equal fluency on painting, sculpture, music, philosophy and
poetry. But his crowning superiority over every other Maecenas
known to history lay in his active participation in the intellectual
labours that he promoted. Indeed at certain moments he was
Lorenzo as
a Man of Letters.
positively the leading spirit among the litterati of his
time. He was an elegant prose writer, and was
likewise a poet of real originality. At that period
Italians were forsaking erudition in order to forward the revival
of the national literature by recurring to the primitive sources
of the spoken tongue and popular verse. It is Lorenzo’s lasting
glory to have been the initiator of this movement. Without
being—as some have maintained—a poet of genius, he was
certainly a writer of much finish and eloquence, and one of the
first to raise popular poetry to the dignity of art. In his Ambra,
his Caccia del falcone and his Nencia da Barberino, he gives
descriptions of nature and of the rural life that he loved, with the
graphic power of an acute and tasteful observer, joined to an
ease of style that occasionally sins by excess of homeliness.
Both in his art and in his politics he leant upon the people.
The more oppressive his government, the more did he seek in his
verses to incite the public to festivities and lull it to slumber by
sensual enjoyments. In his Ballate, or songs for dancing, and
more especially in his carnival songs, a kind of verse invented by
himself, Lorenzo displayed all the best qualities and worst defects
of his muse. Marvellously and spontaneously elegant, very
truthful and fresh in style, fertile in fancy and rich in colour, they
are often of a most revolting indecency. And these compositions
of one filling a princely station in the city were often sung by
their author in the public streets, in the midst of the populace.
Lorenzo left three sons—Pietro (1471–1503), Giovanni (1475–1521) and Giuliano (1479–1516). He was succeeded by Pietro, whose rule lasted but for two years. During this brief term he performed no good deeds, and only displayed inordinate vanity and frivolity. His conduct greatly helped to foment the hatred between Lodovico Sforza and Ferdinand of Naples, which hastened the coming of the French under Charles VIII., and the renewal of foreign invasions. No sooner did the French approach the frontiers of Tuscany than Pietro, crazed with fear, Pietro. hastened to meet them, and, basely yielding to every demand, accepted terms equally humiliating to himself and the state. But, returning to Florence, he found that the enraged citizens had already decreed his deposition, in order to reconstitute the republic, and was therefore compelled to escape to Venice. His various plots to reinstate himself in Florence were all unsuccessful. At last he went to the south of Italy with the French, was drowned at the passage of the Garigliano in 1503, and was buried in the cloister of Monte Cassino.
The ensuing period was adverse to the Medici, for a republican government was maintained in Florence from 1494 to 1512, and the city remained faithful to its alliance with the French, who were all-powerful in Italy. Cardinal Giovanni, the head of the family, resided in Rome, playing the patron to a circle of litterati, artists and friends, seeking to increase his popularity, and calmly waiting for better days. The battle of Ravenna wrought the downfall of the fortunes of France in Italy, and led to the rise of those of Spain, whose troops entered Florence to destroy the republic and reinstate the Medici. Pietro had now been dead for some time, leaving a young son, Lorenzo (1492–1519), who was afterwards duke of Urbino. The following year (1513) Cardinal Giovanni was elected pope, and assumed the name of Cardinal Giovanni (Leo X.), Giuliano, Lorenzo. Leo X. He accordingly removed to Rome, leaving his brother Giuliano with his nephew Lorenzo in Florence, and accompanied by his cousin Giulio, who was a natural son of the Giuliano murdered in the conspiracy of the Pazzi, and was soon destined to be a cardinal and ultimately a pope. Meanwhile his kinsmen in Florence continued to govern that city by means of a balía. And thus, being masters of the whole of central Italy, the Medici enjoyed great authority throughout the country and their ambition plumed itself for still higher flights. This was the moment when Niccolo Machiavelli, in his treatise The Prince, counselled them to accomplish the unity of Italy by arming the whole nation, and expelling its foreign invaders.
Leo X., who is only indirectly connected with the history of Florence, gave his name to the age in which he lived in consequence of his magnificent patronage of art and letters in Rome. But he was merely a clever amateur, and had not the literary gifts of his father Lorenzo. He surrounded himself with versifiers and inferior writers, who enlivened his board and accompanied him wherever he went. He liked to lead a gay and untroubled life, was fond of theatrical performances, satires and other intellectual diversions. His patronage of the fine arts, his genuine affection for Raphael, and the numerous works he caused to be executed by him and other artists, have served to confer an exaggerated glory on his name. He had not the remotest idea of the grave importance of the Reformation, which indeed he unconsciously promoted by his reckless and shameless sale of indulgences. The whole policy of Pope Leo X. consisted in oscillating between France and Spain, in always playing fast and loose, and deceiving both powers in turn. Yet the evil results of this contemptible policy never seemed to disturb his mind. He finally joined the side of the emperor Charles V., and in 1521, at the time of the defeat of the French by the Spanish troops on the river Adda, he ceased to breathe at his favourite villa of Magliana.
Giuliano dei Medici had died during Leo’s reign, in 1516, without having ever done anything worthy of record. He was the husband of Philiberta of Savoy, was duke of Nemours, and left a natural son, Ippolito dei Medici (1511–1535), who afterwards became a cardinal. Lorenzo, being of more ambitious temper, was by no means content to remain at the head of the Florence government hampered by many restrictions imposed by republican institutions, and subject to the incessant control of the pope. In his eagerness to aggrandize his kinsmen, the latter had further decided to give Lorenzo the duchy of Urbino, and formally invested him in its rights, after expelling on false pretences its legitimate lord, Francesco Maria della Rovere. This prince, however, soon returned to Urbino, where he was joyously welcomed by his subjects, and Lorenzo regained possession only by a war of several months, in which he was wounded. In 1519 he also died, worn out by disease and excess. By his marriage with Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne, he had one daughter, Caterina dei Medici (1519–1589), married in 1533 to Henry, duke of Orleans, afterwards king of France. She played a long and sinister part in the history of that country. Lorenzo also left a natural son named Alessandro, inheriting the frizzled hair and projecting lips of the negro or mulatto slave who had given him birth. His miserable death will be presently related. Thus the only three surviving representatives of the chief branch of the Medici, Cardinal Giulio, Ippolito and Alessandro were all of illegitimate birth, and left no legitimate heirs.
Cardinal Giulio, who had laboured successfully for the reinstatement of his family in Florence in 1512, had been long attached to the person of Leo X. as his trusted factotum and companion. He had been generally regarded as the mentor of the pope, who had no liking for hard work. But in fact, his frivolity notwithstanding, Leo X. always followed his own inclinations. He had much aptitude for command, and pursued his shuffling policy without any mental anxiety. Giulio, on the contrary, shrank from all responsibility, muddled his brains in weighing the reasons for and against every possible decision, and was therefore a better tool of government in others’ hands than he was fit to govern on his own account. When Giuliano and Lorenzo died, the pope appointed the cardinal to the government of Florence. In that post, restricted within the limits imposed by republican institutions, and acting under the continual direction of Rome, he performed his duties fairly well. HeCardinal Giulio (Clement VII.). caressed the citizens with hopes of extended liberties, which, although never destined to be fulfilled, long served to keep men’s minds in a pleasant flutter of expectation; and when the more impatient spirits attempted to raise a rebellion he speedily quenched it in blood. When, after the death of Leo X. and the very brief pontificate
