Review
------
"This portrait of the 'uncrowned ruler of Florence' does
great justice to this most intriguing of all Renaissance princes.
Unger's diligent scholarship combines with an impelling narrative
to give a full-bodied flavor of the splendors as well as the
horrors of Lorenzo's remarkable reign." -- Ross King, author of
Brunelleschi's Dome and Machiavelli
"A meticulous and entertaining study of one of the great
characters of the Italian Renaissance, who ruled Florence during
one of the most fascinating periods of Italy's turbulent history.
Packed with incident and incisive research, this work succeeds in
being both popular and scholarly." -- Paul Strathern, author of
The Medici: Godhers of the Renaissance
“Dazzling. . . . From the first sentence, Magnifico transports
the reader to 15th-century Florence, a place of matchless
splendor, both natural and man-made. Unger mines a rich lode of
sources. . . . The result is an indelible personal profile and an
enthralling account of both the glories and brutalities of the
era.”
—David Takami, The Seattle Times
“Highly absorbing . . . provides a mesmerizing micro for
viewing the entire Italian Renaissance. . . . Magnifico is a
wonderful feast for lovers of Renaissance history and art.”
—Chuck Leddy, The Boston Globe
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About the Author
----------------
Miles J. Unger writes on art, books, and culture for The
Economist. Formerly the managing editor of Art New England, he
was a contributing writer to The New York Times. He is the author
of Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World; The
Watercolors of Winslow Homer; Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and
Violent Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici; Machiavelli: A Biography;
and Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces. Visit
MilesJunger.com.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Magnifico
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I. THE ROAD FROM CAREGGI
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“[I]t is necessary now for you to be a man and not a boy; be so
in words, deeds and manners.”
—PIERO DE’ MEDICI TO LORENZO, MAY 11, 1465
LATE ON THE MORNING OF AUGUST 27, 1466, A SMALL group of horsemen
left the Medici villa at Careggi and turned onto the road to
Florence. It was a journey of three miles from the villa to the
city walls along a meandering path that descended through the
hills that rise above Florence to the north. Dark cypresses and
hedges of fragrant laurel lined the road, providing welcome shade
in the summer heat. Through the trees the riders could catch from
time to time a glimpse of the Arno River flashing silver in the
sun.
On any other day this would have been a relaxing journey of an
hour or so, the heavy August air encouraging a leisurely pace,
the beauties of the Tuscan countryside inspiring laughter and
conversation among the young men. “There is in my opinion no
region more sweet or pleasing in Italy or in any other part of
Europe than that wherein Florence is placed,” wrote a Venetian
visitor, “for Florence is situated in a plain surrounded on all
sides by hills and ains…. And the hills are fertile,
cultivated, pleasant, all bearing beautiful and sumptuous palaces
built at great expense and boasting all manner of fine features:
gardens, woods, fountains, fish ponds, pools and much else
besides, with views that resemble paintings.”
But today, the mood was somber. The men peered nervously from
side to side, fingering the pommels of their s. Gnarled
olive trees, ancient and silver-leaved, hugged terraces cut into
the slopes, and parallel rows of vines glistening with purple
grapes gave the hills a tidy geometry worthy of a fresco by Fra
Angelico.
Taking the lead was a young man who rode with the easy grace of a
born horseman. His appearance was distinctive, though not at
first glance particularly attractive. Above an athletic frame,
bony and long-limbed, was a rough-hewn face. His nose, which was
flattened and turned to the side as if it had once been broken,
gave him something of the look of a street brawler, and the
prominent jaw that caused his lower lip to jut out pugnaciously
did nothing to soften this impression. Beneath heavy brows peered
black, piercing eyes more suggestive of animal cunning than
refined intelligence. Dark hair, parted in the middle, hung down
to his shoulders, providing a stern frame to the irregular
features. Even a close friend, Niccolò Valori, was forced to
admit that “nature had been a step-mother to him with regard to
his personal appearance. [N]onetheless,” continued Valori, “when
it came to the inner man she truly acted as a kindly mother….
[A]lthough his face was not handsome it was full of such dignity
as to command respect.”* ( ../xhtml/footnote1.html )
This homely face belonged to Lorenzo, the seventeen-year-old son
and heir of Piero de’ Medici. Since the death of Lorenzo’s
grandher Cosimo, two years earlier, Piero had taken over the
far-flung Medici banking empire, a position that made him one of
the richest men in Europe. But it was not wealth alone that made
the Medici name famous throughout Europe. The Medici, though they
possessed no titles, were regarded by those unfamiliar with the
intricacies of local politics as kings in all but name of the
independent Florentine Republic, which, though small compared
with the great states of Europe, dazzled the civilized world
through the brilliance of her art and the vitality of her
intellectual life.† ( ../xhtml/footnote2.html ) Not many
generations removed from their peasant origins, the Medici spent
lavishly on beautifying their city in the expectation that at
least some of its glamour would rub off on its first family.
It was Cosimo who had parlayed his apparently inexhaustible
fortune into a position of unprecedented authority in the state.
On his tombstone in the family church of San Lorenzo were the
words Pater Patriae (“her of His Country”), bestowed on him by
a grateful public for his wise stewardship and generous patronage
of the city’s civic and religious institutions. Cosimo had
dominated the councils of government through the force of his
personality and his willingness to open his own coffers when the
state was short of cash. Florentines, like modern-day Americans,
had a y respect for money and seemed to feel that those who
showed a talent for amassing it must possess other, less visible
virtues. Cosimo rarely held high political office, happy to let
others enjoy the pomp of life in the Palazzo della Signoria as
long as important decisions were left in his hands.* (
../xhtml/footnote3.html ) For a time the gratitude Florentines
felt toward Cosimo earned for his son Piero the allegiance of a
majority of the citizens, and, until recent troubles, it had been
generally assumed that this crucial position as the leading
figure in the reggimento—the regime that really ran Florence,
whoever temporarily occupied the government palace—would one day
pass to the young man now guiding his small band along the road
to Florence.
On this August morning, however, the e of the Medici and their
government seemed to teeter on a ’s edge. The ancient
constitution of the republic, in which the governing of the state
had been shared widely among the city’s wealthy and middle-class
citizens, had been undermined by this single family’s rise to
prominence.† ( ../xhtml/footnote4.html ) The heavy-handed tactics
they used to win and to wield power had stirred up resentment as
once proud families saw themselves reduced to little more than
servants of the Medici court.
But now a group of rich and influential men saw an rtunity to
strike back. The various factions that normally made Florentine
politics a lively affair had been secretly arming themselves for
months. Rumors of foreign armies on the march—a different one for
each side in the contest—increased the general paranoia until it
seemed as if the smallest incident might touch off a general
conration.
On one side were the Medici loyalists, the Party of the Plain
(named for the site of the Medici palace on low-lying land on the
north bank of the Arno), who favored the current system, which
they cled had brought decades of peace and prosperity. On the
other was the Party of the Hill, centered on Luca Pitti’s palace
on the high ground to the south, who pointed out that Medici
ascendance had been purchased at the expense of the people’s
traditional liberty. The most visible figures in the rebellion
were former members of Cosimo’s inner circle whose democratic
zeal, not much in evidence in recent years, was rekindled by the
humiliating prospect of having to take orders from his son. Few
of them, in fact, had sterling reformist credentials. Most had
connived with Cosimo in his systematic undermining of republican
institutions, but now they adopted as their own the slogan
“Popolo e Libertà!” (the “People and Liberty!”).
Discontent with the despotic tendencies of the government was not
the only factor precipitating the current crisis. The perceived
weakness of the fifty-year-old Piero contributed to a general
sense that the regime was not only corrupt but, perhaps even
worse, adrift. Even before Cosimo’s death in 1464 the influential
Agnolo Acciaiuoli, now one of the leaders of the Hill, complained
that Cosimo and Piero had become “cold men, whom illness and old
age have reduced to such cowardice that they avoid anything that
might cause them trouble or worry.” The citizens of Florence,
said the uncharitable Niccolò Machiavelli some years later, “did
not have much confidence in [Cosimo’s] son Piero, for
notwithstanding that he was a good man, nonetheless, they judged
that…he was too infirm and new in the state.”
Even many of Piero’s supporters shared that gloomy assessment.
From his youth, Piero (known to history as il Gottoso, the Gouty)
had been plagued by the family ailment that rendered him for long
periods a virtual prisoner in his own house. It was a disease
that affected not only his body but his temper. The architect
Filarete wrote in his biographical sketch of the Medici leader,
“those who have [gout] are usually rather and sharp in their
manner,” but that while “few can bear its pains…[Piero] bears it
with all the patience he can.” Piero also lacked his her’s
common touch, the earthy humor that endeared Cosimo to the city’s
humbler elements. (Once when a petitioner, hoping to reform the
sagging morals of the city, begged Cosimo to pass a law
prohibiting priests from gambling, the practical Cosimo replied,
“First stop them from using loaded dice.” ) Piero, by contrast,
was an aesthete and connoisseur who liked nothing better than to
retire to his study, where he could gaze at his fine collection
of antique busts, ancient manuscripts, and rare gemstones.
Citizens complained that policy was hatched in the privacy of the
Medici palace on the Via Larga, rather than in open debate at the
Palace of the Priors, as the ly Piero was often forced to
meet with his trusted lieutenants over dinner in his house or in
his bedchamber. Such a reserved and quiet man was unlikely to
appeal to the pragmatic merchants of Florence, who approached
politics in much the same lively spirit as they entered the
city’s marketplaces, eager to buy and sell, to argue and cajole,
to win an advantage if possible but in any case to strike deals
and shake hands at the conclusion of a bargain hard driven but
mutually beneficial. In both the Palace of the Priors and in the
Mercato Vecchio (the Old Market in the heart of the city),
relations of trust built on face-to-face encounters were more
important than abstract ideology. Piero was an intensely private
man in a world that valued above all the lively give-and-take of
the street corner.
The best contemporary portrait of Piero is the fine marble bust
by Mino da Fiesole.* ( ../xhtml/footnote5.html ) The sculpture
reveals a handsome man with the cropped hair of an ancient Roman
patrician and alert, thoughtful eyes. But there is something in
the pugnacious thrust of his chin, a feature passed down to his
oldest son, that suggests an inner strength his contemporaries
little suspected.
A more engaging portrait emerges in Piero’s private letters that
reveal a conscientious man deeply attached to his family and
continually fretting over their uncertain future. He was a loving
and devoted husband to Lucrezia Tornabuoni, a descendant of one
of Florence’s most ancient families, and their correspondence
reveals an unusually close bond. “[E]very day seems a year until
I return for your and my consolation,” wrote Lucrezia from Rome
to Piero, while Piero confessed that he awaited her arrival “with
infinite longing.”
Piero was also a devoted, if sometimes overbearing, her,
particularly with his oldest son, who could not leave town
without being pursued by letters filled with unsolicited advice
and constructive criticism. Piero’s letters alternately exhibit
pride in his son’s precocious ability and an almost neurotic need
to interfere in the smallest details of his conduct. “You will
have received my letter of the 4th,” he wrote to Lorenzo in
Milan, “telling you what conduct to pursue, all of which
remember; in a word, it is necessary now for you to be a man and
not a boy; be so in words, deeds and manners.” For the most part
Lorenzo took his her’s nagging in good humor, though
occasionally his exasperation shows through, as when he responded
to yet another request for information, “I wrote to you two days
ago, and for this reason I have little to say.”
The leaders of the current revolt were all prominent figures of
the reggimento who viewed Cosimo’s death as an rtunity to
satisfy their own ambition. Those like Agnolo Acciaiuoli, who had
suffered exile with Cosimo when he ran afoul of the then ruling
Albizzi family and shared in his triumphant return in 1434, felt
that after thirty years of loyal service to the Medici cause
their time had come. “Piero was dismayed when he saw the number
and quality of the citizens who were against him,” wrote
Machiavelli some sixty years after the events in his Florentine
Histories, “and after consulting with his friends, he decided
that he too would make a list of his friends. And having given
the care of this enterprise to some of his most trusted men, he
found such variety and instability in the minds of the citizens
that many of those listed as against him were also listed in his
favor.”
Machiavelli’s account captures something of the confusion of
those days as once trusted friends were suspected of secret
treachery. Considering the formidable array of figures now
agitating for change, a betting man might have thought twice
before wagering a few soldi on the Medici cause. They included
such prominent and respected citizens as Luca Pitti, who, at
least in his own mind, was Cosimo’s logical successor; the gifted
orator Niccolò Soderini; Agnolo Acciaiuoli, a scholar and a
friend of Cosimo’s whose thoughtful views carried great weight
with his fellow citizens; and Dietisalvi Neroni, a shrewd
political operator who had been a fixture within the highest
circles of the reggimento.
In secret nighttime meetings in the city’s sacred buildings—the
Party of the Plain favoring the monastery La Crocetta, while
their adversaries favored the equally pious La Pietà—men began to
look to their own defense, each suspecting the other of plotting
the overthrow of the constitutional government. In a typically
Florentine mixture of the sacred and profane, fervent prayers to
the Virgin were often followed by calls to riot and mayhem.
By most measures the Medici were ill prepared for the coming
contest. Piero’s poor had thrust Lorenzo into a position
of responsibility at an age when his companions were still
completing their studies or were apprenticed in the family
business. He had already served as his her’s envoy on crucial
diplomatic missions, including the wedding of a king’s son and an
audience with the newly elected pope. A few weeks earlier he had
returned from a trip abroad to introduce himself to Ferrante,
King of Nes, “with whom I spoke,” he wrote his her, “and
who offered me many fine compliments, which I wait to tell you in
person.” The importance for the Medici of such contacts with the
great lords of Europe is suggested by Piero’s hunger for news of
the meeting. Lorenzo’s tutor and traveling companion, Gentile
Becchi, wrote an enthusiastic report of Lorenzo’s performance
before the king. Referring to this account, Piero confessed,
“Three times I read this for my happiness and pleasure.”
Consorting with royalty provided this family of bankers
much-needed prestige, though such social climbing if too
vigorously pursued could also arouse the jealousy of their peers
who believed that they were thus being left behind.* (
../xhtml/footnote6.html )
The looming crisis would demand of Lorenzo a set of skills
different from those he had recently practiced in the courts of
great lords. The retiring Piero needed Lorenzo to act as the
public face of the regime, the charismatic center of an otherwise
colorless bureaucracy. As preparations were made for the coming
battle, it was often to Lorenzo, rather than the ailing Piero,
that men turned to pledge their loyalty. Marco Parenti, a cloth
merchant of moderate means whose memoirs provide an eyewitness
account of the events of these months, tells how the countryside
was armed in the days leading up to the August crisis. “Thus it
was arranged,” he wrote,
that there were 2000 Bolognese horsemen loyal to the duke of
Milan. These were secretly ordered to be held in readiness for
Piero; the Serristori, lords with a great following in the Val
d’Arno, arranged with Lorenzo, son of Piero, a great fishing
expedition on the Arno and many great feasts where were gathered
peasants and their leaders, who, wishing to show themselves
faithful servants of Piero, met amongst themselves and pledged
themselves to Lorenzo. These pledges were accepted with much show
as if it had not already been planned, though many were kept in
the dark, to send them a few days hence in arms to Florence in
support of Piero. And so it was arranged in other places, with
other peasants and men who, when called on, would quickly appear
in arms.
The fact that those bending their knees were often rude peasants
and their lord a banker’s son gives to the proceedings a
distinctly Florentine flavor, but it is clear that Lorenzo had
already be to take on some of the trappings of a feudal
prince.
Lorenzo’s prominence, however, was actually a sign of weakness in
the Medici camp. Florentines regarded youth as an unfortunate
condition, believing that these giovanni—a term attached to all
young men, including those in their twenties who had yet to
assume the steadying yoke of marriage—were, like the entire
female sex, essentially irrational and in thrall to their baser
instincts. So far Lorenzo had given little indication that he was
any better than his peers, having acquired a well-earned
reputation for fast living. For the leaders of the Hill a trial
of strength now, when the her was crippled and his heir not
yet mature, was to their advantage. Jacopo Acciaiuoli, son of
Agnolo, who had attended the meeting of King Ferrante and
Lorenzo, reported to his her, “And returning to the arrival of
Lorenzo, many hers spend to get their sons known who would do
better to spend so that they were not known.” Beneath the
spiteful jab there is a more substantive message—that neither the
ailing her nor his awkward son would put up much of a fight.
The next few days would put this judgment to the test.
Indeed there was nothing in the biography of either Piero or
Lorenzo to strike fear in an nent. “[Piero] did not, to be
sure, possess the wisdom and virtues of his her,” commented
the historian Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), usually a fair
judge of men, “but he was a good-natured and very clement man.” A
kind heart, however, was not necessarily an advantage in the
cutthroat world of Florentine politics; in the centuries of
bloody strife that marred the history of the City of the Baptist,
men of saintly disposition were notable by their absence.
Despite the rising tension, August 27 dawned in an atmosphere of
deceptive calm. Elections for the new Signoria were scheduled for
the following day, and Florentine citizens, the great majority of
whom wished only to go about their daily lives undisturbed by the
quarrels of their masters, were cautiously optimistic that the
leaders of the sing factions had pulled back from the
precipice. Only the day before, Piero and his family had left
Florence for their villa at Careggi, something he would never
have contemplated had he believed a confrontation imminent. In a
crisis anyone who found himself outside city walls could quickly
be marginalized. It was just such a blunder that, thirty years
earlier, almost cost Cosimo his life. Taking advantage of his
temporary absence from the city, the government, led at the time
by the Albizzi family, decided to move against their too-powerful
rival. Upon returning to Florence, Cosimo had been arrested,
threatened with execution, and ultimately sent into exile. The
lesson could hardly have been lost on his son that leaving the
city at a time of strife was a recipe for disaster.
Curiously, it was Dietisalvi Neroni, one of the leaders of the
Hill, who had persuaded the Medici leader to take this vacation,
promising that he, too, would retire to his villa, thus lessening
the chances of a violent clash breaking out between their armed
supporters. It was an apparently statesmanlike gesture that would
allow the democratic process to go forward without interference.
Piero’s agreement suggests a misplaced confidence that the
situation was moving in his direction, and there were in fact
indications that the fortunes of the Medici party, which had
reached a low ebb in the winter, were on the rebound. But the
decisive factor may simply have been the poor state of his
; a few days earlier a flare-up of gout had confined him to
his bed, making it almost impossible to conduct any serious
business. Thus when Neroni held out an olive branch, Piero was
only too happy grasp it.
Piero had failed to take the measure of Neroni, whose powers of
dissimulation were apparently so highly developed that he was
able to maintain cordial relations with the man whose destruction
he plotted. Piero, not necessarily an astute judge of men at the
best of times and now distracted by the pain in his joints,
allowed himself to be taken in by Neroni’s conciliatory gestures.
“[I]n order to better conceal his intent,” explains Machiavelli,
“[Neroni] visited Piero often, reasoned with him about the unity
of the city, and advised him.” Though Piero was aware that his
onetime colleague had at least flirted with the sition,
Neroni was able to convince him that he was a man of goodwill who
could act as a moderating influence on his fellow reformers.
Machiavelli portrays Neroni as an unprincipled schemer who set
out to destroy his old friend in order to further his own career,
but with him, as with all the leaders of the revolt of 1466, it
is difficult to disentangle motives of self-interest from genuine
idealism. Neroni does seem to have possessed some republican
instincts, though it is uncertain if these were born of principle
or sprang from a practical calculation that he could rise further
as a champion of the people than as a Medici lackey. As
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia (the Standard-Bearer of Justice, the
head of state) in 1454 he was already an advocate of democratic
reform, winning, according to one contemporary source “great
goodwill among the people.” And in 1465 he had written to the
duke of Milan that “the citizenry would like greater liberty and
a broader government, as is customary in republican cities like
ours.”
For the most part, however, Neroni prospered as a loyal servant
of the Medici regime. It is unclear when ideological differences
combined with frustrated ambition to turn him against his former
allies, but as early as 1463 the ambassador from Milan reported
to his boss that “Cosimo and his men have no greater or more
ambitious enemy than Dietisalvi [Neroni].” In spite of these
warnings, at the time of Cosimo’s death in 1464 Neroni was still
one of Piero’s closest advisors.
Neroni’s first line of attack, recounts Machiavelli, was to
engineer Piero’s financial collapse. He describes how Piero had
turned to Neroni for advice following Cosimo’s death, but
“[s]ince his own ambition was more compelling to him than his
love for Piero or the old benefits received from Cosimo,” Neroni
encouraged Piero to pursue policies “under which his ruin was
hidden.” These policies included calling in many of the loans
granted by Cosimo—often on easy terms and made for political
rather than financial reasons—a move that caused a string of
bankruptcies and added to the growing list of Piero’s enemies.
Despite his rival’s best efforts, however, Piero weathered the
financial crisis, and by 1466 Neroni was growing impatient with
half-measures. Guicciardini gives to Neroni the decisive role in
the attempted coup: “[It was] caused in large part by the
ambition of messer Dietisalvi di Nerone…. He was very astute,
very rich, and highly esteemed; but not content with the great
status and reputation he enjoyed, he got together with messer
Agnolo Acciaiuoli, also a man of great authority, and planned to
depose Piero di Cosimo.”
While Piero and his family headed to Careggi, Neroni and his
confederates prepared to seize the government by force.
For generations, Careggi, with its fields and quiet country
lanes, had served the Medici household as a refuge from the cares
of the city. Cosimo had purchased for the philosopher Marsilio
Ficino a modest farm close by at Montevecchio so that his friend
would have the leisure to complete his life’s work, the
translation of Plato from Greek to Latin. “Yesterday I went to my
estate at Careggi,” Cosimo once wrote to Ficino, “but for the
sake of cultivating my mind and not the estate. Come to us,
Marsilio, as soon as possible. Bring with you Plato’s book on The
Highest Good.…I want nothing more wholeheartedly than to know
which way leads most surely to happiness.” Lorenzo, too, enjoyed
the philosopher’s company, and later in life would convene at
Careggi those informal gatherings of scholars and poets that
historians dignified with the somewhat misleading label “the
Platonic Academy,” finding the country air a suitable stimulus to
deep thought.
Today, however, the villa at Careggi could provide no escape from
the troubles of the city. The family had barely be to settle
in when the peace of the morning was shattered by the arrival of
a horseman at the gates.* ( ../xhtml/footnote7.html ) The
messenger, his horse lathered from hours of hard riding, his
clothes and skin blackened with dust, announced that he had come
from Giovanni Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna, with an urgent
message for the master of the house.
The messenger’s point of origin was sufficient to set off alarm
bells. The ancient university town of Bologna was strategically
placed near the passes through the Apennines to keep a watchful
eye on anyone coming from the tumultuous Romagna; from here, an
army descending on Tuscany from the north would easily be
spotted. Bentivoglio was but one of many trusted allies of the
Medici scattered throughout Italy and beyond who kept their eyes
and ears open for any scrap of information that might be useful
to their friends in Florence.
This morning’s letter brought news that Bentivoglio’s spies in
the village of Fiumalbo had observed eight hundred cavalry and
infantry under the banner of Borso d’Este, Duke of Modena and
Marquis of Ferrara, setting out in the direction of Florence. To
the startled Piero, their objective was clear—to join with the
Medici’s enemies in the city and topple them from power.
Though Bentivoglio’s message has not survived, its contents are
summarized by a letter written that same day by Nicodemo
Tranchedini, the Milanese ambassador to Florence. In it he
informs his master, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, that
Piero had “received letters from the regime in Bologna, from D.
Johane Bentivogli,” and that soldiers of the marquis of Ferrara
were “already on the move to come here on the invitation of
Piero’s enemies, with horse and riders of Bartholomeo Colione.”
For months the leaders of the Hill had been in close
communication with Borso d’Este, a northern Italian lord whose
schemes for self-aggrandizement were predicated on a change of
government in Florence. In November 1465, the Milanese ambassador
had reported to his employer that Borso’s agent, Messer Jacopo
Trotti, “every day meets M. Luca, M. Angelo [Agnolo Acciaiuoli]
and M. Dietisalvi [Neroni].” Given the fact that Piero was kept
well informed of these machinations by Tranchedini, it is
remarkable that he allowed himself to be lured from the city at
this critical time.
If the motives of the Florentine rebels were a mixture of
idealism and self-interest, those of Borso d’Este were
unambiguous. Described by Pope Pius II in his memoirs as a “man
of fine physique and more than average height with beautiful hair
and a pleasing countenance,” Borso d’Este was also “eloquent and
garrulous and listened to himself talking as if he pleased
himself more than his hearers.” In his inflated self-regard he
was little different from any number of petty princes who sold
their services to the highest bidder, nor did his taste
for costly jewelry, his arrogance, and deceitfulness—other
qualities noted by Pius—set him apart from his peers.
Technically a vassal of the pope, Borso was always looking for
ways to expand his family’s territories at the expense of his
neighbors. An important step in his campaign was the removal of
the Medici, who were closely linked with his chief rival in the
north, the powerful Sforza family of Milan. In June his
representative in Florence had contacted Luca Pitti to suggest
that “Piero be removed from the city.” It took almost two months
of negotiation, but by late August the leaders of the Hill had
decided to team up with the mercenary adventurer, inviting “the
marquis of Ferrara [to] come with his troops toward the city and,
when Piero was dead, to come armed in the piazza and make the
Signoria establish a state in accordance with their will.”
Piero had grossly underestimated his enemies’ resolve, but he now
moved swiftly to correct the situation. First he dashed off an
urgent letter to Sforza, asking him to send his troops, some
1,500 of whom were stationed in Imola in Romagna, about fifty
miles to the north, to intercept those of d’Este. Desperately
seeking friends closer to home, Piero dictated a second letter to
the leaders of the neighboring town of Arezzo, pleading that
“upon receiving this you send me as many armed men as you can…and
direct them here to me.”
Even more important was the task of mobilizing the pro-Medici
forces within the city. Foreign armies could throw their
considerable weight behind one faction or another, but victory
and defeat would be determined largely inside the city walls.
Here the rebels had a great advantage. Piero, in so much pain
from gout that he could travel only by litter, would not arrive
back in the city for hours, time the rebels could use to prepare
the battlefield and set the terms of the engagement.
So it was that Lorenzo found himself this August morning hurrying
back to Florence, accompanied only by a few companions as young
and inexperienced as himself. It was Lorenzo’s mission to ride
out ahead of the main party and to raise the Medici banner in
Florence, ensuring as well that the gates remained in friendly
hands long enough to permit Piero’s safe return. As the head of
the household made his slow, painful way to Florence, the e of
the Medici regime would rest in the hands of a seventeen-year-old
boy.
From the moment he left the fortified compound of Careggi,
Lorenzo was on his guard. The countryside through which he passed
was as familiar to him as the streets near the family palace in
the city, the rolling hills and game-filled copses, destination
of many a hunting expedition, a constant source of delight.
Today, however, the landscape he loved felt menacing. Every low
stone wall and ramshackle farmhouse provided a place of
concealment, every patch of shade an rtunity for ambush.
Nothing disturbed the heavy air as the horsemen picked their way
cautiously down the winding road. Tiny lizards darted through the
underbrush, while hawks circled high overhead. Having completed
most of the journey without incident, and with the walls of the
city looming before him, Lorenzo brought his small group to a
halt. Ahead lay a tiny hamlet known as Sant’Antonio (or
Sant’Ambrogio) del Vescovo. Little more than a few buildings
shimmering in the summer heat, there was nothing ominous in the
rustic scene. But Lorenzo had reason to be wary. The village took
its name from the archbishop (vescovo) of Florence, whose summer
residence was attached to a small chapel there. The reigning
archbishop of Florence was Giovanni Neroni, Dietisalvi’s brother.
(His sacerdotal office could have provided little comfort: a
bishop’s robes in Renaissance Italy were more often the costume
of a political intriguer with a dagger in his belt than those of
an unworldly man of God.) With Neroni’s recent treachery in mind,
Lorenzo knew that to pass through the hamlet, his usual route
from the villa to the city, he would have to place himself
squarely in the lion’s den.
It was at this moment Lorenzo signaled to one of his party to
remain some distance behind while he and the rest of his
companions spurred their horses into motion and continued along
the road to Florence. As the riders passed between the first of
the buildings, armed men rushed out from behind walls and
doorways, surrounding the riders, the points of their halberds
glinting menacingly in the sun. Horses reared as Lorenzo and his
companions unsheathed their s. In the shadows men cocked
crossbows. In the commotion apparently no one noticed the lone
figure who turned his horse around and sped back along the road
in the direction they had come.
The ambush at Sant’Antonio del Vescovo remains one of the more
mysterious episodes in the annals of Florentine history. It is a
puzzle that must be assembled from bits and pieces, the missing
portions filled in with sound conjecture, since no contemporary
report gives more than a brief, tantalizing mention. The most
detailed account is that of Niccolò Valori, who included it in
his biography of Lorenzo, written some thirty years later. But
even this narrative raises as many questions as it answers:
[I]t was through the sound judgment of Lorenzo, though still
young, that the life of Piero his her was saved; learning that
awaiting him as he returned from Careggi were many conspirators
who planned to kill him,[Lorenzo] sent word to those who were
carrying [Piero] by litter (unable, as he was with gout, to
travel any other way) not to continue by the usual route, but
through a secret and secure way return to the city.[Lorenzo],
meanwhile, riding along the usual path, let it be known that his
her was right behind him; and having thus deceived the
plotters, both were saved.
Francesco Guicciardini supplies some additional information,
including the precise spot where the ambush took place. “[W]hen
Piero went off to Careggi,” he wrote, “his enemies decided to
murder him on his return. Armed men were placed in Sant’Ambrogio
[sic] del Vescovo, which Piero usually passed on his way back to
the city. They could avail themselves of that place because the
archbishop of Florence was messer Dietisalvi’s brother.”
Interestingly, Guicciardini ignores Lorenzo’s role in the drama,
attributing their escape simply to “the good fortune of Piero and
of the Medici.”* ( ../xhtml/footnote8.html )
Lorenzo himself never offered a full retelling of the day’s
events, though it is possible that Valori’s version is based on
Lorenzo’s recollections. References to the ambush must be teased
from his own cryptic comments or from the equally oblique remarks
of his friends. Lorenzo’s silence can be explained by his
reluctance to talk about, or even admit the existence of, the
many attempts made on his life. In 1477, when his life again
appeared under threat from invisible assassins, he dismissed a
warning from the Milanese ambassador: “and thanks to God, though
I have been told by many: ‘watch yourself!,’ I have found none of
these plots to be true, except one, at the time of Niccolò
Soderini.” Thus the traumatic events of 1466 appear in Lorenzo’s
correspondence only at the moment when an even more dangerous
conspiracy was taking shape, and largely to make light of current
threats. From this same period comes another suggestive letter,
written by Lorenzo’s friend and tutor Gentile Becchi. Urging him
to take the rumors of threats on his life seriously, he warns
Lorenzo not to heed the counsel of “new Dietisalvis who will
advise you to go to your villa like your her.”
Given Lorenzo’s own reticence, the ambush at Sant’Antonio del
Vescovo must forever retain an element of mystery. Even Valori’s
account contains many puzzling features. Why did those who
confronted Lorenzo fail to take him into custody? Why did they
accept Lorenzo’s assertion that his her was just around the
corner, without at least holding him as a hostage? From Lorenzo’s
few remarks it is clear that he felt his life had been in danger
along the road from Careggi to Florence, but Valori’s narrative
does not end in a violent clash. Instead, according to his
friend’s retelling, Lorenzo manages to confound his enemies not
through martial valor but through quick thinking and his powers
of persuasion.
One might be tempted to dismiss the tale were it not for the fact
that it conforms perfectly with what we know of Lorenzo’s
character. The confrontation at Sant’Antonio may provide the
first instance when Lorenzo was able to deflect the knives of his
enemies using only his native wit, but it will not be the last.
Time and again he showed a remarkable ability to talk his way out
of tight situations. With his back to the wall, and his life
hanging in the balance, Lorenzo was at his most convincing. A
gift he was to display throughout his life—and one that would be
crucial to his statecraft, allowing him to appeal to people from
all walks of life—was to suit his language to the moment,
effortlessly trading Latin epigrams with scholars or obscenities
with laborers in a tavern. This earthier vocabulary would have
served him well on this occasion, but his powers of persuasion
would have done little good without the confusion and missteps
that tend to unravel even the best-laid plans.
From the perspective provided by centuries in which scholars have
been able to sift the evidence at leisure, the fact that Lorenzo
was allowed to proceed unmolested seems an improbable bit of good
fortune. But this view distorts the true situation. Lorenzo’s
native wit no doubt played a part, but so did the natural
perplexity of those who had been instructed to seize his her,
the lord of Florence, and now had to make a snap decision with no
instructions from their commanders. After a brief conversation,
in which Lorenzo no doubt adopted a tone of light banter meant to
put them at their ease, they let him go, having been convinced
that soon enough the main prize would fall into their laps.
While they waited in vain for Piero to arrive, Lorenzo and the
rest of his party made a dash for the city walls. As soon as he
passed through the wide arch of the Porta Faenza, Lorenzo could
breathe a little easier.* ( ../xhtml/footnote9.html ) This was
Medici country—the neighborhoods in the northwest corner of the
city that in earlier centuries had mustered for war under the
ancient banner of the Golden Lion. Familiar faces greeted him at
every turn, local wine merchants, grocers, fishmongers, and
stonemasons, with a fierce attachment to the few blocks where
they were born and an equally fierce loyalty to the powerful
family that lived among them. In his poem, “Il Simposio,” Lorenzo
left a description of this neighborhood and its people that
reflects an easy familiarity between the humble folks and the
lord of the city:
I was approaching town along the road
that leads into the portal of Faenza,
when I observed such throngs proceeding through
the streets, that I won’t even dare to guess
how many men made up the retinue.
The names of many I could easily say:
I knew a number of them personally…
There’s one I saw among those myriads,
with whom I’d been close friends for many years,
as I had known him since we’d both been lads…
“Above all else stick together with your neighbors and kinsmen,”
advised the Florentine patrician Gino Capponi, “assist your
friends both within and without the city.” For decades Lorenzo’s
forebears had acted upon this Florentine wisdom, knowing that men
not masonry form the strongest bulwark in times of civic unrest.
From the moment of his birth, seventeen years earlier, Lorenzo’s
her had been preparing his son for just such a crisis, weaving
around him an intricate web of mutual obligation, nurturing those
relationships of benefactor and supplicant, patron and client,
through which power was wielded in Florentine politics. In
moments of upheaval, Lorenzo’s ability to draw on those
relationships, to command the loyalty of his fellow
citizens—above all of neighbors, friends, and kinsmen, bound
together both by interest and by affection—would be vital to his
family’s survival.
image
The Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence (Miles Unger)
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