Death in Florence: the Medici, Savonarola and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City

by Paul Strathern

  By the time of Lorenzo’s birth, the ageing Cosimo had begun to delegate much of his power to his son Piero, Lorenzo’s father. Piero de’ Medici was a meticulous, if not overly talented, banker, who had exhibited a sophisticated taste in the arts and had become a highly discriminating patron. Unfortunately, he was chronically afflicted with the congenital Medici curse, to the point where he would soon become known as Piero the Gouty. This debilitating disease meant that for increasing spells his legs were too painfully infirm to support him, and he would have to be carried about on a litter. The constant pain also had a marked effect on his character, punctuating his natural charm with increasing bouts of irascibility. Such a quality did not endear him to others, especially in a society where political influence relied so heavily upon warm human contact.

  However, the major influence on the young Lorenzo would undoubtedly be his mother, Lucrezia, an intelligent and resilient woman in an age when females for the most part had little opportunity to assert themselves beyond the restricted domestic sphere. Lucrezia came from an old and distinguished Florentine family, the Tornabuoni, and although her arranged marriage to a Medici was undoubtedly contracted for political reasons, she appears from her extant letters to have been genuinely fond of her husband, worrying over his health and betraying her concern that he should not ‘give way to melancholy’.2 Yet these letters are not the only evidence of her writing, for Lucrezia de’ Medici was also a talented poet and hymnist. Although the conventional religiosity of her verse is of little modern interest, such piety did not stifle the warmth of her sympathetic personality. Her verse appears to have been the outlet for a wider creative sensibility, which was used to some effect in guiding her husband’s discriminating patronage of such leading early Renaissance figures as the architect Michelozzi, who had designed the groundbreaking Palazzo Medici; the sculptor Donatello, whose innovative realistic sculptures included the first free-standing nude since classical times; and the troubled artist Fra Filippo Lippi, whose colourful larger-than-life portraits echoed his own larger-than-life personality. All three of these artists Lucrezia came to regard as personal friends. The Medici were amongst the first patrons to recognise that artists were now becoming something more than mere craftsmen, and the family did their best to accommodate the increasingly difficult temperaments and wayward behaviour of these emergent genius-figures. Lucrezia was also known to have influenced her husband on more important political matters – for instance, it would be she who persuaded Piero to allow certain members of the Strozzi family to return from the banishment they had suffered for opposing Cosimo. This would prove a particularly astute move.

  Of similar impact was Lucrezia’s formative influence upon the youthful Lorenzo, who quickly began displaying precocious brilliance in a variety of fields, ranging from classical literature to horse-riding. He was also said to have had an exceptional singing voice, accompanying himself on the lyre.fn1 In 1459, the self-confident ten-year-old Lorenzo would play a leading role in the great pageant put on to entertain the new pope, Pius II, when he visited Florence, though he would not have been aware of the ulterior motive behind all the ‘theatrical performances, combats of wild beasts, races and balls … given in honour of the illustrious guest’.3 In fact, Cosimo was attempting to persuade Pius II to reinstate the Medici bank as handlers of the lucrative papal account.

  Lorenzo and his younger brother Giuliano were tutored by leading members of the humanist intellectual circle that gathered at the Palazzo Medici. The brothers first learned Latin from the scholar Gentile Becchi, who would later be rewarded with the bishopric of Arezzo. Lorenzo was four years older than Giuliano, and as they grew up the two brothers became increasingly close. Lucrezia, in a letter to her husband, evokes a touching scene in which the nine-year-old ‘Lorenzo is learning [Latin] verses which his master … gave him and then teaches them to Giuliano’.4 The boys were taught Greek and Aristotelian philosophy by Johannes Argyropoulos, the leading Byzantine scholar who had left Constantinople prior to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Aristotelian philosophy was very much the backbone of the old medieval learning, whilst the new humanism turned instead to his predecessors Socrates and Plato, whose philosophy was taught to Lorenzo by Marsilio Ficino. The most knowledgeable Platonic scholar of his age, Ficino had been employed by Cosimo de’ Medici to translate the entire works of Plato from the original Greek into more accessible Latin, a task that would occupy most of his life. Ficino appears to have been a curious, but sympathetic character: a tiny, limping hunchback with a distinct stutter and a somewhat volatile temperament, he nonetheless doted on the young Lorenzo. In turn, Lorenzo quickly established a deep rapport with his middle-aged tutor, and throughout his life would continue to debate philosophical ideas with Ficino. Even at this early stage Ficino took it upon himself to provide Lorenzo with philosophical advice: ‘by imitating the deeds of Socrates we are taught better how to attain courage than by the art displayed by Aristotle in his writings on morality … I beg you to prefer learning from reality instead of from description, as you would prefer a living thing from a dead.’5

  Surprisingly, it was Ficino who would encourage Lorenzo to write his verse in the local Tuscan dialect of Italian, rather than scholarly Latin. This dialect was now in the process of becoming the predominant Italian language amongst the many dialects spoken throughout the peninsula, in part because it had been used by Dante in his Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), which was already becoming recognised by many as the finest work of poetry since the classical era.

  However, right from the start Lorenzo’s poetry would exhibit a curious schizophrenic tendency. On the one hand, it would be infused with the seriousness and intensity of feeling exhibited by his mother’s verse, whilst on other occasions it would be characterised by a bawdy wit and levity suitable for the public carnivals in which it appeared. Indeed, Lorenzo’s verse exhibited the same duality that seemed to permeate his entire character. The precocious young scholar who wrote flawless poetry was also the boisterous player of calcio storico, the rough-house early version of football in which Florentine boys used to let off steam. Likewise, the intense youth who participated in the high-minded debates on Platonic idealism at the Palazzo Medici was also the rascal who delighted in roaming the streets at night with his pals chanting bawdy verses, or in winter throwing snowballs up at the windows of the local girls. And as Machiavelli noted, this childish element would remain a part of his character throughout his life: ‘to see him pass in a moment from his serious self to his exuberant self was to see in him two quite distinct personalities joined as if by some impossible bond’.6

  This perennial childishness seems to have been a psychological reaction: the serious side of his character would be forced from an early age to assume a maturity well beyond his years. In 1464, when Lorenzo was just fifteen, Cosimo de’ Medici died and Lorenzo’s father took over as ruler of Florence. The gout-ridden 46-year-old Piero de’ Medici suspected that he had not long to live, and quickly began coaching Lorenzo for his future role as ruler of Florence. Within a year, Lorenzo was being sent on his first mission to represent Florence in Milan at the wedding of Ippolita Maria Sforza, daughter of Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, to Alfonso, the son and heir of King Ferrante I of Naples. The bedridden Piero sent a number of letters to his sixteen-year-old son, issuing a constant stream of advice and detailed instructions: ‘act as a man, not as a boy’,7 ‘follow the advice of Pigello [manager of the Milan branch of the Medici bank]’ and, above all, ‘do not stint money, but do thyself honour’ and ‘if thou givest dinners or other entertainments do not let there be any stint in money or whatever else is needful to do thyself honour’.

  Piero need not have worried, for Lorenzo was soon exercising both diplomacy and charm and, where necessary, perspicacity – undertaking missions to Venice, Naples, Ferrara, and finally Rome in the spring of 1466. This last was a mission of the utmost importance, for Lorenzo was expected to persuade Pope Paul II to grant to the Medici bank
the monopoly on operating and distribution rights for the highly lucrative Tolfa alum mines owned by the papacy.

  At the time alum was the mineral salt used to fix vivid dyes on cloth, making it an essential ingredient in the thriving textile industries of Florence and Venice, as well as those in the Low Countries and England. At the height of their trading, the mines at Tolfa some thirty miles north-west of Rome accounted for almost 3,500 tons of alum each year. This was sold for the equivalent of around 150,000 florins – that is, around half the value of the entire papal dues accumulating from all over Christendom, which at the time arrived from dioceses stretching from Greenland to Cyprus, from Poland to the Azores. In effect, the papacy would claim the equivalent of half the total alum-sale revenue; and after costs the operator would expect to recover around 50,000 florins. This was another colossal sum, when the total assets of the Medici bank at its height under Cosimo de’ Medici had probably been less than 200,000 florins.fn2

  However, relations between the papacy and the Medici had now taken a sudden turn for the worse. Paul II was a Venetian, and when Venice had recently gone to war with Florence, the pope had transferred the operating rights of the alum mines to a Venetian concern, as well as withdrawing the papal account from the Medici bank. This had plunged the Medici bank into crisis, seriously endangering Piero’s rule in Florence: without the constant flow of money required to maintain widespread patronage, Medici political power could not be guaranteed.

  It was impossible to overemphasise the importance of Lorenzo’s mission, and Piero once again felt the need to stress in his correspondence the significance of his son’s behaviour: ‘Put an end to all playing on instruments, or singing or dancing … be old beyond thy years for the times require it.’9 From the sound of this, Lorenzo’s previous missions had not been completely without lapse into what Machiavelli referred to as ‘his exuberant self’. Piero had already issued Lorenzo with the most specific instructions on how to present the Medici case to Pope Paul II. Lorenzo was to argue that only the Medici bank had sufficient expertise to organise high production from the mines, while at the same time having the necessary financial resources and contacts to outfit galleys to carry the alum on the long voyage to London and Bruges. Shipwreck, and the constant threat of Barbary pirates, meant inevitable losses, which only the Medici bank could afford to cover; no Venetian operators had funds that could enable them to survive such losses. Lorenzo evidently behaved himself in Rome: his charm, Piero’s arguments and Paul II’s greed eventually won the day, and in April 1466 the Medici bank was finally granted the alum monopoly.

  Yet Piero had also sent his son to Rome on another matter of some importance – namely, to learn the day-to-day running of the family business. In between his diplomatic duties, he was instructed to call upon his uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni, the manager of the important Rome branch of the Medici bank, so that he could be instructed in the art and technicalities of Renaissance banking.

  Banking in its modern form had to all intents and purposes been invented by the Italians some two centuries previously. Even in the fifteenth century it remained very much an Italian concern, especially with the recent introduction of double-entry bookkeeping, which enabled a banker to carry out a swift check on the overall balance between credit and debit in his accounts. He could thus determine at a glance whether it was prudent to make a further outlay, or whether the bank was dangerously at risk if a certain debtor defaulted – a situation that was not always readily apparent with more primitive bookkeeping methods. However, banking still suffered from an ancient drawback. Strictly speaking, the lending and borrowing of money fell under the biblical edict against ‘usury’: officially banks could not charge interest on any money loaned, nor could depositors receive interest on any money banked. This difficulty was largely circumvented by financial sleight of hand. If money (or its equivalent in the form of gold plate, jewellery, and so forth) was deposited, the bank would pay an annual ‘gift’ to the depositor of around 15 per cent of the deposit’s worth.

  Another source of income that eluded the ban on usury was ‘exchange’. The main Italian commercial centres, such as Milan, Venice and Florence, each had their own different currencies, which had no constant equivalence. For instance, at this period the Florentine florin could be worth anything between 10 and 20 per cent less than the Venetian ducat. Other countries in Europe also had their own currencies, and their exchange rates could fluctuate by similar amounts. This enabled bankers covertly to receive and dispense interest under the guise of ‘exchange’. Such was particularly the case with the papal bankers, who were responsible for collecting papal revenues in far-flung regions throughout Christendom and remitting equivalent sums to Rome. Yet the fact remained that in theological terms the practice of banking still involved the sin of usury. Indeed, it was Cosimo de’ Medici’s increasing anxiety over this matter as his years advanced, and he faced the prospect of death and the Last Judgement, that had played a large part in prompting him to build and renovate so many churches. In this way, Cosimo hoped to absolve himself from the sin of usury. Ironically, it had been this archetypically medieval concern over the ultimate fate of his soul which had prompted the patronage that ushered in the new humanist age of the Renaissance.

  By contrast, Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo appears to have been as little concerned with such matters as he was with banking as a whole. The young Lorenzo prided himself on having the mind of a poet and the mental steeliness of a warrior; he enjoyed debating philosophy and discussing the latest humanist ideas. Such a mind was not given to studying the intricacies of account ledgers. Despite the best efforts of his Uncle Giovanni at the bank in Rome, Lorenzo absorbed little or nothing of the processes by which the Medici had made their fortune. Later, when asked about banking, he would confess (or perhaps boast): ‘I know nothing about such matters.’10

  However, if Lorenzo returned home from Rome, after his successful negotiations with the pope over the alum monopoly, expecting a hero’s welcome from his father, he was in for a shock. He found Florence divided and his father locked in a struggle for his political life.

  Piero de’ Medici’s unwillingness to travel beyond his native city and the Medici villas in its immediate environs was not only on account of his debilitating illness. Since taking over from his father, Piero had become increasingly aware of the precariousness of his position. By the end of Cosimo’s long life, many of the leading Florentine families had begun to tire of the Medici ascendancy, wishing instead for a return to the more apparently republican ways of former times, when they had been able to exercise their own influence over the affairs of the city. The ever-astute Cosimo had certainly realised this, declaring: ‘I know the fickle ways of our citizens. Within fifty years we Medici will be chased out of Florence.’11

  Despite Cosimo’s perspicacity, at the end of his life he had made two uncharacteristic mistakes. Firstly, he had left no will clarifying family ownership of the Medici bank. This meant that when he died, his son Piero inherited only 50 per cent of the Medici holding in the bank. The other half was inherited by his cousin Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who took no part in the running of the bank or indeed in running the city. As a result, Piero had large outgoings in the form of patronage to maintain Medici control; and when, as sometimes happened, the bank required a sudden injection of liquidity, it was Piero who advanced the money. Meanwhile, Pierfrancesco simply accumulated more and more assets. He would soon have much greater wealth than the ruling branch of the Medici family, yet he made sure that he was in no way seen as being associated with their rule, despite the fact that he lived next door to the Palazzo Medici. Many in Florence began to wonder how much longer this could continue.

  Cosimo’s second mistake was to advise his son Piero that when it came to running the Medici bank he should follow the advice of Dietisalvi Neroni, Cosimo’s long-term business associate, who had gained a considerable fortune through his association with the Medici. However, unbeknown to Piero, Neroni had become
jealous of the power wielded by the Medici and had covertly switched his allegiance. Machiavelli, who was not only a profound judge of human nature, but also knew the devious ways of Florentine politics, described how:

  Messer Dietisalvi [Neroni], inspired more by his own ambition than by his love for Piero or the benefits he had in former times received from Cosimo, thought it would be easy for him to ruin Piero’s credit, and to deprive him of the power he had inherited from his father. He therefore gave advice to Piero, in a manner which made him appear entirely honest and reasonable, but which in practice was intended to bring about his ruin.12

  Neroni began leading Piero through the Medici bank’s libri segreti (private account ledgers), pointing out to him that – contrary to appearances – the bank was in a distinctly parlous state. During his last years Cosimo had spent vast sums patronising the costly building and renovation of churches; at the same time, he had also quietly loaned considerable sums to a number of leading Florentine figures who had got into difficulties during the recent downturn in the wool trade. On top of this, the bank had several large outstanding loans abroad, leaving a number of its branches in a perilous financial position. Owing to mismanagement, the Bruges branch was close to collapse, and things were if anything even worse at the London branch, where credit advanced to King Edward IV and his various nobles in order to finance the Wars of the Roses amounted to almost 80,000 florins. Word had it that Edward IV was neither willing nor able to repay his debts. Having acquainted Piero with ‘the disorder in his affairs and how much money was absolutely necessary to save his own credit’, Neroni suggested ‘that the most honourable way to remedy his difficulties was to call in the debts due to his father by both foreigners and citizens’. As Machiavelli pointed out, ‘such counsel seemed good and honest to Piero, who wished to remedy his affairs with his own means’.