786 On the 26th April 1478, while Giuliano and Lorenzo were attending high mass in the cathedral of Florence, the former was mortally stabbed by conspirators, but the latter was able to beat back his assailants and escape into the sacristy. His life saved; and, no longer having to share the government with a brother, Lorenzo profited by the oppor tunity to wreak cruel vengeance upon his foes. Several of the Pazzi and their followers were hanged from the palace windows; others were hacked to pieces, dragged through the streets, and cast into the Arno, while a great many more were condemned to death or sent into exile. Lorenzo seemed willing and able to become a tyrant. But he stopped short of this point. He knew the temper of the city, and had also to look to fresh dangers threatening him from with out. The pope had excommunicated him, put Florence under an interdict, and, being seconded by the Neapolitan king, made furious war against the republic. These hostilities speedily assumed alarming proportions, and the Florentines began to tire of submitting to so many hard ships in order to support ths yoke of a fellow-citizen. Lorenzo s hold over Florence seemed endangered. But he did not lose heart, and, on the contrary, rose superior to the difficulties by which he was encompassed. He boldly journeyed to Naples, to the court of King Ferdinand of Aragon, who was reputed to be as treacherous as he was cruel, and succeeded in obtaining from him an honourable peace, that soon led to a reconciliation with Sixtus. Thus at last Lorenzo found himself complete master of Florence, and was in a position to turn his power to account. But, as the " balie " changed every five years, it was always re quisite, in order to retain his supremacy, that he should be prepared to renew the usual manoeuvre at the close of that term and have another elected equally favourable to his aims. This was often a difficult achievement, and Lorenzo showed much dexterity in overcoming all obstacles. In 1480 he compassed the institution of a new council of seventy, which was practically a permanent "balia" with extended powers, inasmuch as it not only elected the chief magis trates, but had also the administration of numerous state affairs. But, this permanent council of his own devoted adherents once formed, his security was firmly established. By this means, the chroniclers tell us, " liberty was buried," but the chief affairs of the state were always conducted by intelligent and experienced men, who promoted the public prosperity. Florence was still called a republic : the old institutions were still preserved, if only in name. Lorenzo was absolute lord of all, and virtually a tyrant. His im morality was scandalous ; he kept an army of spies, and frequently meddled in the citizens most private affairs, and exalted men of the lowest condition to important offices of the state. Yet, as Guicciardini remarks, "if Florence was to have a tyrant, she could never have found a better or more pleasant one." In fact all industry, com merce, and public works made enormous progress. The civil equality of modern states, which was quite unknown to ths Middle Ages, was more developed in Florence than in any other city of the world. Even the condition of the peasantry was far more prosperous than elsewhere. And Lorenzo s authority was not confined to Tuscany, but was also very great throughout the whole of Italy. He was on the friendliest terms with Pope Innocent VEIL, from whom he obtained the exaltation of his son Giovanni to the cardinalate at the age of fourteen. This boy cardinal was afterwards Pope Leo X. From the moment of the decease of Sixtus IV., the union of Florence and Rome became the basis of Lorenzo s foreign policy. By its means he was able to prevent the hatreds and jealousies of the Sforzas of Milan and the Aragonese of Naples from bursting into the open conflict that long threatened, and after his death actually caused, the beginning of new and irreparable calamities. Hence Lorenzo was styled the needle of the Italian compass. But the events we have narrated cannot suffice for the full comprehension of this complex character, unless we add the record of his deeds as a patron of letters and his achievements as a writer. His palace was the school and resort of illustrious men. Within its walls were trained the two young Medici afterwards known to the world as Leo X. and Clement VII. Ficino, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola, and all members of the Platonic academy were its constant habitues. It was here that Pulci gave readings of his Morgante, and Michelangelo essayed the first strokes of his chisel. Lorenzo s intellectual powers were of exceptional strength and versatility. He could speak with 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 positively. the leading spirit among the literati 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 recur ring 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 Ga.cc.ia del Falcone, and his2Vma 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 suc ceeded by Pietro, whose rule lasted but for two years. Pietro, During this brief term he performed no good deeds, and only displayed inordinate vanity and frivolity. His con duct 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, 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 deposi tion, in order to reconstitute the republic, and was there fore 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