While these ceremonies were taking place in the cathedral, Archbishop Salviati, Iacopo de’ Pazzi, and a hundred armed followers proceeded against the Palazzo Vecchio. They tried to rouse the populace to their aid by shouting Popolo! Libertà! But the people, in this crisis, rallied to the Medici with the cry, Vivano le palle!—“Long live the balls!”—the emblem of the Medici family. When Salviati entered the palace he was struck down by the gonfalonier Cesare Petrucci; Iacopo di Poggio, son of the humanist, was hanged from a palace window; and several other conspirators, who had climbed the stairs, were seized by the resolute priors and were thrown out of the windows to be finished by the stone pavement or the crowd. When Lorenzo appeared, now with a numerous escort, the joy of the people at his safety expressed itself in violent rage against all who were suspected of sharing in the conspiracy. Francesco de’ Pazzi, weak from loss of blood, was snatched from his bed and hanged beside the Archbishop, who gnawed at Francesco’s shoulder in his dying agony. The body of Iacopo de’ Pazzi, the old honored head of his family, was drawn naked through the streets and flung into the Arno. Lorenzo did what he could to mitigate the bloodthirst of the mob, and saved several men unjustly accused; but instincts stealthily latent even in civilized men could not forego this opportunity of safe expression in the anonymity of the crowd.
Sixtus IV, shocked by the hanging of an archbishop, excommunicated Lorenzo, the gonfalonier, and the magistrates of Florence, and suspended all religious services throughout the Florentine dominions. Some of the clergy protested against this interdict, and issued a document condemning the Pope in terms of unmeasured vituperation.3 At Sixtus’ suggestion Ferrante—King Ferdinand I—of Naples sent an envoy to Florence, urging the Signory and the citizens to deliver up Lorenzo to the Pope, or at least to banish him. Lorenzo advised the Signory to comply; instead it answered Ferdinand that Florence would suffer every extremity rather than betray its leader to his enemies. Sixtus and Ferrante now declared war upon Florence (1479). The King’s son Alfonso defeated the Florentine army near Poggibonsi, and ravaged the countryside.
Soon the people of Florence began to complain of the taxes levied to finance the campaign, and Lorenzo realized that no community will long sacrifice itself for an individual. He made a characteristic and unprecedented decision in this turning point of his career. Embarking at Pisa, he sailed to Naples, and asked to be taken to the King. Ferrante admired his courage; the two men were at war; Lorenzo had no safe-conduct, no weapons, no guard; only recently the condottiere Francesco Piccinino, invited to Naples as guest of the King, had been treacherously murdered at the royal command. Lorenzo frankly admitted the difficulties that Florence faced; but he pointed out how dangerous it would be to Naples that the papacy should be so strengthened by the dismemberment of the Florentine dominions as then to be able to press its old claim upon Naples as a papal and tributary fief. The Turks were advancing westward by land and sea; they might at any moment invade Italy, and attack Ferrante’s Adriatic provinces; it would not do, in that crisis, for Italy to be divided with internal hate and war. Ferrante did not commit himself, but he gave orders that Lorenzo should be detained as both a prisoner and an honored guest.
Lorenzo’s mission was made more difficult by the continued victories of Alfonso against the Florentine troops, and by the repeated request of Sixtus that Lorenzo should be sent to Rome as a papal prisoner. For three months the Florentine was kept in suspense, knowing that failure probably meant his death and an end to the independence of Florence. Meanwhile he made friends by his hospitality and generosity, his good manners and good cheer. Count Caraffa, minister of state, was won over, and supported his cause. Ferrante appreciated the culture and character of his prisoner; here, apparently, was a man of refinement and integrity; peace made with such a man would assure the friendship of Florence for Naples through at least Lorenzo’s life. He signed a treaty with him, gave him a splendid horse, and allowed him to take ship from Naples. When Florence learned that Lorenzo brought peace it gave him a grateful and tumultuous welcome. Sixtus raged, and wished to continue the war alone; but when Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, landed an army at Otranto (1480), and threatened to overrun Italy and capture the very citadel of Latin Christianity, Sixtus invited the Florentines to discuss terms. Their envoys made the due obeisances to the Pope; he scolded them properly, forgave them, persuaded them to equip fifteen galleys against the Turks, and made peace. From that time forward Lorenzo was the unchallenged lord of Tuscany.
III. LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT
He ruled now with a milder hand than in his youth. He had just entered the thirties, but men matured quickly in the hothouse of the Renaissance. He was not handsome: his large flat nose overhung his upper lip and then turned outward curiously; his complexion was dark; and his stern brow and heavy jaw belied the geniality of his spirit, the charm of his courtesy, the vivacity of his wit, the poetic sensitivity of his mind. Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust, he looked more like an athlete than a statesman; and indeed he was seldom surpassed in physical games. He carried himself with the moderate dignity indispensable to his station, but in private he made his many friends immediately forget his power and his wealth. Like his son Leo X he enjoyed the subtlest art and the simplest buffoons. He was a humorist with Pulci, a poet with Politian, a scholar with Landino, a philosopher with Ficino, a mystic with Pico, an esthete with Botticelli, a musician with Squarcialupi, a reveler with the gayest in festival time. “When my mind is disturbed with the tumults of public business,” he wrote to Ficino, “and my ears are stunned with the clamors of turbulent citizens, how could I support such contention unless I found relaxation in science?”—by which he meant the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms.4
His morals were not as exemplary as his mind. Like many of his contemporaries he did not allow his religious faith to hamper his enjoyment of life. He wrote devout hymns with apparent sincerity, but turned from them, without evident qualm, to poems celebrating licentious love. He seems rarely to have known remorse except for pleasures missed. Having reluctantly accepted, for political reasons, a wife whom he respected rather than loved, he amused himself with adultery after the fashion of the time. But it was accounted one of his distinctions that he had no illegitimate children. Debate is still warm as to his commercial morality. No one questions his liberality; it was as lavish as Cosimo’s. He never rested till he had repaid every gift with a greater gift; he financed a dozen religious undertakings, supported countless artists, scholars, and poets, and lent great sums to the state. After the Pazzi conspiracy he found that his public and private disbursements had left his firm unable to meet its obligations; whereupon a complaisant Council voted to pay his debts out of the state treasury (1480). It is not clear whether this was a fair return for services rendered and private funds spent for public purposes,5 or a plain embezzlement;6 the fact that the measure, though openly known, did no harm to Lorenzo’s popularity, suggests the more lenient interpretation. It was his liberality, as well as his wealth and his luxurious menage, that men had in mind when they called him Il Magnifico.