walk, and met Pico, who was accompanied by some 
 twenty men, half on foot and half on horseback. Shamelessly 
 and openly she jumped up behind him, and off they rode. 
 Such audacity noised the escapade abroad. The bells were 
 rung, and the fugitives were chased and overtaken, whence a 
 brawl, in which there were dead and wounded on both sides, 
 
 1 The famous Orti Oricellaria, between Scala Street and the meadow, to-day the 
 borgo of Ognissanti, of which more later. 
 
 2 Bandini, Specimen, &c, ii. 82-85 ; Prezziner, i. 128 sq. ; Ginguene, iii. 104 ; 
 Reumont, Tav. Cron. 
 
 3 " Oltre la dottrina sua, era riputato uno santo " (Aid. Guidoni to Ercola, May 
 12, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 282). 
 
PICO AND MARGHERITA. 447 
 
 especially 011 Pico's, whose escort was nearly destroyed. He 
 and his chancellor — for being a lord, he was not too young to 
 have one — escaped death and pillage by the fleetness of their 
 horses, and they sought refuge in Marciano, where they were 
 at once imprisoned. The Ten were apprised, and ordered that 
 Count Pico be restored to liberty and the chancellor retained. 
 Then, as if ashamed, they changed their minds, and had the 
 eloper incarcerated again, and five or six days afterwards had 
 him again liberated, 1 the poor scapegoat chancellor always 
 paying the piper for his master. As for the worthless crea- 
 ture, cause of all the trouble, she was looked upon as a victim. 
 She was sacred because of her marriage with one of the 
 Medici, " poor, no doubt, but still one of the house." 2 The 
 husband's role in this ugly affair was no better than that of 
 the rest. Pride was not his failing. The faithless wife had 
 only to assert that she was carried off against her will for 
 him to take her back. In repudiating her, he would have 
 been obliged to return her money-bags. 3 
 
 Feeling foolish enough, Pico flung himself more furiously than 
 ever into study, and became celebrated by his proposition to 
 sustain in Rome nine hundred theses de omni re scibili. Like 
 a good disciple of Ficino, he wanted to expound therein the 
 bond which unites Platonism and Christianity. But the Curia 
 declared thirteen of these theses heretical, and Innocent VIII. 
 forbade their discussion. 4 This only lent them greater notoriety, 
 
 1 Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 17, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 283. 
 
 2 " E abbenche creda che il conte Giovanni non sia per avere male alcuno, 
 credo che il cancelliero ne fara male, perche h reputato che fosse uno capestro da 
 cui sia processo ogni male. E credo che gli nuocera assai lo essere stata quella 
 donna moglie al presente di uno de' Medici ; e benche sia povero, pur e della 
 casa " (Aid. Guidoni to Ercole, May 12, i486 ; Atti e mem., i. 282). 
 
 3 Aid. Guidoni, ibid. ; Domenico Berti, Cenni e documenti intorno a Giov. 
 Pico della Mirandola, in the Rivista Contemporanea, vol. xvi., Turin, 1859; note 
 of Cappelli after the minute of the despatches of Guidoni, Atti e mem., i. 282. 
 Berti believes in an elopement by force in spite of the assertions of one Luigi della 
 Stufa, who formally maintains the contrary. There are arguments for and against 
 both assertions, but the woman's impudence and immodesty are likely enough. 
 
 4 Bull of August 5, i486. Bullarum Rom. ampl. collect io, vol. iii. part iii. 
 p. 210, 211, Rome, 1743. 
 
448 THE VULGAR TONGUE. 
 
 and Lorenzo took the part of his follower $ he defended both his 
 opinions and his person. " The Count lives like a saint," he 
 wrote three years after the love-scandal to his ambassador 
 at the court of Rome. 1 He did not live long enough to see 
 absolution granted to Pico. It was only granted in June 
 1493 by the new Pope, Alexander VI., who could not show 
 himself too indulgent for this kind of misdeed. Later, 
 Savonarola from the pulpit announced the death of his former 
 disciple, and treated him with much severity ; he sent him to 
 purgatory because of his late return to religion. 2 
 
 The influence that Lorenzo exercised over so many distin- 
 guished men may partly be explained by the privileged position 
 which his grandfather had made him, since his father, so 
 inferior to both, had also enjoyed it after the one and before 
 the other ; but his keen, broad, and curious mind also con- 
 tributed its share. He was interested in all questions of the 
 day, above all, in one that ought to have been solved after 
 Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio — that of deciding whether the 
 Italian tongue was suitable, like Greek and Latin, to the 
 expression of general ideas, and consequently to replace both. 
 With his accustomed sagacity, he pronounced for the affirma- 
 tive, 3 as did Leone Battista Alberti ; 4 and so strongly did he 
 convince certain minds, that the learned Bernardo Rucellai, in 
 his correspondence with Erasmus, refused to write any more 
 in Latin. 5 
 
 1 Lorenzo to Lanfredini, June 19, 1489, in Fabroni, Vita Later., Doc, p. 291. 
 Cf. Reumont, ii. nosq., and Roscoe, vol. ii. p. 113 so. of French translation. 
 
 2 Prediche sopra Aggeo, pred. 6, f. 46 r°, Venice, 1544. 
 
 3 See a passage from him translated in Etienne, Hist, de la Litt. Ital., p. 182, and 
 upon the obstacle raised by the worship of antiquity to the development of the 
 vulgar tongue, Ugo Foscolo, Prose Lettcrarie, vol. iii. p. 53, 61, Florence, 1850. 
 
 4 ' ' Ben confesso quell' antica latina lingua essere copiosa molto e ornatissima ; 
 ma non pero veggo in che sia la nostra oggi toscana tanto da averla in odio, che in 
 essa qualunque benche ottima cosa scritta ci dispiaccia ? A me pare assai di presso 
 dire quello che io voglio e in modo ch' io sono pure inteso ; ora questi biasimatori 
 in quella antiqua sanno se non facere, et in questa moderna se non biasimare e 
 vituperare chi non tace" (L. B. Alberti, Delia Pamiglia, preface to Book iii. in 
 Tanitschek, p. 102, n. 21). 
 
 5 ' ' Bernardum Auricularium, civem fiorentinum, cujus historias si Iegisses dixisses 
 
POETRY OF LORENZO. 449 
 
 Lorenzo supported his theories by practice. He walked to 
 prove movement, as Galileo did later; or rather, without 
 seeking to prove anything, he solved the difficulty. Thereto 
 he was impelled, not only by instinct and taste, but also by his 
 slight knowledge of ancient tongues. Without being a poet, 
 he wrote very pretty verses, for which he deserves praise, as, 
 since Petrarch and Boccaccio, there is no other poet in the vulgar 
 tongue who is worth quoting. He joined the broken chains, 
 and took up poetry where the fourteenth century had left it. 
 
 This gift had been transmitted him. Following his mother's 
 example, whose spiritual lauds l have been published, he wrote 
 sacred rhymes. If he were not superior in these to Savona- 
 rola and Benivieni, who subsequently wrote so much religious 
 twaddle in verse, except in his " Bepresentation " or the " Mys- 
 tery of SS. John and Paul," 2 he succeeded better in the profane 
 style. He has left more than a hundred and forty sonnets, 
 and twenty canzone, in honour of Lucrezia Donati, whom he 
 does not name, and whom he loved, as Petrarch loved Laura, 
 with a purely imaginative love, 3 while he arranged her mar- 
 riage in Rome. 4 His piquant satire upon drunkenness, 
 
 alterum Sallustium, aut Sallustii temporibus scriptas, nunquam tamen ab homine 
 impetrare licuit ut mecum latine loqueretur. Subinde interpellabam ; surdo 
 loqueris, vir prseclare, vulgaris linguae vestratis sum ignarus quam Indicse. Verbum 
 latinum nunquam quivi ab eo extundere " (Erasmus, quoted by Em, Giudici, St or. 
 della Lett. Ital., i. 351). 
 
 1 Rime sacre del M co Lorenzo de y Medici il vecckio, di Madonna Lucrezia sua 
 madre e d'altri della stessa famiglia, collected by Francesco Cionacci, a Florentine 
 priest, 2nd edit., Bergamo, 1760. 
 
 2 The Rappresentazione di San Giovanni e Paolo may be found at the end of Lor- 
 enzo's poetry, edit, of Bergamo, 1763. See on this subject Ginguene, iii. 510-513. 
 
 3 See Lorenzo de' Medici, Poesie, Bergamo, 1763. Another edition has been 
 published by M. Carducci, Florence, 1859. Lorenzo's works {Lorenzo dei Medici 
 Opere) have been gathered into several volumes, Florence, 1825. See Ginguene, 
 iii, 489, on Lorenzo's poetry; Villari, Nic. Mack., i. 200 sq,, and also Capponi, 
 Reumont, Carducci, in a simple address before Lorenzo's poetry (edit. Barbera). 
 Carducci, like Roscoe and Ruth, greatly exaggerates Lorenzo's literary merit. 
 
 4 See Tre letter e di Lucrezia Tornabuoni a Piero de' Medici ed altre lettere di 
 vari concernenti al matrimonio di Lorenzo il Magnifico con Clarice Orsini, pub- 
 lished by Ces. Guasti, Florence, 1859. Villari {Nic. Mach., i. 201) remarks that 
 the mother of Lorenzo describes Clarissa's person, but says nothing of her heart, 
 her mind, or her character. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 F 
 
450 CARNIVAL FESTIVITIES. 
 
 / Beoni, and his moral and philosophical poem, L Alter cazione, 
 which is clear and noble, though in a rough and inharmonious, 
 almost infantile style, are praised. But he excelled above all 
 when he borrowed from the Tuscan contadini their naive idiom, 
 as in the Nencia di Barber ina and in his Canti Carnascialeschi 
 or Carnival songs, which his courtiers dared to place above 
 Dante's poetry. It is evident that much must be accepted as 
 exaggeration. Lorenzo had not even the merit of originality 
 attributed to him, since this style was the fashion even before 
 Boccaccio. 1 But he revived these songs, so coarse and licen- 
 tious that the boldest of our days would hesitate to produce 
 them, even in a private circle, the sole theme of which is the 
 day's enjoyment and pleasure, without any thought of the 
 morrow, and rendered them not a whit more moral. He added 
 an expressive sprightliness and grace to thoughts familiar to 
 himself and his people, and his songs were the crown of the 
 Carnival festivities, of which he became the impresario, whose 
 ancient splendour he increased, and which occupied too im- 
 portant a place in his day not to be mentioned. 
 
 His agents collected horses, chariots, and trophies at great 
 expense. They dressed up a number of persons of the lower 
 class to "represent either a conqueror's triumph, or some 
 chivalrous theme, or the symbolic pomp of arts and crafts. 
 During the evening and half the night, these brilliant pro- 
 cessions filed through the streets in the torchlight shed by their 
 escorts on foot. The chariots were sometimes surrounded by 
 three hundred masked cavaliers, and masked too were the per- 
 sonages perched upon these moving trestles. The chants were 
 repeated by the crowd, and the dances were measured by them. 
 Ballads, canzone for one or four voices, or a chorus were sung 
 
 1 In Boccaccio (5th day, 10th Novel, vol. ii. p. 387) the queen asks Dioneo for 
 a canzone, a Carnival song, and Dioneo offered her several very licentious ones. 
 Manni shows us that Boccaccio himself did not invent this style. See upon this 
 subject one of Cappelli's notes, Atti e mem., i. 313, append. Cf. Reumont, ii. 23, 
 24 ; Cipolla, p. 662 ; Villari, i. 45 ; Witte, Ueber den Minnegesang unci das Volks- 
 lied in Italien, in Reumont's Annual, called Italia, Berlin, 1838. 
 
DISUSE OF LATIN. 451 
 
 — in a word, the famous Carnival songs that made the whole 
 world light of heart. 1 
 
 Lorenzo ordered the display, furnished the poems, saw them 
 put to music, and kept an eye upon all the details. 2 His 
 pleasure lay in such things, as we have seen, and it vexed him 
 to be distracted therefrom by business. 3 They were one of 
 the springs of his policy, half as narrow again as that of the 
 Roman emperors. Accepting their well-known device, he 
 suppressed bread and furnished games. He did not think 
 himself obliged to anticipate famine and blight, or to remedy 
 these evils, but spectacles helped a race who delighted in them 
 to forget its hunger. The sole excuse for this unpardonable 
 frivolity, and this selfish, and doubtless imprudent, policy, lies 
 precisely in the very poems he wrote for the need of the hour, 
 and which awakened a taste for the popular tongue. This 
 happy result was reached rather than pursued, and the exag- 
 gerations of the Ciceronians contributed much more to it 
 than Lorenzo's example. From the day it became a law, 
 in speaking Latin, to employ Cicero's vocabulary, the use 
 of Latin was confined to a select number, and became more 
 and more foreign to the majority, and in the constant inter- 
 course of life it was necessary to speak the only language 
 commonly understood. Thus the erudites, by their unmeasured 
 fastidiousness, served the cause they would fain have injured. 
 Lorenzo enjoyed the double advantage over them of knowing 
 what he was about when he set the example, and of being in 
 a position to secure imitators. 
 
 He had the fortunate chance of having among his courtiers 
 more than one really gifted in letters, notably Luigi Pulci, who 
 was a greater favourite than the rest, on account of a disposi- 
 
 1 See the work entitled Tutti i trionfi, carri, mascherate canti carnascialeschi 
 andati per Firenze dal tempo del Mo Lorenzo de' Medici fino alP anno 1559, 
 Cosmopoli, 1750. This collection was made by Anton Francesco Grazzini, sur- 
 named Lasca. See chiefly his dedication to Francesco de' Medicis, prince of 
 Florence, p. 39-44. 
 
 2 Ginguene, iii. 503-505. 
 
 3 Supra, p. 374, n. 2. 
 
452 LUIGI PULCI. 
 
 tion similar to his master's. Lorenzo's mother, Lucrezia Torna- 
 buoni, suggested to him the idea of the Morgante Maggiore, a 
 poem founded upon the French style, which then was regarded 
 as a novelty. 1 The recent wars against the Turks gave an 
 interest to the songs of the old troubadours on the wars of 
 Charlemagne against the Moors and Saracens. In Florence, 
 Pulci, like Boiardo in Ferrara, 2 gave an elegant form (aulique 
 Dante would have said) to these coarsely popular but serious 
 songs, and rendered them frivolous by the turn of his wit and 
 the despised tongue he used. Pulci sometimes borrows too 
 much from the Tuscan vernacular, seeming grave when he 
 means to be playful, and commonplace when he attempts 
 fine writing. 
 
 Liberated, like the greater part of his contemporaries, from 
 all belief, this canon of fifty prefaces his songs with ecclesiastical 
 poems, the Gloria in Uxcelsis, the Magnificat, and the Te Deum ; 
 but he slides at once into audacities of thought and license of 
 expression and taste. An invocation to the Virgin is followed 
 by one to Venus, and then by risky scenes and a satire on the 
 immortality of the soul, without any intention on the part of 
 this aged juggler to destroy religion or chivalry. The grossest 
 pleasantries upon sacred things follow the most polished irony, 
 and he sneers at the readers who go to church in submission 
 
 1 Pulci admits that Lucrezia put the pen into his hand : — 
 
 " Perche donna e costi che forse ascolta, 
 Che mi commise questa storia prima." 
 
 {Morgante Maggiore, ch. xxviii. st 2.) 
 
 The Morgante was published for the first time in Florence in 1482. Luigi was the 
 youngest of three brothers (1431-86). Luca Pulci was the author of the Ciriffo 
 Calvaneo, published about 1490, reprinted by Audin in Florence, 1832, and of the 
 Driadeo a" Amore. Bernardo Pulci wrote burlesque poems. On the origin of Pulci's 
 poetry, see G. Paris, Histoire PoHique de Charlemagne, Paris, 1865, and P. Raina, 
 Ricerche intorno at Reali di Francia, Bologna, 1872. Cf. Villari, Nic. Mach., 
 i. 220 sq. 
 
 2 Count Boiardo (1430-94), statesman and governor of Reggio, had not time 
 to finish his Orlando Innamorato, which was recast sixty years later by Berni. 
 Bojardo is very superior to Pulci in the variety and novelty of his adventures and 
 in richness of colouring. 
 
LUIGI PULCI. 453 
 
 to a popular error, 1 and at the women who laugh, and are 
 not shocked by anything. Pulci shows us the mirror of the 
 fifteenth century as Sacchetti does that of the fourteenth. 2 The 
 soul, he writes, enters the body like jam enveloped in hot 
 white bread. It is believed that in the other world it will find 
 fig-peckers and plucked ortolans ; but once descended into the 
 black valley, there will be no more singing of alleluias. What- 
 ever there may be serious in the thought is spoiled by the 
 frivolity of form, and nevertheless it was by form that this 
 improviser marked out his place in the history of literature. 
 He enriched the language and perfected the stanza, which 
 with him is lighter than Boccaccio's, and not so low as that of 
 the other rhymers. On this point he was the model for those 
 who came after him. 3 
 
 His verses, like Lorenzo's, were understood and appreciated by 
 everybody, and helped to vindicate the vulgar tongue. They were 
 recited canto after canto, as were those of the old jugglers, for 
 the unfinished poem was of an indefinite length. 4 It was one 
 of the favourite pastimes at the master's table, where the woman 
 who had inspired the poet no longer presided, 5 in those orgies 
 whose excessive freedom was not tempered by the presence of 
 Clarissa Orsini, and other women of this court of commoners. 
 At least they began to understand that literary ideas may be 
 expressed in Italian, and this was proved in different styles by 
 other men of letters. The erudite Landino translated Pliny 
 
 1 Not long afterwards Bandino declared that to get on well in the court of 
 Rome it was necessary to hold some erroneous opinion or dogma, and thus Luther 
 heard a priest celebrating mass say at the moment of consecration : Pants es et 
 pants manebis. We know with what horror Luther left Rome fourteen days after his 
 arrival. See upon him Taine, Philosophie de r Art, i. 177, Paris, 1881, 3rd edit. 
 
 2 See Villari, Nic. Mack., i. 225 ; Gir. Sav., i. 47 ; Cipolla, p. 663 ; Em. Giudici, 
 i. 415 sq. ; Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, ii. 52-55. 
 
 3 This judgment, which would be bold on the part of a Frenchman, is that of 
 Gino Capponi, a very competent judge. See Stor. di Fir., ii. 117. 
 
 4 See Guicciardini, Stor. di Fir., c. ix. vol. iii. p. 86, 90. On the Italian poetry 
 of the day, see Ruth, Histoire de la Poesie Italienne, Leipzig, 1844 ; Ranke, Zur 
 Geschichte der italienischen Poesie, Berlin, 1887. 
 
 5 " Ma non pensai che innanzi al fin morisse." 
 
 (Morg. Magg., ch. xviii. st. 126.) 
 
454 PREDOxMINANCE OF TUSCAN TONGUE. 
 
 the Elder (1456), commented upon Dante in Italian (1481), 
 whom everybody else annotated in Latin, an assured means, 
 especially through printing, of spreading a taste for the divine 
 poet, who until then belonged to the class rich enough to pur- 
 chase manuscripts, or intimate enough with the learned to 
 borrow them. Avoiding the too frequent trivialities of Pulci 
 and Lorenzo, Landino was the first to make a noble use of the 
 tongue — a signal service and an important conquest. These 
 divergent efforts recall the aim of the sixteenth century in 
 France. Poliziano, seeking the form of Italian poetry in 
 Greek and Latin authors, reminds us of Ronsard ; Lorenzo 
 and Pulci, of Malherbe collecting old French words on the 
 Place Maubert and on the market-place ; Landino reminds us 
 of so many writers who, revolted by the unrestrained vulgarity 
 in the French language, imposed upon themselves, in order 
 to impose upon others, the rules of a noble and purified style. 
 Only, Landino and Lorenzo were necessary to accomplish the 
 task of Malherbe, who drank at both sources, and made every- 
 thing yield to his authority. 
 
 This parallelism is justified from another point of view. 
 Just as the idiom of the Isle of France invaded the provinces, 
 so did the Florentine idiom. At first Tuscan became Italian 
 by force of circumstances and the attraction of superiority, 
 without any particular person being able to claim honour 
 therefor. In Italy, where dialects and brogues are much more 
 numerous than in France, all those who prided themselves 
 on their learning wrote Florentine, not only in their relations 
 with the magistrates of the Eepublic, but in corresponding one 
 with the other, or in addressing the public of the whole Penin- 
 sula. Tuscan became the common tongue. The despatches 
 of Nicodemo Tranchedini and of his successor, Sacramoro, to 
 their master in Milan were written in Tuscan, as were also 
 those of Aldovrandino Guidoni and of Manfredo Manfredi to 
 their masters in Ferrara, and the histories of the Milanese 
 Bernardino Corio and of Pandolfo Collenuccio, a native of 
 
PREDOMINANCE OF TUSCAN TONGUE. 455 
 
 Pesaro. When Lodovico il Moro wrote his testament, we can 
 see that, in using the dialect of his province, he endeavoured 
 to write Tuscan, and that he was convinced he had succeeded. 1 
 The difference was that the Florentines, as was natural, wrote it 
 the best ; but with the others there is a visible progress from 
 Corio to Collenuccio, 2 and from Tranchedini to Guidoni. If we 
 would understand what further progress there still remained to 
 make, we must read, after the despatches of the " foreigners," 
 those of Francesco della Casa and of Gentile Becchi, under Lo- 
 renzo's son, both good writers, 3 one polished and attic, the other, 
 despite his advanced age, pungent and full of fire. It was not 
 without difficulty, even then, that the inhabitants of the other 
 towns reached their level. When from Ferrara, a literary 
 centre too, Savonarola came to attic Florence, he spoke so 
 badly that the monks laughed at him. 4 He corrected himself 
 later, and learnt the proper use of words without ever acquiring 
 the graces of ordinary speech, in which the Florentines excelled. 
 Only Ariosto succeeded in this, and he alone deserves a place 
 between Berni and Machiavelli. 5 
 
 Time was needed for this. The very predecessors of these 
 two exquisite writers had needed it also. No doubt we can- 
 not compare the despatches of an anterior period, written in 
 studied Latin, with the polished despatches of the end of the 
 fifteenth century ; but place beside them the letters of Binaldo 
 des Albizzi, Ser Lapo Mazzei, and Alessandra Macinghi-Strozzi, 
 and we will realise the progress achieved by the use of the 
 more correct Latin of the Renaissance, which, though no longer 
 used, left its stamp upon the mind, and vindicating its partial 
 
 1 Documents of Italian history copied in Paris by G. Molini, vol. i., at the end, 
 quotation of G. Capponi, ii. 193. 
 
 2 This progress is all the more worthy of remark, as in reality Corio is superior 
 to Collenuccio. 
 
 3 The despatches of Nicodemo Tranchedini are still unedited in Paris, except a 
 few printed by Buser ; those of Aldobrandino Guidoni are in vol. i. of the Atti e 
 mem. ; those of Francesco della Casa and of Gentile Becchi, with others, in vol. i. 
 of M. Desjardin's collection. These will be largely quoted in the following chapter. 
 
 4 Capponi (ii. 194) refers us to Cambi for this fact. I have not found it. 
 
 5 Capponi, ii. 194. 
 
456 DECLINE OF ART. 
 
 defeat, exercised its power where it reigned supreme in the 
 right way — that is, without making its power felt. 1 
 
 Ermolao Barbaro averred that letters owed much to the 
 Florentines, and among them principally to the Medici — among 
 the Medici, above all to Lorenzo. 2 This statement we may 
 accept. Lorenzo proved the sincerity of his love of letters by 
 a constant practice of them. 
 
 In art, for which he displayed no practical taste, and in 
 which he showed himself at best a dilettante, 21 the decline was, 
 on the contrary, visible, 4 though merely accidental, as the six- 
 teenth century proves. Instead of hunting for causes, we 
 should find them in the caprices of nature, which now grants 
 and now refuses, at one time gives us an isolated genius and 
 at others a group according to her fancy ; in the insufficiency 
 of the models, busts, medallions, and slight fragments of little 
 importance exposed in the gardens and museum of the Medici ; 
 in the very dangers of favour, if we must believe Kumohr, as, 
 to please the Meceenas and gain wealth, work was produced 
 hurriedly and with insufficient care. 5 
 
 There are many exceptions, however. Under Cosimo, we 
 
 1 It is not necessary to note here the progress of science at the end of the 
 fifteenth century, because it was unimportant, and true science was not yet quit of 
 the false. See on this subject Roscoe, vol. ii. p. 136 sq., ch. vii., Fr. trans. 
 
 2 Giov. Corsi, Vita del Ficino, published by Bandini, p. 34 ; quotation of 
 Prezziner, i. 137. 
 
 3 Nic. Valori ( Vita Laurent ii, p. 18) speaks of Lorenzo's ecstasies when he was 
 brought any antique remains. Ginguene goes further (iii. 392) ; he holds that 
 his knowledge of art almost equalled that of artists, an assertion it would be 
 difficult to prove. 
 
 4 The following list shows how little the great artists of the fifteenth century can 
 have owed Lorenzo, who was born in 1448 and died in 1492 : — 
 
 Fra B. Angelico, born in 1387, flourished in 1447, died in 1455 
 
 Masaccio, 
 
 >» 
 
 1401 
 
 »> 
 
 1420 
 
 »» 
 
 1428 
 
 Brunelleschi, 
 
 »> 
 
 1377 
 
 >> 
 
 1400 
 
 )> 
 
 1446 
 
 Ghiberti, 
 
 »» 
 
 1378 
 
 >» 
 
 1400 
 
 »> 
 
 1455 
 
 Donatello, 
 
 » j 
 
 1386 
 
 ,, 
 
 1420 
 
 >> 
 
 1466 
 
 Filippo Lippi, 
 
 ,, 
 
 1406? 
 
 »> 
 
 1456 
 
 >> 
 
 1469 
 
 Ghirlandajo, 
 
 ■>t 
 
 1449 
 
 >» 
 
 1474 
 
 »> 
 
 1494 
 
 Botticelli, 
 
 >> 
 
 1447 
 
 >» 
 
 1460 
 
 11 
 
 1510 
 
 The dates of the births and deaths 
 
 are borrowed from the last edition which the 
 
 brothers Milanesihave issued of Vasari, i. 
 
 in-8. 
 
 
 6 Rumohr, ii. 417. 
 
LORENZO NO MEC^ENAS. 457 
 
 have seen that masterpieces were long meditated and slowly 
 executed. Under Lorenzo, Michael Angelo, whose style was 
 formed rather in Rome, where antique masterpieces and whole 
 statues abounded, got his education in Florence from a few 
 reliefs. But if Lorenzo gave an occasional order, such as a 
 monument for Eilippo Lippi at Spoleto and a bust for Giotto 
 at Santa Maria del Fiore, this is hardly a reason to fall into 
 ecstasies, and he certainly cannot be charged with having 
 encouraged great and useful works as much as he ought. Let 
 us give an example. 
 
 If any work was necessary and useful in Florence, it was 
 the completing and decoration of the cathedral which Arnolfo of 
 Cambio and Brunelleschi had not been able to finish. Like 
 Santa Croce and many other churches, it had no facade, and the 
 ugliness of this defect was the more conspicuous as it fronted 
 the admirable Baptistery. In 1 49 1 a pronounced movement 
 of public opinion insisted upon a facade. Designs were sent 
 from all parts. The most skilful masters were commissioned 
 to judge them, and amongst these were such foreigners as 
 Perugino and Luca Signorelli. This proves that it was not a 
 purely local interest, and that at least in art there were no 
 frontiers. The judges met on January 5th. The projects 
 were already classed when the Canon Benci, invited to give 
 his opinion, declared, like a good courtier, that he could not 
 have another than Lorenzo's, who was present, and understood 
 architecture. Bartolommeo Scala and Antonio Malegonella 
 agreed with him. Seeing that an adjournment was desired, 
 Piero Nasi requested that, at any rate, the delay should not be 
 too long. All eyes were turned toward Lorenzo. He praised 
 the projects, but insisted upon the difficulties, and decided for 
 an indefinite adjournment. Piero Machiavelli and Antonio 
 Manetti hastily expressed their assent, and those who dis- 
 agreed maintained a prudent silence. 1 The adjournment was 
 
 1 See the verbal process of this meeting in Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vii. 243. 
 It is curious that Vasari says nothing of this feature, which is so little creditable 
 
458 LORENZO'S THEORIES OF ART. 
 
 for centuries. With our eyes we have seen this hideous facade 
 that Lorenzo might have decorated, but would not. 
 
 His theories upon art deserve no greater approbation. He 
 held a singular opinion for a merchant's son — that only the 
 well-born are capable of reaching perfection in all things, and 
 that in the common class, who work with their hands, and 
 have no leisure to cultivate their minds, thought and real 
 genius are wanting. 1 In compliance with this theory, he 
 disowned the masters of obscure origin who proved him in the 
 wrong ; as, for example, Leonardo da Vinci, sculptor no less 
 than painter, 2 and as such entitled to the patronage of a 
 man who preferred sculpture to painting, preferred even 
 mosaic as fitter for transmitting the memory of the great of 
 the earth. 3 Lorenzo must have held the common class in 
 great contempt, and have been but indifferently able to judge 
 these matters, when such a selfish preference did not help him 
 to secure the services of this great genius at a time when, in 
 defiance of all facts, he regretted that the sculptors were much 
 less numerous than the illustrious painters of the day. 4 
 
 Need we be astonished that idealism vanished in this very 
 real lack of painters ? It calls for elevated minds disdainful 
 of success and self-interest. Now, in art, as in letters, Lorenzo 
 encouraged realistic tendencies. The favoured painters were 
 the realists, the uncompromising realists. In chronological 
 order the first were the brothers Antonio and Piero del 
 Pollajuolo (1433, x 443-98). From their father, a goldsmith, 
 they had acquired precision of line and clearness of surface. 
 Not of the stamp to attempt more, they remained the slaves 
 of their education. They copied bronze far better than nature. 
 
 to Lorenzo. Elsewhere, in Andrea del Sarto's Life (viii. 267), he speaks of the 
 wooden facade of S. M. del Fiore, the architecture of Jacopo Sansovino, painted 
 by Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in -12, vii. 203, Life of Torrigiani, a Florentine sculptor. 
 
 2 We know that he made a statue of Lodovico the Moor for one of the squares 
 of Milan, which was destroyed by Charles VIII.'s soldiers. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 83, Life of Ghirlandajo. 
 
 4 Ibid.) xii. 163, Life of Michael Angelo. See Ranalli, p. 221-224. 
 
ANTONIO POLLAJUOLO. 459 
 
 It was as a goldsmith that Antonio was esteemed, and he was 
 called by his contemporaries " alone in his art." 1 By his 
 nielli, a genre forgotten since antiquity, restored in the four- 
 teenth century, and neglected again when it produced copper 
 engraving, he encouraged, together with Maso Finiguerra, 
 Sandro Botticelli, and Andrea Mantegna, 2 an art too often 
 despised, which has preserved for us many perishable master- 
 pieces of painting. 3 
 
 But Antonio also rendered services to painting, to which 
 his brother confined himself. He was one of those who taught 
 the use of oil in the Florentine school, and his study of the 
 nude by its very excess was an instruction. If Vasari admires 
 too much the swelling veins and the tense muscles in a 
 painted archer who bends with an effort to draw his bow, it 
 was not profitless for art that the two brothers dissected corpses, 
 and this Lorenzo doubtless understood when he encouraged a 
 search for detail. Perhaps he did not realise the draw- 
 back, the sacrifice of the laws of composition, in which 
 consists the superiority of Giofcto and his school. To preserve, 
 together with the minute and faithful reproduction of nature, 
 a sense of selection and the ideal, a greater genius than that 
 of these brothers was necessary, but they possessed at least 
 science and vitality, and they followed Andrea del Castagno, 
 their master, without inspiring regret for his loss. 4 
 
 1 " Unico nell' arte sua" (Letter of the Signory to Domenico Bonsi, orator in 
 Rome, February 13, 1497, in Gaye, i. 340). 
 
 2 Baldinucci, Dec. v. part ii. sect. iii. vol. iii. p. 1-5 ; Rosini, iii. 129 ; Reumont, 
 Tav. Cron. ; Capponi, ii. 175 ; Ranalli, p. 214-216. 
 
 3 Amongst others, Leonardo's Last Supper, already nearly effaced, and Maso- 
 lino's work in the Collegiate Church of Castiglione, between Tradate and Varese, 
 a province of Como. The history of this painting is to-day well known. In the 
 eighteenth century the architect wanted to whiten it, thinking whitewash would 
 produce a better effect. As the system did not work, he dispensed with it, to the 
 general dissatisfaction. In 1843 the frescoes were restored. The Abbe Malvezzi 
 published them in thirty-two lithographic plates, with notes. See Vasari, ed. 
 Lem., in-8, ii. 270 ; Commentary of the Milanesi, with the Life of Masolino. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, v. 90-103 ; Baldinucci, Dec. vi. part ii. sect. iii. vol. 
 iv. p. 19-24; Rosini, iii. 124; Rio, i. 397-399; Rumohr, ii. 302; Leo, ii. 578; 
 Forster, iii. 100, 102, 266 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 386. 
 
460 ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO. 
 
 In turn they were followed by Andrea de Domenico de 
 Cioni, called Verrocchio (1432—88), because he had worked 
 with the goldsmith, Giuliano Verrocchio. 1 Himself gold- 
 smith, sculptor, master of perspective, painter, and musician 
 as well, Andrea del Verrocchio had the advantage over the 
 rest of his school to represent, in a modest way, the union of 
 art and science that his disciple, Leonardo da Vinci, soon after 
 represented in the highest degree. It is no small praise for 
 che master of this great genius that good judges should be 
 able to attribute his pupil's drawings to him. 2 If their style 
 is similar, and if this style is admired in the disciple, may we 
 not admire it in the master, and recognise in him the original 
 upon which the other modelled himself ? Nobody denies that 
 Verrocchio imitated bronze too closely, 3 that in modelling 
 death's heads, the better to reproduce life, he did not feel that 
 life ceases with suffering and decomposition. But he taught 
 Leonardo to study conscientiously the laws of anatomy, and, 
 thanks to him, his pupil acquired, in the reproduction of 
 organic forms, a surety of touch, a delicacy and depth of 
 expression, until then unknown. 4 
 
 This shows us the path by which art escaped from the 
 tyranny of realism that followed Masaccio. There were two 
 currents, for the inheritance of conquerors is ever divided. 
 On the one side was Filippo Lippi, who, in the reproduction of 
 the real, preserved movement, action, and expression ; on the 
 other, Cosimo Rosselli, whose inspiration was commonplace, 
 and whose execution was heavy, if vigorous. If Rosselli is one 
 of the last painters of the preceding period, 5 it was in this 
 
 1 Del Migliore, Rijlessioni al Vasari, MS. Magliab., quoted by Milanesi in 
 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 139, n. 3. 
 
 2 Such is the case with Crowe and Cavalcaselle (iii. 405), who declare that 
 Lorenzo de' Credi, another disciple of Verrocchio, places them in the same difficulty. 
 
 3 See his tombs of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici at San Lorenzo. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 139-155 ; Baldinucci, Dec. v. part ii. sect. iii. vol. 
 iv. p. 25-29; Ranalli, p. 211 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 401-403 ; Forster, iii. 
 HO-115. 
 
 5 Rosselli, born in 1439, made his will in 1506. He was hardly thirty when 
 Cosimo died. 
 
BOTTICELLI. 461 
 
 period that he became an oracle, not through his sacred pic- 
 tures, wherein he imitated Angelico without suavity or delicacy, 1 
 but through those in which he made excessive use of gold and 
 crude colours. A sorry oracle nevertheless. In invention and 
 design 2 he is the most insignificant of the painters who deco- 
 rated the Sistine Chapel. 3 
 
 Like Andrea del Verrocchio, Sandro de Mariano Filipepi 
 took the name of the goldsmith with whom he worked, and in 
 the history of art is known as Sandro Botticelli (1447— 1515); 
 and like him, too, he lacked unity, and worked to suit the 
 variable taste of those who paid him well. Following old 
 Buffalmacco in coarse pleasantries 4 and Filippo Lippi in 
 painting, he borrowed from the latter, if not his able composi- 
 tion, at least his expression of feeling, in which, after Lippi's 
 death, he was regarded as superior to his contemporaries. 5 
 But, incapable of flying far upon his own wings, he returned 
 to the style of the goldsmith-painters, and learnt from Polla- 
 juoli and Verrocchio to school his imagination, his fire, and 
 his hand, 6 until he became a fanatic follower of Savonarola, 
 when he abandoned and cried shame upon his art. 
 
 He was followed in this uncertain path by his principal 
 disciple, Filippo Lippi (1460— 1505), son of the Carmelite 
 Filippo Lippi and the novice Lucrezia Buti, whose scandalous 
 
 1 Some of Rosselli's pictures have been attributed to Angelico, chiefly his 
 Coronation of the Virgin at Santa Maria Maddalena des Pazzi (Rio, i. 423). Crowe 
 and Cavalcaselle regard Rosselli as a very distant substitute of Angelico. 
 
 2 Vasari says alternately that Rosselli drew well and badly. See ed. Lem. , v. 
 2 7> 3 1 * 3 2 - The brothers Milanesi point out this contradiction. 
 
 3 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 118 sq. ; trans. Jeanron, iii. 165 ; Baldinucci, Dec. 
 v. part ii. sect. iii. vol. iv. p. 6-9 ; Roscoe, chap. ix. trans., vol. ii. p. 236 ; Rio, i. 
 423 ; Eug. Muntz, Un Mecene Italien au XV e Steele {Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 November 1, 1881, p. 161) ; Rumohr, ii. 265, 272 ; Leo, ii. 213, 577 ; Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, ii. 520, 522. 
 
 4 See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 118 sq. 
 
 6 Vasari, Vie de Fil. Lippi, ed. Lem., in-12, iv. 129. 
 
 6 See the Adoration of the Wise Men, ordered by the Medici for S. M. Novella, 
 and his History of Moses, which Rumohr (ii. 272) regards as a masterpiece of 
 execution and expression ; Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 1 10-127 ; Baldinucci, Dec. 
 viii. part ii. sect. iii. vol. iv. p. 60-65 ; Rosini, iii. 1 26-1 31 ; Ranalli, p. 253 ; 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 415-419 ; Rumohr, ii. 272 ; Forster, iii. 301. 
 
462 GHIRLANDAJO. 
 
 story has been related by Yasari. With such a father he did 
 not confine himself to a study of his master, and the examples 
 of the former helped him to surpass the latter. A good 
 colourist, Filippino excelled in miniature, in portraits, and 
 landscape, despite his eccentricities. He was above all a 
 decorator for public feasts, an important function under the dis- 
 sipated and extravagant rule of Lorenzo. This decorator was, 
 as well as the painters whom we have mentioned, a painter of the 
 decadence, and of a very visible and advanced decadence too. 1 
 
 It was necessary, however, to notice them, if only to mark 
 the difference between this period and the preceding. But 
 its greatest product, the only one who stamps in a mea- 
 sure the Florentine school, was Domenico de Tommaso Curradi 
 de DofFo Bigordi, whose interminable name has been replaced 
 for posterity by his graceful surname, Ghirlandajo (1449-98). 2 
 A jeweller's son, like so many other artists, he was brought 
 up as a goldsmith, and likewise was under the influence of 
 sculpture in bronze, but he was better able to assert his 
 independence. Exact and vigorous, he felt the need as well 
 as the power of creation, and he understood that creation must 
 depend upon the past. In his studies, he went back as far 
 as Giotto, returned to the great laws of composition, which his 
 contemporaries neglected, and by observing them he reached the 
 unity the others lacked. Thus, though inferior to Giotto, 
 he took up his work, and profited by all that had inter- 
 vened. He learnt perspective and proportion, and light and 
 shade, from the architects. He applied the laws of chiaro- 
 oscuro to the human body as well as to its surroundings ; by 
 aerial perspective he completed the progress of Uccello and 
 Piero de la Francesca 3 in linear perspective, the last victory 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 242-263 ; Roscoe, chap, ix., trans., vol. ii. p. 232 ; 
 Rosini, iii. 131, 133; Ranalli, p. 258; Rio, i. 389, 421 ; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
 ii. 352 ; Rumohr, ii. 272 ; Leo, ii. 577 ; Forster, iii. 328. 
 
 2 Or rather Del Grillandajo, either because he manufactured garlands or his 
 father sold them. 
 
 3 Piero de la Francesca, born 141 5 to 1420, still alive in 1494, was so pene- 
 
GHIRLANDAJO. 463 
 
 to be won by the technique of painting. In addition, he took 
 from the school of Masaccio lessons in beauty, dignity, and 
 truth. He did not even disdain to study Baldovinetti, whose 
 influence we can perceive in his work. 1 
 
 Thanks to these conscientious studies and to such wide 
 attainments, he resembled that rare personage, an eclectic, 
 who preserves his own originality ; he appropriated preceding 
 conquests, and attained in all its perfection the virile and tem- 
 perate style which is distinctively Florentine. He never rises 
 to the sublime ; he knows neither the flights of Masaccio nor 
 the splendour of Lippi, but his charm is irresistible. For his 
 contemporaries this charm was, above all, displayed in the por- 
 traits that he drew with fidelity, and painted with such truth 
 and energy of expression, as suggest a talent not far from 
 genius. Even in our days we are still interested in the 
 Florentine society, long since evanished, but revived upon these 
 walls, with its costumes as faithful to the truth as unsuitable 
 to the subjects treated, an anachronism which must be accepted 
 in the whole Italian school. 2 History may be obdurate upon the 
 subject, but art criticism, more tolerant, is under the charm of 
 the incontestable merits of this attractive painter : the lively and 
 varied expression of the heads, the natural amplitude of the gar- 
 ments, the nobility of composition, and, since he insisted on 
 disdaining the use of oil, his painting in distemper, which has 
 withstood the test of centuries. 3 In the qualities wherein 
 
 trated by the spirit of the Florentine school that he may be regarded as of it, 
 although he belonged to Borgo San Sepolcro, as he had many of its great qualities. 
 He is a link in the chain which joins Leonardo and Fra Bartolommeo to Peselli and 
 Baldovinetti. See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, iv. 13-24; Rio, i. 405; Ranalli, p, 
 174; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 530. 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., Vie de Baldwin., iv. 105 ; Vie de Ghirland., v. 73-83. 
 
 2 This is how we owe to Ghirlandajo the faithful and life-like portraits of the 
 Medici, of Gentile Becchi, Lorenzo's tutor, of Cristoforo Landino, Poliziano, 
 Marsilio Ficino, Ginerva des Benci, and others. From infancy he drew flying 
 likenesses of passers-by. 
 
 3 Painting in distemper is a sort of water-colour upon a dry ground, whereas 
 the fresco is executed on cool stucco, a buon fr:sco. Ghirlandajo hardly ever 
 retouched his work. See Delaborde, i. 1 10. 
 
464 RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS. 
 
 he excels, and in which he perfected himself with age, only 
 one other superseded him, and that was his pupil, Michael 
 Angelo ; and to have formed such a pupil is certainly not 
 the least of his merits. 2 
 
 The chief of the reigning school was still in the plenitude 
 of power when, toward 1480, there broke out a serious and 
 dangerous crisis in art. Lorenzo had not had the will nor 
 the power to give to painting and sculpture the exclusively 
 pagan direction, as his well-known ideas would have us believe. 
 But he had other ideas which have been ignored, designedly or 
 not, lest they might disturb the folds of the robe artificially 
 draped to preserve the unity of the personage, and throw dust 
 in the eyes of posterity. Like the rest of his family, Lorenzo 
 was quite ready to encourage religious art and to order reli- 
 gious pictures. How often has the subject of the Epiphany 
 been treated by command of the Medici ! Botticelli and Ghir- 
 landajo introduced the family into their paintings as the wise 
 men of the East or Oriental kings. 8 Filippo Lippi, still more 
 of a courtier, painted a page holding a royal crown over 
 Lorenzo's head, the only thing lacking to his sovereignty. 4 
 The wealthy popolani were not more exclusive. One of them, 
 in 1 48 1, undertook to decorate the Church of Sant' Agostino 
 at San Gemignano, confided the choir to Benozzo Gozzoli, and 
 ordered Antonio Pollajuolo to paint a coronation of the Virgin. 5 
 
 1 See his Saint Jerome and his Last Supper in the convent of Ognissanti(i48o), 
 his frescoes in the Sassetti chapel at Santa Trinita (1485), and those of the choir 
 of S. M. Novella (1490). These last are really admirable. 
 
 2 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 65-89; Baldinucci, Dec. viii. part ii. sect. iii. vol. 
 iv. p. 54-59 ; Rosini, iii. 140 ; Ranalli, p. 250-252 ; Rumohr, Leo, ii. 577 ; 
 Forster, iii. 359-375 ; Crowe, ii. 460-462 ; Rio, i. 402-409 ; Eug. MUntz, Un 
 Me'cene, &c, p. 161 ; Taine, Voy. en Italie, ii. 148 ; La Philosophic de PArt, ii. 
 395. MM. Crowe and Cavalcaselle carry their admiration for Ghirlandajo to 
 enthusiasm. M. Taine is severe, even to injustice. With the exception of 
 Michael Angelo, he treats most of the painters, to Raphael, as he once treated the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 3 See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 115, on the subject of Botticelli's Epiphany, 
 lost to-day. 
 
 « Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 251, and n. 5, 
 5 Rio, i. 397, 
 
PAGANISM IN ART. 465 
 
 The churches continued to be the chief resort of unbelievers 
 as well as of the faithful, and to set up for a Mecaenas in this 
 way was for the monied class a means of aggrandisement, 
 and for the aristocrats, or would-be princes, an opportunity to 
 impress their own features upon their countrymen, who were 
 likely to become their subjects. It was merely an exception 
 when a few dared to ornament the places of sacred worship 
 with pictures representing pagan or familiar scenes. 
 
 This eclecticism of the Pagans did not, of course, prevent 
 Paganism from predominating in art. Even the religious 
 painters aided the general tendency in this respect by their 
 ignorance or their disdain of the technical progress accom- 
 plished in painting, and the heads of the Church thrust the 
 public taste down the slope. At a time when Bembo, a Pope's 
 secretary and a future cardinal, spoke of "the hero Jesus 
 Christ " and " the virgin goddess," we need not be surprised 
 that Philaretus sculptured the loves of Jupiter and Leda upon 
 the very gates of the Vatican. 1 
 
 But this freedom was none the less a license, and the 
 custom was an abuse. Hence a religious reaction, which broke 
 out when circumstances were favourable. The death of three 
 or four of the naturalist painters whom public admiration had 
 invested with an uncontrolled authority left the field free. The 
 want of unity so visible in Botticelli and Rosselli, imitators 
 now of Angelico, and now of Andrea del Castagno, indicate a 
 growing revolution. Ghirlandajo, though he was not an 
 idealist, did not fall into Pagan realism. Perugino, fed upon 
 the precepts of the Florentine school by Piero de la Francesca, 
 and a pupil, at Florence, of Andrea del Verrocchio, preserved 
 his natural aptitude for religious painting, which made him the 
 favourite painter in convents. In this town, so long given 
 to scoff at religious matters, many of the people remained 
 
 1 Ch. Yriarte, Florence, Paris, 1881, and Revtce (Us Detix Alondes, October 15, 
 1880, p. 817. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 G 
 
466 VANDALISM OF SAVONAROLA. 
 
 under the influence of the monks, and shared their indigna- 
 tion at the obscenities, and even the nudities of art. A 
 naked Charity of Andrea del Castagna painted on a door was 
 destroyed by the neighbours. 1 Certain frescoes of Santa 
 Croce were in like manner outraged, because they repre- 
 sented several scenes of the Passion with a crudity that 
 shocked popular piety. The heads and arms of the Jews dis- 
 appeared. " They imagined," says Vasari, " they were thus 
 avenging our Lord." 2 
 
 Savonarola was destined to bring about a general and 
 regular upheaval of these feelings by his ardent exhortations. 
 It will be seen farther on that he damaged art cruelly by 
 flinging to the flames all nude and frivolous works, having 
 for accomplices many painters among his friends, some 
 of whom brought their own pictures to be burnt. 3 These 
 transient fanatics renounced for a time the art by which they 
 lived, though none of them belonged to the seraphic school of 
 Angelico, all, on the contrary, being more or less realists. 
 But what is worthy of remark here is, that the brutality of this 
 reaction was not necessary to restore Christian art, and that 
 in fact it did not in the least restore it. It was under Cosimo, 
 and not under Lorenzo or subsequently, that this art reached 
 its climax, and consequently entered the era of decline. The 
 Dominican innovator had, doubtless, on this subject the 
 ideas of a spiritualist and a Catholic. He believed that 
 beauty proceeds from proportion, and proportion from the 
 soul ; 4 but in blaming the painters for arraying the Virgin in 
 splendid attire instead of painting her poorly clad, as more 
 natural, 5 was he quite exempt from the contagion of realism ? 
 At heart he only wanted one thing, both from art and from 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, iv. 150. 
 
 2 J bid., iv. 144. 
 
 3 Ibid., vii. 153, Vie de Paccio della Porta. 
 
 4 Pred. 28 sop. Ezechiel, Venice, 1520, and Villari, i. 472. 
 
 5 Pred. sop. Amos e Zaccaria, Saturday after second Sunday in Lent, in Villari, 
 i- 473- 
 
SIMONE DEL POLLAJUOLO. 467 
 
 poetry, that neither should interfere with his moral reform, 1 but 
 this he so strongly desired, that, despite universal complaints, 
 in 1498 he renewed the auto-da-ft of 1497. 2 
 
 As for his friends, who, being carried away, had burnt the 
 works which they doubtless loved, we have only to examine 
 those of their pictures which were painted afterwards, or which, 
 as not containing nudities, escaped the flames, to recognise that 
 faith did not bring them back to the Christian traditions of art. 
 Botticelli, as we have seen, was far from being an innovator ; 
 the Delia Robbia followed to the best of their ability in the 
 profane path of their uncle and great- uncle ; no sign of 
 Christian faith is to be seen in the remarkable works of 
 Simone del Pollajuolo (145 7- 1508), whom the Florentines 
 scoffingly called the Cronaca, because of the chronicles or 
 stories he unceasingly painted of the Romans. 3 He has the 
 merits befitting an artist of the Renaissance. . He continued 
 the building of the Strozzi Palace, which had been begun with 
 the coarse roughness of ancient Florentine architecture, and the 
 upper portions, which were his, so far from recalling the Etruscan 
 or cyclopean style, as the under parts and the Pitti Palace, are 
 of a supreme elegance. They display the progress of a taste 
 acquired by a study of antique art, and at the same time the 
 substitution of grace for strength, the sign of a new age. 4 
 
 1 See his ideas on poetry in his Opus perutile de divisione ac utilitate scien- 
 tiarum : in poeticen apologeticus, Venice, 1542. The analysis may be found in 
 Villari, i. 474-480. 
 
 2 See Pred. 10 sop. Ezechiel, at the end, February 9, 1497, and our Jer. 
 Savonarole, i. 253. 
 
 3 See the hall of the Grand Council, the sacristy of San Spirito, the church of 
 San Francesco on the hill of San Miniato, which Machiavelli called la sua villanella, 
 and the Strozzi Palace which he built for Filippo Strozzi, son of that Alessandra 
 Macinghi whose letters we have so often quoted when writing of the period 
 anterior to the Medici. Filippo, exiled to Naples, was so lucky in trade as to 
 furnish the king, Ferrante, with money in his war against the barons. Wishing 
 to pay his debt without opening his purse, Ferrante obtained from Lorenzo 
 Filippo's recall, who henceforth continued to amass wealth in Florence, where he 
 died in 1 491, leaving orders for his heirs to continue his palace under pain of for- 
 feiting their inheritance. This palace is, however, still unfurnished. See Ranalli, 
 p. 199. Cronaca's Life is in Vasari, ed. Lem., vol. viii. 
 
 4 Perhaps it is not out of place in a history of Florence to state that the finely 
 
468 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Architecture had still a period of prosperity with Bene- 
 detto de Majano (1442—98), pupil of Brunelleschi and of 
 Michelozzi, 1 with Mino de Fiesole, Desiderio de Settignano, 
 the two San Gallo, 2 and the two Rossellini. At Santa Croce 
 may be seen Bernardo Rossellini's superb tomb of Leonardo 
 Bruni, in striking contrast with those of Michael Angelo, 
 Galileo, and others, to the dishonour of this funeral basilica, 
 and this same architect furnished the first plans and directed 
 the early building of St. Peter's in Rome. 3 But the decline 
 began to appear with Andrea Contucci of San Savino (1460— 
 1529). This servile imitator of antiquity even excused himself 
 for a defect in the columns he built by pointing out a similar 
 one in those of the Pantheon. 4 Truly it was not the decline, 
 but the end. After Lorenzo's death all love of the great and 
 beautiful died among the architects. At the beginning of a 
 period of troubles that might be prolonged, they emigrated, 
 seeking lucrative employment for their talents in more peace- 
 ful towns. 5 
 
 The painters were not to a similar extent driven to emigra- 
 tion. The finest masterpieces cost infinitely less than the least 
 important edifices. All the same, if art continued to prosper in 
 Florence, it was due to the two great geniuses who rank with 
 the highest without having enjoyed Lorenzo's capricious patron- 
 
 wrought iron of the Strozzi Palace was the work of a smith who was an artist in 
 spite of his rough ways, Niccolo Grosso, surnamed Caparra, because he insisted 
 upon an earnest before undertaking any work. He was called the last of the 
 Republicans, because one day when working for some poor people, and Lorenzo 
 came in person to order some iron, he refused to do anything for him until he had 
 finished what he had begun for the poor people before the lord had come, and 
 whose money was as good as his. See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, viii. 119. 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, v. 128-138. 
 
 2 Giuliano de San Gallo (1443-1534) gave Lorenzo and the Duke of Calabria 
 plans for palaces ; he built for Lorenzo the conven tofS an Gallo . and for Giuliano 
 Gondi, a merchant returned from abroad with great wealth, a palace in front of 
 San Firenze. See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, vii. 209-228; Ranalli, p. 203. 
 
 3 See Ranalli, p. 207; Rio, i. 441-452; Jeanron, hi. 119; Fil. Moise, Santa 
 Croce di Fii'cnze, Florence, 1845. 
 
 4 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, viii. 121-173; Ranalli, p. 205. 
 
 5 Ranalli, p. 203. 
 
LEONARDO DA VINCI 469 
 
 age, Leonardo da Yinci and Fra Bartolommeo della Porta. 
 Fra Bartolommeo was easily consoled for this neglect, as his 
 religious feeling opened to him the horizon of a higher ideal. 
 Leonardo, who had not the same resource, was wounded by 
 the master's neglect and the absence of all commissions, and 
 soon made up his mind to go away. He only returned to 
 Tuscany later by accident, and left none of his works there. 1 
 Leo X., in Rome, was no kinder to him than his father, 
 Lorenzo, 2 and it was only in Lodovico il Moro and Francis 
 I. that this marvellous genius found justice, tact, and taste. 
 
 Educated by Andrea del Verrocchio, but head and shoulders 
 above his master, a man of science, an engineer, architect, 
 sculptor, and painter, he created a precise theory of anatomy, 
 while he had an accurate knowledge of the laws of line, he 
 showed his sense of reality by the firmness of his drawing, and to 
 this he joined the primitive simplicity of the religious painters, 
 and noble aspirations toward the ideal. He set a seal upon 
 the Florentine art of Peselli, the Uccelli, and the Pollajuoli, 
 but with an originality lacking in them. His patient work 
 united strength and grace — a rare gift. We may almost say 
 that he was Michael Angelo and Raphael in one, and cer- 
 tainly his work had more grace than the one and more strength 
 than the other. This marvellous painter of vapoury perspec- 
 tives, distinguished for his elegant finish of design and 
 modelling, his profound and melancholy expression, could, like 
 Shakespeare, whom he thus resembles, drop from his altitude 
 to the lowest degree of caricature. As for his incomparable 
 " Supper," which he began in 1496, the subject of which had 
 
 1 Leonardo left Florence for Milan in 1483. We hardly know what he did 
 before thirty. Probably he studied, for he was more ardent in study than in pro- 
 duction, which ought to explain his disfavour with the Medici. His Medusa's 
 head in the Uffizi is about all that remains of his early sojourn in his country. 
 
 a In Vasari we find a contemptuous phrase of Leo X. upon Leonardo's method 
 of working: " Costui non e per far nulla da che comincia a pensare alia fine 
 innanzi al principio dell' opera." The painter had begun a work ordered by the 
 Pope, "con stillare olii e erbe per far la vernice " (Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vii. 
 35, Life of Leonardo). 
 
47© FRA BARTOLOMMEO. 
 
 been abandoned since Giotto's time, it was a new creation, 
 and one of the masterpieces of art, the work of a brush that 
 never knew decline, and never committed a graver error than 
 that of squandering itself. 1 
 
 Leonardo honoured Florentine art, from which he spraug 
 rather than represented it, for he had genius enough to 
 carve a path for himself. The real and last representative of 
 this art under Lorenzo, and even after him, was Bartolommeo 
 or Baccio della Porta (1469-15 17), who, an ardent ad- 
 herent of Savonarola, of whom he has left us a masterly- 
 portrait, became a Dominican after his idol's death to save his 
 soul. 2 A disciple of Cosimo Kosselli, he preferred, like his 
 comrade and friend, Mariotto Albertinelli, 3 the models left by 
 Masaccio and Lippi, Orcagna, and even Giotto, to ancient bas- 
 reliefs and statues ; he went back as far as Giotto, and by 
 this, with Leonardo and Ghirlandajo, formed one of the links 
 in the chain which unites the early painters with Michael 
 Angelo. If he does not reach their height and lacks their 
 fire, at least he belongs to the same family. 
 
 As clever in large compositions as in portraits, 4 he is 
 admired for the beauty of his arrangement, the simplicity of 
 his method, the clearness of his outlines, the strength of his 
 figures, the calmness of expression, the understanding of per- 
 spective and exact proportions, the correct drawing, and the 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vii. 1 1-79 ; Amoretti, Memorie Storiche su Leonardo da 
 Vinci, Milan, 1804, reproduced in German by Gallemberg, but without criticism 
 or addition. Milanese says it is the best work on Leonardo. Crowe, iii. 172-174, 
 121 ; Rio, 38-129 ; Leo, ii. 578. On Leonardo in France, Leon de Laborde, La 
 Renaissance des Arts a la Cour de Francois Ler^ and Rio, iii. 188. 
 
 2 This portrait belonged to a Florentine poet, M. Ermolao Rubieri, who, in 
 1 85 1, allowed me to have a copy of it made, and who bequeathed it to the convent 
 of San Marco, where it is to-day. 
 
 3 Albertinelli (1475-1520?) was a partisan of the Medici. For a time separated 
 from Baccio by politics, they were reconciled later, and he became his disciple in 
 painting. See Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, vii. 180-187; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
 iii. 181-183. 
 
 4 See his fresco of the Last Judgment at S. M. Nuova, and without referring 
 again to his Savonarola, the admirable Saint Marc in the Pitti palace, which is 
 rather a picture than a portrait. 
 
FRA BARTOLOMMEO. 471 
 
 sober and transparent colouring, which does not diminish too 
 much the brilliancy of the Venetian school. Though devout, 
 he painted his Madonnas naked before robing them, and this 
 is why, beneath the draped garments, he accentuated the 
 human body so excellently. He united the Christian purity 
 of the old masters to the Pagan beauty of the new, and kept 
 both within the just limits of a grave and noble decorum 
 without returning to hieratic art. More than any one else 
 he combined the views and qualities of the masters he could 
 not equal. He owed his piety and simple habits to Savona- 
 rola ; to Leonardo his turn of mind, as his tendency to make 
 a foil of the real for the ideal ; to Michael Angelo his impos- 
 ing style, and to Raphael and Angelico his grace, He was 
 perhaps even a greater eclectic than Ghirlandajo, but 
 he appropriated what he borrowed and preserved his indi- 
 viduality without incurring the reproach of servility. The 
 marvellous mixture of refined taste and acquired science in 
 Florentine art was personified in this monk, and has no re- 
 presentative who sums it up with a rarer union of diverse 
 qualities. 1 
 
 For the moment I will end with Fra Bartolommeo. Our 
 only interest in speaking of Lorenzo de' Credi (145 9- 1537) 
 is to show how the grandson of the goldsmith Oderigo de' 
 Credi, who left such useful Bicordi, 2 was but the imitator of 
 Leonardo and Perugino, his fellow-pupils, and of Fra Barto- 
 lommeo, his contemporary ; how this follower of Savonarola, 
 who flung his works into the flames, showed his inferiority 
 by a too minute regard for detail, 3 and how cold he is when 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vii. 150-179; Marchese, Memorie dei pih Insigni 
 Pittori, &c. , Domenicani, ii. 405 ; Baldinucci, Dec. ix. part ii. sect. iii. vol. 
 iv. p. 82-89; Capponi, ii. 174; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 181-183, 427-436; 
 Taine, Voy. en Italie, ii. 181 ; Rio, Leonard de Vinci et son Ecole, Paris, 1855 ; 
 Ch. Clement, Michel- Aitge, Leonard, Raphael, Paris, 1 861 ; G. Gruyer, Barto- 
 lommeo della Porta e Mariotto Albertinelli, in-4, Paris, 1887. 
 
 2 These Records are in vol. iv. of the Arch. Stor. Ltal., 1st ser. We have 
 quoted them more than once in the preceding volumes. 
 
 3 " La qual troppa estrema diligenza non era forse piu lodevole punto che si sia 
 una strema negligenza" (Vasari, ed. Lem., in-12, viii. 208). 
 
472 MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 compared with Perugino, how feeble compared with Leonardo. 1 
 It was not he, but Andrea del Sarto (1488-1534) and Michael 
 Angelo (1475— 1564), above all, who crowned the Florentine 
 school. 2 But they both belonged to a subsequent period. 3 At 
 the end of the fifteenth century their authority was not yet 
 great enough to render ridiculous by force of contrast the 
 obstinacy of a few in painting after a style anterior to Masaccio, 
 and mistaking stiffness for grace and coldness for simplicity. 4 
 The Sistine Chapel, entirely due to the Florentines, if we 
 except the part which Perugino can claim, was needed for the 
 measure of the great Buonarroti to be taken. He inspired a 
 sort of religious terror by the grand and the colossal, and 
 nobly represented divine power with the restrained resources 
 of art, and appeared, as has been said, " like an eagle in the 
 midst of little birds," damaging even Raphael's reputation. 5 
 But we must first recognise that the little birds cut no con- 
 temptible figure until the eagle eclipsed them. Afterwards 
 he soared too high to be imprisoned in the Florentine school, 
 a cage too narrow for this bird of swift flight, who would have 
 broken all its bars. The school could not even follow him, 
 save in his weaknesses, that bound him to solid earth, or 
 rather in his violent exaggerations, which, for the profit of the 
 decadence, broke away from the traditions of harmony due to 
 Brunelleschi. 6 
 
 1 Vasari, ed. Lem., in-8, viii. 202-210; Crowe, iii. 405 ; Villari, i. 470, note. 
 
 2 One of Michael Angelo's chief masters was Luca Signorelli of Cortona (born 
 towards 141 1, died after 1524), pupil of Piero de la Francesca, whom he greatly 
 admired. See upon Signorelli, Vasari, ed. Lem., in- 12, vi. 136-158 ; Ranalli, p. 
 
 255-257- 
 
 3 Michael Angelo's name began to be on everybody's lips in 1511, when Leon- 
 ardo returned to Florence. See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, iii. 221. 
 
 4 Rosini, iii. 146. 
 
 5 Ibid., 147. The sculptor Etex relates that when he admired Michael Angelo 
 in the Sistine Chapel he was filled with pity for Raphael, an unjust feeling which 
 has not escaped M. Taine. But he adds, that afterwards continuing a copy of 
 Raphael, he asked his pardon for having undervalued him. See Etex, Conferences 
 a rEcole des Beaux- Arts. 
 
 6 See Delaborde, i. 96 ; Leo, ii. 584. A library might have been made of all 
 that has been written upon Michael Angelo. We will return to the subject else- 
 where, and only name a few. Aurelio Goti, M. A. Buonarroti, Florence, 1875 ; 
 
THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 473 
 
 But Florentine art had its day of splendour. If it can be 
 said of Florence that she was the Mecca of artists and the 
 Athens of Italy, it was because the universality of genius and 
 talent that honoured her prove the greatness of her school. 
 In this they were true disciples of Greece, who gave the name 
 of architect- sculptors to artists. Andrea del Castagno and 
 his pupils brought painting nearer to sculpture, as Ghiberto 
 and his school brought sculpture nearer to painting. Peselli 
 and Baldovinetti innovated if they did not perfect, and Polla- 
 juoli and Andrea del Verrocchio enlarged the new method. 
 Alberti, Leonardo, and Michael Angelo based art upon science, 
 enriched it by sentiment, and thus pushed and carried it to the 
 apex. They were all Florentines, as were Cimabue and Giotto, 
 who renewed the art of painting, and Orcagna and Masaccio, by 
 whom it made such strides toward perfection, and Ghirlandajo 
 and Bartolommeo, who pursued its successful development. 
 
 The rage of the public everywhere accepted the lessons of 
 Florence, the good as well as the bad, the errors of Pollajuoli 
 and Verrocchio no less avidly than the wisdom of Fra Barto- 
 lommeo, Leonardo's vitality, and Michael Angelo's boldness. 
 Upon all sides the Florentines were asked to make tombs 
 and statues ; for Venice, Donatello ' made an equestrian 
 Gattamelata, and Verrocchio a Picinnio. Florentines set up 
 the statues of Sforza, Borso, and Colleoni. Their genius 
 reigned at Sienna, Urbino, Ferrara, Eimini, Mantua, and 
 Padua, and even to some extent in Venice, which, nevertheless, 
 had its own particular art. 
 
 The Florentines deserved this favour so general and so 
 lasting. They did not limit themselves to the condition of 
 pompous decorators ; they were simple and true, learned and 
 
 a speech of Augusto Conti, VAninio del Buonarroti in Atti della R. Accademia 
 della Crusca, 1875-76, Florence, 1876, p. 5-31 ; Nagler, Michel Angelo Buon- 
 arroti ah Kiinstler, Munich, 1836 ; Hermann Grimm, Leben Michel Angela's, 
 Berlin, 1862. Rio has extracted from his work on VArt Chretien a volume en- 
 titled Michel-Ange et Raphael, Paris, 1867 ; Ch. Clement, Michel- Ange, Leonard, 
 Raphael, Paris, 1861. 
 
474 ART AND DEMOCRACY. 
 
 strong, and they hid their science and force under their grace. 
 Energetic but sober, proud but elegant, they exercised dis- 
 cretion in drawing and in colour. They possessed measure, 
 balance, taste, and delicacy ; they restored to honour that 
 selection, so long neglected, which imparts harmony, makes for 
 the ideal, and which until then was the exclusive glory of the 
 Greeks. This marvellous union of faculties, these flights towards 
 the best, which shows a world superior to ours, are henceforth the 
 honour of the Florentines ; an admirable work of concentration, 
 which was little by little accomplished under various rulers. 1 
 
 If we except the hours of convulsion and the pauses in 
 which productive nature seems to doze, the democracy, the 
 oligarchy, and the disguised monarchy can each claim its 
 part in this evolution. Giotto and his great school flourished 
 under the democracy ; under the oligarchy were born, grew, 
 and flourished those men of genius whose efforts were crowned 
 under the quasi-monarchical government of Cosimo. 
 
 On the other hand, we must admit that art began to wane 
 under Lorenzo, as his domination inclined more and more to 
 declared monarchy. If a little later it lifted itself to still 
 unknown heights, it was on the eve of, in the midst of, or just 
 after the revolution that for the moment overthrew the Medici. 
 Finally, it was after the restoration of the Medici, become 
 grand-dukes, and consequently absolute monarchs, after 1530, 
 that the irredeemable decline set in. 
 
 Let us then cease to believe in the necessity, if not in 
 the utility, of Mecsenas. He is only necessary to architects 
 whose conceptions go beyond the narrow limits of private 
 buildings ; but then the state, whatever its form, can fill the 
 role. Aristocratic Venice and democratic Florence both proved 
 this, in spite of commercial preoccupations, the expenses of 
 
 1 Leo, enthusiastic about the Medici, whose suppression of the Republic he 
 approves, tries to lower Florentine art to increase the importance of the services 
 rendered by them to this art, and to do so he pits Sienna against it (ii. 222). If 
 he had carried back his reflection to earlier times, he would always have seen 
 the same difference between Florence and Sienna, for this was fundamental, and 
 depended neither upon accident nor family, nor on two or three men. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE MEDICI ON ART. 475 
 
 war, and the troubles of public life. Everything depends 
 upon habit. We can accustom ourselves to the troublous 
 emotions of free existence as to heat and cold, for everything 
 is relative in this world. Perhaps even, the agitations of a 
 free commonwealth are fitter to awaken and excite intelligence 
 than the dull tranquillity of servitude. 
 
 The period in which Lorenzo is the chief actor is parti- 
 cularly overrated in all that concerns art. Leonardo lived 
 abroad, and Michael Angelo came later. In letters also the 
 movement toward erudition dates farther back, and was then 
 but a continuation. The only new thing was the return to 
 the vernacular tongue, and the honour of this is partly 
 Lorenzo's, but only partly. If his example gained a few con- 
 versions, this is not enough to justify the view that all pro- 
 gress was centred in one single man — a false view of that 
 history, such as courtiers have transmitted to us, and such as 
 those who prefer to repeat than to judge and contradict, have 
 reproduced. But these exaggerations are customary in history. 
 Thus, to limit ourselves to the Medici, history calls this six- 
 teenth century the era of Leo X. — though Leo X. only saw the 
 first twenty-one years of it — during which more than once 
 he gave proof of an unreliable taste. His predecessors, 
 Nicholas V., Sixtus IV., and Julius II., had done as much, 
 and more, for letters and art, and none of them gave his 
 name to a century. No doubt, Lorenzo weighs more than 
 his father and son, but less than his grandfather, in the scales 
 wherein are measured their merits and their services. If in 
 any way he should seem even Cosimo's superior, it is because 
 the work accomplished by the latter paved the way for Ins. 
 And finally, if the Medici cut a great figure before posterity, 
 it is above all because they form a series, a dynasty, and that 
 their reign was lasting. \\ v^ 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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