Part 371

In 1433, Cosmo, or Cosimo de' Medici, the son of Giovanni de' Medici, was the recognized leader of the opposition to the oligarchy controlled by Rinaldo de' Albizzi. Cosmo inherited from his father a large fortune and a business as a merchant and banker which he maintained and increased. "He lived splendidly; he was a great supporter of all literary men, and spent and distributed his great wealth amongst his fellow citizens. He was courteous and liberal, and was looked upon with almost unbounded respect and affection by a large party in the state. Rinaldo was bent upon his ruin, and in 1433, when he had a Signoria devoted to his party, he cited Cosmo before the Council, and shut him up in a tower of the Public Palace. Great excitement was caused by this violent step, and two days after the Signoria held a parliament of the people. The great bell of the city was tolled, and the people gathered round the Palace. Then the gates of the Palace were thrown open, and the Signoria, the Colleges of Arts, and the Gonfaloniere came forth, and asked the people if they would have a Balia. So a Balia was appointed, the names being proposed by the Signoria, to decide on the fate of Cosmo. At first it was proposed to kill him, but he was only banished, much against the will of Rinaldo, who knew that, if he lived, he would some day come back again. The next year the Signoria was favourable to him; another Balia was appointed; the party of the Albizzi was banished, and Cosmo was recalled. He was received with a greeting such as men give to a conqueror, and was hailed as the 'Father of his Country.' This triumphant return gave the Medici a power in the Republic which they never afterwards lost. The banished party fled to the court of the Duke of Milan, and stirred him up to war against the city."

_W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 6, section 5._

{1140}

"Cosimo de' Medici did not content himself with rendering his old opponents harmless; he took care also that none of his adherents should become too powerful and dangerous to him. Therefore, remarks Francesco Guicciardini, he retained the Signoria, as well as the taxes, in his hand, in order to be able to promote or oppress individuals at will. In other things the citizens enjoyed greater freedom and acted more according to their own pleasure than later, in the days of his grandson, for he let the reins hang loose if he was only sure of his own position. It was just in this that his great art lay, to guide things according to his will, and yet to make his partisans believe that he shared his authority with them. … 'It is well known' remarks [Guicciardini] … 'how much nobility and wealth were destroyed by Cosimo and his descendants by taxation. The Medici never allowed a fixed method and legal distribution, but always reserved to themselves the power of bearing heavily upon individuals according to their pleasure. … He [Cosimo] maintained great reserve in his whole manner of life. For a quarter of a century he was the almost absolute director of the State, but he never assumed the show of his dignity. … The ruler of the Florentine State remained citizen, agriculturist, and merchant. In his appearance and bearing there was nothing which distinguished him from others. … He ruled the money market, not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. He had banks in all the western countries, and his experience and the excellent memory which never failed him, with his strong love of order, enabled him to guide everything from Florence, which he never quitted after 1438." The death of Cosimo occurred on the 1st day of August, 1464.

_A. von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, book. 1, chapters 6 and 8 (volume 1)._

"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 15th century gets the glory because it finished them were ordered and begun amidst the confusion and terrible agitation of the demagogy. … 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." But "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 Brunelleschi, the polished and elegant Ghiberti, the rough and powerful Donatello, the suave Angelico, the masculine Masaccio. … 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."

_F. T. Perrens, History of Florence, 1434-1531, book 1, chapter 6._

FLORENCE: A. D. 1450-1454. Alliance with Francesco Sforza, of Milan, and war with Venice, Naples, Savoy, and other States.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

FLORENCE: A. D. 1458-1469. Lucas Pitti, and the building of the Pitti Palace. Piero de' Medici and the five agents of his tyranny.

Until 1455, Cosmo de' Medici shared the government of Florence in some degree with Neri Capponi, an able statesman, who had taken an eminent part in public affairs for many years—during the domination of the Albizzi, as well as afterwards.

"When Neri Capponi died, the council refused to call a new parliament to replace the balia, whose power expired on the 1st of July, 1455. … The election of the signoria was again made fairly by lot, … the contributions were again equitably apportioned,—the tribunals ceased to listen to the recommendations of those who, till then, had made a traffic of distributive justice." This recovery of freedom in Florence was enjoyed for about three years; but when, in 1458, Lucas Pitti, "rich, powerful, and bold," was named gonfalonier, Cosmo conspired with him to reimpose the yoke. "Pitti assembled the parliament; but not till he had filled all the avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed peasants. The people, menaced and trembling within this circle, consented to name a new balia, more violent and tyrannical than any of the preceding. It was composed of 352 persons, to whom was delegated all the power of the republic. They exiled a great number of the citizens who had shown the most attachment to liberty, and they even put some to death." When, in 1463, Cosmo's second son, Giovanni, on whom his hopes were centered, died, Lucas Pitti "looked on himself henceforth as the only chief of the state. It was about this time that he undertook the building of that magnificent palace which now [1832] forms the residence of the grand-dukes. The republican equality was not only offended by the splendour of this regal dwelling; but the construction of it afforded Pitti an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He made of this building an asylum for all fugitives from justice, whom no public officer dared pursue when once he [they?] took part in the labour. At the same time individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in the construction of his palace. When Cosmo de' Medici died, at his country-house of Careggi, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas Pitti felt himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation of that great citizen. … His [Cosmo's] son, Pietro de' Medici, then 48 years of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration of the republic, as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by hereditary right: but the state of his health did not admit of his attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his rivals with much fear. To diminish the weight of affairs which oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense fortune from commerce; recalling all his loans made in partnership with other merchants; and laying out this money in land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence; at the same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and deprived it of much of its popularity. The death of Sforza, also, which took place on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest support abroad. … The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and Pietro de' Medici no longer agreed together; and they recovered courage when the latter proposed to the council the calling of a parliament, in order to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465; his proposition was rejected. {1141} The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot from among the members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti and Medici were reconciled: they agreed to call a parliament, and to direct it in concert; to intimidate it, they surrounded it with foreign troops. But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2d of September, 1466, found means of admitting his own partisans only, and excluding all those of Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were all exiled. … Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to his ambition: the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally detested him; and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave. Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants: every revolution, even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens. … At Florence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism established in their republic; but the lower orders were in general contented, and made no attempt to second Bartolomeo Coleoni, when he entered Tuscany, in 1467, at the head of the Florentine emigrants, who had taken him into their pay. Commerce prospered; manufactures were carried on with great activity; high wages supported in comfort all who lived by their labour; and the Medici entertained them with shows and festivals, keeping them in a sort of perpetual carnival, amidst which the people soon lost all thought of liberty. Pietro de' Medici was always in too bad a state of health to exercise in person the sovereignty he had usurped over his country; he left it to five or six citizens, who reigned in his name. … They not only transacted all business, but appropriated to themselves all the profit; they sold their influence and credit; they gratified their cupidity or their vengeance; but they took care not to act in their own names, or to pledge their own responsibility; they left that to the house of Medici. Pietro, during the latter months of his life, perceived the disorder and corruption of his agents. He was afflicted to see his memory thus stained, and he addressed them the severest reprimands; he even entered into correspondence with the emigrants, whom he thought of recalling, when he died, on the 2d of December, 1469. His two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, the elder of whom was not 21 years of age, … given up to all the pleasures of their age, had yet no ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands of the five citizens who had exercised it under Pietro."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 11._

FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492. The conspiracy of the Pazzi. The government of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The death of liberty. The golden age of letters and art.

"Lorenzo inherited his grandfather's political sagacity and far surpassed him in talent and literary culture. In many respects too he was a very different man. Cosimo never left his business office; Lorenzo neglected it, and had so little commercial aptitude that he was obliged to retire from business, in order not to lose his abundant patrimony. Cosimo was frugal in his personal expenses and lent freely to others; Lorenzo loved splendid living, and thus gained the title of the Magnificent; he spent immoderately for the advancement of literary men; he gave himself up to dissipation which ruined his health and shortened his days. His manner of living reduced him to such straits, that he had to sell some of his possessions and obtain money from his friends. Nor did this suffice; for he even meddled with the public money, a thing that had never happened in Cosimo's time. Very often, in his greed of unlawful gain, he had the Florentine armies paid by his own bank; he also appropriated the sums collected in the Monte Comune or treasury of the public debt, and those in the Monte delle Fanciulle where were marriage portions accumulated by private savings—money hitherto held sacred by all. Stimulated by the same greed, he, in the year 1472 joined the Florentine contractors for the wealthy alum mines of Volterra, at the moment in which that city was on the verge of rebellion in order to free itself from a contract which it deemed unjust. And Lorenzo, with the weight of his authority, pushed matters to such a point that war broke out, soon to be followed by a most cruel sack of the unhappy city, a very unusual event in Tuscany. For all this he was universally blamed. But he was excessively haughty and cared for no man; he would tolerate no equals, would be first in everything—even in games. He interfered in all matters, even in private concerns and in marriages: nothing could take place without his consent. In overthrowing the powerful and exalting men of low condition, he showed none of the care and precaution so uniformly observed by Cosimo. It is not then surprising if his enemies increased so fast that the formidable conspiracy of the Pazzi broke out on the 26th April 1478. In this plot, hatched in the Vatican itself where Sixtus IV. was Lorenzo's determined enemy, many of the mightiest Florentine families took part. In the cathedral, at the moment of the elevation of the Host, the conspirators' daggers were unsheathed. Giuliano dei Medici was stabbed to death, but Lorenzo defended himself with his sword and saved his own life. The tumult was so great that it seemed as though the walls of the church were shaken. The populace rose to the cry of 'Palle! Palle!' the Medici watchword, and the enemies of the Medici were slaughtered in the streets or hung from the windows of the Palazzo Veechio. There, among others, were seen the dangling corpses of Archbishop Salviati and of Francesco Pazzi, who in their last struggles had gripped each other with their teeth and remained thus for some time. More than seventy persons perished on that day, and Lorenzo, taking advantage of the opportunity, pushed matters to extremity by his confiscations, banishments, and sentences of death. Thereby his power would have been infinitely increased if Pope Sixtus IV., blinded by rage, had not been induced to excommunicate Florence, and make war against it, in conjunction with Ferdinand of Aragon. On this Lorenzo, without losing a moment, went straight to Naples, and made the king understand how much better it served his interests that Florence should have but one ruler instead of a republican government, always liable to change and certainly never friendly to Naples. So he returned with peace re-established and boundless authority and popularity. Now indeed he might have called himself lord of the city, and it must have seemed easy to him to destroy the republican government altogether. {1142} With his pride and ambition it is certain that he had an intense desire to stand on the same level with the other princes and tyrants of Italy; the more so as at that moment success seemed entirely within his grasp. But Lorenzo showed that his political shrewdness was not to be blinded by prosperity, and knowing Florence well, he remained firm to the traditional policy of his house, that of dominating the Republic, while apparently respecting it. He was well determined to render his power solid and durable; but to that end he had recourse to a most ingenious reform, by means of which, without abandoning the old road, he thoroughly succeeded in his object. In place of the usual five-yearly Balia, he instituted, in 1480, the Council of Seventy, which renewed itself and was like a permanent Balia with still wider power. This, composed of men entirely devoted to his cause, secured the government to him forever. By this Council, say the chroniclers of the time, liberty was wholly buried and undone, but certainly the most important affairs of the State were carried on in it by intelligent and cultivated men, who largely promoted its material prosperity. Florence still called itself a republic, nominally the old institutions were still in existence, but all this seemed and was nothing but an empty mockery. Lorenzo, absolute lord of all, might certainly be called a tyrant, surrounded by lackeys and courtiers. … Yet he dazzled all men by the splendour of his rule, so that [Guicciardini] observes, that though Lorenzo was a tyrant, 'it would be impossible to imagine a better and more pleasing tyrant.' Industry, commerce, public works had all received a mighty impulse. In no city in the world had the civil equality of modern States reached the degree to which it had attained not merely in Florence itself, but in its whole territory and throughout all Tuscany. Administration and secular justice proceeded regularly enough in ordinary cases, crime was diminished, and, above all, literary culture had become a substantial element of the new State. Learned men were employed in public offices, and from Florence spread a light that illuminated the world. … But Lorenzo's policy could found nothing that was permanent. Unrivalled as a model of sagacity and prudence, it promoted in Florence the development of all the new elements of which modern society was to be the outcome, without succeeding in fusing them together; for his was a policy of equivocation and deceit, directed by a man of much genius, who had no higher aim than his own interest and that of his family, to which he never hesitated to sacrifice the interests of his people."

_P. Villari, Machiavelli and his Times, chapter 2, section 2 (volume 1)._

"The state of Florence at this period was very remarkable. The most independent and tumultuous of towns was spellbound under the sway of Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosimo who built San Marco; and scarcely seemed even to recollect its freedom, so absorbed was it in the present advantages conferred by 'a strong government,' and solaced by shows, entertainments, festivals, pomp, and display of all kinds. It was the very height of that classic revival so famous in the later history of the world, and the higher classes of society, having shaken themselves apart with graceful contempt from the lower, had begun to frame their lives according to a pagan model, leaving the other and much bigger half of the world to pursue its superstitions undisturbed. Florence was as near a pagan city as it was possible for its rulers to make it. Its intellectual existence was entirely given up to the past; its days were spent in that worship of antiquity which has no power of discrimination, and deifies not only the wisdom but the trivialities of its golden epoch. Lorenzo reigned in the midst of a lettered crowd of classic parasites and flatterers, writing poems which his courtiers found better than Alighieri's, and surrounding himself with those eloquent slaves who make a prince's name more famous than arms or victories, and who have still left a prejudice in the minds of all literature-loving people in favour of their patron. A man of superb health and physical power, who can give himself up to debauch all night without interfering with his power of working all day, and whose mind is so versatile that he can sack a town one morning and discourse upon the beauties of Plato the next, and weave joyous ballads through both occupations—gives his flatterers reason when they applaud him. The few righteous men in the city, the citizens who still thought of Florence above all, kept apart, overwhelmed by the tide which ran in favour of that leading citizen of Florence, who had gained the control of the once high-spirited and freedom-loving people. Society had never been more dissolute, more selfish, or more utterly deprived of any higher aim. Barren scholarship, busy over grammatical questions, and elegant philosophy, snipping and piecing its logical systems, formed the top dressing to that half-brutal, half-superstitious ignorance which in such communities is the general portion of the poor. The dilettante world dreamed hazily of a restoration of the worship of the pagan gods; Cardinal Bembo bade his friend beware of reading St. Paul's epistles, lest their barbarous style should corrupt his taste; and even such a man as Pico della Mirandola declared the 'Divina Commedia' to be inferior to the 'Canti Carnascialeschi' of Lorenzo de' Medici. … Thus limited intellectually, the age of Lorenzo was still more hopeless morally, full of debauchery, cruelty, and corruption, violating oaths, betraying trusts, believing in nothing but Greek manuscripts, coins, and statues, caring for nothing but pleasure. This was the world in which Savonarola found himself."

_Mrs. Oliphant, The Makers of Florence, chapter 9._