Authors: Miles J. Unger
Magnifico (37 page)
It has often been claimed that Lorenzo was wholly responsible for his government’s defiance of the pope. This was certainly the assumption of Sixtus, who denounced Lorenzo’s “depraved and malignant spirit,” calling him a “usurping tyrant.” It was a charge Lorenzo vehemently denied, explaining that he was merely carrying out the wishes of the
Signoria
whose honor had been besmirched by the pope’s high-handed refusal to consider its wishes. He set out his defense in a letter written to Duke Galeazzo on December 14, 1474. “The matter is of utmost importance,” Lorenzo began,
and it seems to me that I have been done a grave injustice and wrong, because His Holiness cannot complain of anything of me, nor…should offense be taken over
messer
Francesco Salviati’s being denied possession of the archbishopric of Pisa; and this offense, if offense there be, comes from the entire city, yet he wishes to avenge himself on me alone. It is true that for the grace of God and the warmth and favor of Your Excellency, I believed that I would have control of the said archbishopric, but it did not seem to me right to acquiesce in such a humiliation of the entire public for the sake of my own interests, which the city does not deserve from me.
To some extent Lorenzo’s letter is disingenuous, since the
Signoria
would surely follow his lead in this matter. But it was true as Lorenzo said that the appointment of Salviati against the express wishes of the Florentine government set a dangerous precedent. Salviati did not make matters easier by loudly trumpeting his own status as a client of the papal family, signing his correspondence
d. Franciscus Salviati de Riario
.
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The appointment was all the more disturbing because Pisa was a particularly tender spot in the Florentine empire. As recently as 1405, Pisa had been an independent republic, and many of its citizens still yearned to reclaim their lost autonomy. Lorenzo, as we have seen, worked hard to reconcile its citizens to Florentine rule, spending lavishly on its university and much of his free time in the vicinity. Lorenzo voiced his concerns to Duke Galeazzo:
And while in the letter of the said Count [Girolamo] he wrote that His Holiness had received letters from many citizens in favor of Salviati, it seems to me all the more reason to prevent him taking possession of his see; since the
Signoria
and leading citizens are not well disposed towards him, those who are reveal themselves to be men who do not wish the government well, and it would seem all the stranger that in a city as unreliable and sensitive as Pisa that this man should be acceptable to some who is so objectionable to the government. Does Your Excellency think that you would easily accept having in Pavia or another one of your lands a man who had gained his place through the good offices of your enemies?
Those “men who do not wish the government well” were the Pazzi and their clients, who had orchestrated a letter-writing campaign to convince the pope that there was a groundswell of support in Florence for his nominee. Not only was the pope challenging Lorenzo’s authority on an important matter of international diplomacy, but he was doing so by exploiting divisions within the Florentine ruling class.
Despite the growing rift with the pope, Lorenzo continued to downplay the seriousness of the situation. His enemies in the Vatican could cause him a good deal of trouble but he dismissed any thought that they might pose a threat to his life. This was not for lack of warning. Though the conspirators tried to maintain strict secrecy, the courts of Italy were abuzz with rumors. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, perhaps catching some faint whiff of what was afoot through his connection to the Riario family, had urged Lorenzo to “keep himself safe and his eyes on what is happening inside [the city].” Lorenzo’s response to repeated admonitions to protect himself was, typically, to dismiss most of the rumors as “fantasies” cooked up by a group of malcontents with little standing in the community.
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He assured Sacramoro that “those who wish to engage in machinations are weak and few in number.” His attitude, as in 1466, reflects the overconfidence of youth. The frequent complaints he made to Sforza show a concern for his pocketbook but none for his life. In his letter to the duke, written in September of 1475, he belittles his opponents, even as he begs him to intervene on his behalf in Rome:
I find that all of this comes from the same source, that is these Pazzi, my relatives, who because of their nature and because they have been put up to it by His Majesty the King and the duke of Urbino, seek to wrong me in every way possible; and in this they forget their debt, because as perhaps Your Excellency has been informed, everything they have achieved in this city they owe to our house, towards which they show themselves ungrateful. I shall arrange it so that they can do little to harm me and will keep my eyes open, though I believe it is all a fantasy since they have little prestige and are despised by everyone…. I think with little effort all will workout…. [T]he new Archbishop of Pisa belongs very much to them, bound to those Pazzi by ties of marriage and of friendship. I am more than ever harassed in Rome to force me to allow him to take possession of Pisa, which, it seems to me, would give the Pazzi great prestige and me the reverse…. I pray that Your Excellency would speak with such heat to count Girolamo, in such a manner as to make it clear to him that you object to my being humiliated in this way, as much as if it were done to you yourself, I being a faithful servant of yours. This should have two effects: one, that it will perhaps cause him to stop harassing me; the other, that in Rome all will know that I am truly loved by Your Excellency, which, as I have written at other times, is enough to lift me up and draw the malice from the minds of every man.
This letter reveals that Lorenzo continually underestimated both the determination and the imagination of his opponents, lulled into a false sense of security by his belief in his own powers and his faith in the loyalty of his people.
In the end neither Lorenzo nor the
Signoria
could defy a pope determined to have his way. Francesco Salviati formally took possession of his bishopric on October 30, 1475, though only after a humiliating one-year exile in Rome during which his hatred for Lorenzo had ample opportunity to ripen. Once again Lorenzo had publicly defied the pope and emerged with little to show for it. To a friend he confided, “if it could be done without scandal, it would be better to have three or four popes rather than one.”
As for the one pope who actually sat on the throne of St. Peter, Lorenzo’s difficulties with him were just beginning. Even as the two tussled over the appointment of Salviati, a new diplomatic quarrel was brewing. It concerned a small city on the border between Tuscany and the pope’s domain known as Città di Castello. Città di Castello was one of those innumerable dependencies, like Imola, Urbino, Rimini, Bologna, and Perugia, to name a few, that made up the territory that went under the hopeful heading of the Papal States. It had long been Vatican policy to bring order and obedience to this fractious territory. As part of this wider program, and in order to find employment for his bellicose nephew, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, Sixtus had already sent him at the head of an army to reassert papal authority in the towns of Spoleto and Forli. Città di Castello, nominally within papal territories but usually regarded by the government of Florence as within its sphere of interest, was next on his list of conquests.
Sixtus was aided in his purpose by internal divisions within the town. For decades rule over Città di Castello had been contested by the Giustini and Vitelli families, a matter that seemed to have been settled in 1440 when Pope Eugenius IV made Vitelozzo Vitelli his vice-regent. But nothing is ever settled as long as the aggrieved party is still around to argue his case. While Vitelozzo’s son, Niccolò Vitelli, placed himself under the protection of the Medici and the Florentine government, becoming in effect a client of the
Signoria,
Lorenzo Giustini made his way to the Vatican, where he filled the pope’s ears with complaints about Vitelli and his Florentine patrons.
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Dubious though Giustini’s claims were, Sixtus used them as an excuse to tighten his control over the strategic town that he hoped to use as “an example to all the lands of the Church.”
Thus it was that on June 24, 1474, troops under Giuliano della Rovere arrived before the walls of Città di Castello and began laying siege to the town. Girolamo Riario wrote to Lorenzo in the mildest of tones urging his cooperation in the matter: “If you would have me see that I am loved by you, and that my friendship is agreeable to you, and would also have our Master perceive that you are towards his Holiness all that I have ever declared you to be, then deal with me in this matter as you wish me to deal with you and your affairs.” Lorenzo was not moved by these friendly words. Though it was clear he was risking further reprisals from Sixtus, he refused to abandon his longtime ally, knowing that to do so would be to guarantee the creation of a formidable papal enclave on the very borders of Tuscany.
Under the circumstances it was natural for Lorenzo to turn to his allies in the triple alliance, all of whom had obligations to Vitelli because he had a contract to serve as a mercenary captain on their behalf. Unfortunately the alliance, already strained by the rivalry between Sforza and King Ferrante of Naples, splintered further under the pressure of events. While Lorenzo and the government of Florence advocated a bold response, Sforza not wishing to offend the pope, equivocated as he was prone to do when faced with a difficult choice. The duke’s vacillation was all the more disappointing since Florence could expect no help from Naples. Since the beginning of his reign Sixtus had been courting the king of Naples in hopes of detaching him from the tripartite alliance, a task rendered simpler by his rivalry with Duke Sforza. Now the pope’s policy of reconciliation with his southern neighbor paid its first dividends. Not only did Ferrante refuse to act in concert with Florence and Milan, but he committed his forces alongside those of Sixtus in the siege. Diplomatically and militarily isolated, Lorenzo and the Republic of Florence could do little more than nip at the heels of the mighty host that had descended upon the small town.
*
Even though Lorenzo’s military efforts on behalf of his “great friend” Vitelli amounted to little in the end, this did not shield him from the pope’s fury. Lorenzo tried to deflect criticism by employing the now familiar excuse that he could not defy the will of the people. Much as he would like to stand with the pope, he explained, “all the Commune wished to go to the aid of Castello, and had he tried to oppose it, all the state would revolt.” Halfhearted Florentine efforts on behalf of Vitelli could not long stem the tide. When the celebrated
condottiere
Federico da Montefeltro appeared with his army before the walls of Città di Castello, adding his might to that of Cardinal Giuliano and the king of Naples, its ruler quickly sued for peace.
On July 16, 1474, Sixtus initiated a series of reprisals against Lorenzo and the Medici bank. The papal accounts were withdrawn immediately and some months later the Medici were removed as the pope’s agent in the alum trade. Adding insult to injury was the news, not long in coming, that both prizes were to be offered to the Pazzi bank as a reward for their role in the Imola purchase and their willingness to put the pope’s interests ahead of those of their native country.
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To further harass the already beleaguered firm, Girolamo Riario, in his capacity as his uncle’s chief financial officer, launched a series of inquiries into the Medici bank’s dealings, uncovering irregularities dating back to the reign of Paul II. As so often in the past Lorenzo turned to the duke of Milan, complaining, as Sacramoro reported, that Riario had “initiated new policies in Rome, reviewing the accounts, and depriving them of the assignments and many other peculiar things; and now he warned that the Count is threatening him greatly…and instead is directing all business towards the company of the Pazzi.” The duke, perhaps hoping to make Lorenzo forget his recent duplicity in the Imola affair and his even more recent cowardice in regard to Città di Castello, responded by sending a forceful letter to his new son-in-law, reminding him that upon his uncle’s death he would lose papal protection and that to secure his newborn state he would require good relations with his neighbors, especially Florence. Sforza went on to warn him against “the stratagems, which he used in favor of the Pazzi and against Lorenzo de Medici,” and that “all the good or bad that is done towards him [Lorenzo], we will treat as if it was done to ourselves.”
The Imola affair, combined with Lorenzo’s defiance over Salviati’s appointment and the siege of Città di Castello, had transformed Sixtus from a friend to an implacable enemy, and no amount of scolding from the duke could change that basic equation. Indeed, Lorenzo was neither the first nor the last Florentine leader to cross swords with the pope. As head of the Medici bank it behooved him to remain on good terms with the reigning pontiff, but as the First Citizen of Florence he was the natural foe of papal expansion. Lorenzo twisted this way and that in the hope of clinging to two ropes that were pulling in opposite directions, but in the end he was forced to let one or the other slip from his grasp. Which he would cling to and which let go was never really in doubt. Lorenzo was too much a patriotic Florentine and too dependent on the goodwill of his people to pursue short-term financial gain at the expense of his beloved republic.