The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici (31 page)

Most members of the
Signoria
were horrified by this suggested reversion to the barbarism of past ages. One suggested that their ancestors would be ashamed of them if they could hear them even so much as discussing the propriety of the proposed ordeal. Another put forward the idea that walking across the Arno without getting wet would be ‘just as good a miracle’ to settle the dispute. Yet it was felt that the populace had by now become so excited by the prospect of an ordeal by fire that it might prove dangerous to disappoint them. It was settled that if the Dominican, Fra Domenico, died then Savonarola would be banished from Florence; if the Franciscan, Fra Giuliano, perished – as, indeed, he expected to do – but the Dominican did not,
then Fra Francesco da Puglia would be banished. It was also settled that the ordeal should take place in the Piazza della Signoria on Saturday 7 April 1498 between ten o’clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, that on the appointed day all strangers must leave the city, the streets be barricaded, and the approaches to the Piazza held by armed guards.

An avenue thirty yards long and ten yards across was constructed in front of the Loggia dei Lanzi. Each side of the avenue was lined with piles of sticks soaked in oil leaving a passage in the middle about three feet broad through which the monks had to pass. The Loggia dei Lanzi was divided into two for the accommodation of the rival supporters.

The Franciscans were the first to enter the arena, where they were kept waiting for the arrival of the Dominicans, who marched towards the Loggia in pairs behind a crucifix, chanting an appropriate psalm. At the end of the procession walked Fra Domenico next to Savonarola in ‘whose excommunicated hands’ the Franciscans were appalled to see the Host. There was further consternation when it became apparent that Fra Domenico intended to take a crucifix with him into the flames. He eventually agreed that he would not do this, but he could not be persuaded to be parted from the consecrated Host. The arguments continued until a heavy thunderstorm broke above then-heads, and it was announced that no ordeal would take place that day after all.

This was too much for the people to bear. The next day, Palm Sunday, an angry mob attacked a congregation who had assembled in the Cathedral to hear a sermon by one of Savonarola’s disciples. The congregation fled from the Cathedral and, pursued by sticks and stones and the execrations of the
Compagnacci
, ran for the shelter of San Marco. Here, unknown to Savonarola who urged them to seek protection only in prayer, the monks had assembled a small store of weapons and were prepared to withstand a siege. Some of them loosened a pinnacle at the top of the monastery church and sent it hurtling down on the heads of the mob in the square below; others struck out with lances at men trying to set fire to the monastery walls. Several rioters and monks were killed before the assailants managed
to clamber over the walls and down into the choir. Savonarola took refuge in the library where, soon afterwards, a guard arrived from the
Signoria
with orders for his arrest. He was escorted through the streets, hooted and jeered at by the mob, and cast into the Alberghettino in the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria where Cosimo de’ Medici had been imprisoned sixty-five years before.

Orders were given for Savonarola to be tortured. Suffering the exquisite agonies inflicted by the
strappado
, he made all such confessions as were required of him, retracting the confessions when the ropes were removed from his body, and then being tortured again. Together with Fra Domenico and another of his most faithful disciples Fra Silvestro, he was found guilty of heresy and schism and condemned to death. A scaffold, surrounded by tinder, was erected in the Piazza della Signoria and on this Savonarola and his two companions were hanged in chains and burned. As the flames leapt towards the early summer sky, a voice called out derisively, ‘O prophet, now is the time for a miracle! Prophet save thyself.’

‘In a few hours the victims were burned, their legs and arms gradually dropping off,’ Landucci recorded in his diary.

Part of their bodies remaining hanging to the chains, a quantity of stones were thrown to make them fall, as there was a fear of the people getting hold of them; and then the hangman and those whose business it was, hacked down the post and burned it on the ground, bringing a lot of brushwood, and stirring the fire up over the dead bodies so that the very last piece was consumed. Then they fetched carts, and accompanied by the mace-bearers, carried the last bit of dust to the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio in order that no remains should be found.

XVI

‘
The town of Prato was sacked, not without
some bloodshed
’

T
HEIR TREASURES
lost, their palaces and villas forfeited, the Medici wandered over Europe like the members of an outcast tribe. Piero remained in Italy, occasionally pawning a gem or a cameo, offering his services to the Republic’s enemies, making repeated attempts to reinstate himself in Florence by force, joining forces with Cesare Borgia, who was creating an empire for himself in the Romagna and who hoped that by re-establishing the Medici in Florence he would make a valuable ally for himself in Tuscany. Once Piero actually appeared at the Porta Romana with a band of men-at-arms, who trotted away to Siena when it became clear that the Florentines were not in the least disposed to favour a Medicean restoration under Piero’s leadership. Eventually Piero decided to offer his services to the French in return for some vague, unfulfilled promises of their support in yet another attempt to regain Florence.

King Charles VIII was now dead, having struck his head violently against a beam at his chateau at Amboise; but his successor, Louis XII, reasserted the family’s right to the throne of Naples. He also claimed the Duchy of Milan on the grounds that his grandfather had married Valentina Visconti. Both these claims were, however, strongly contested by King Ferdinand of Spain; and although in 1500 Ferdinand made an agreement with Louis to share Naples with him, he and the French, quarrelling over their prospectivespoils, were soon at waragain.

In December 1503, the French were defeated by the Spaniards under the spirited command of Gonsalvo de Córdoba. Attempting to escape across the Garigliano to Gaeta, Piero de’ Medici, who had been serving in the French army, was drowned in the swollen waters of the river when his boat capsized. His body was later recovered and buried in the abbey of Monte Cassino.
¹
He left two children, a daughter, Clarice, and a son, Lorenzo, who was eleven. Their uncle, Giovanni, who became head of the family on Piero’s death, was already recognized as a most remarkable man.

Born in the Medici Palace on 11 December 1475, Giovanni was now twenty-eight. From his earliest years his parents had entertained great hopes for him. The night before his birth his mother had had a strange and alarmingly vivid dream. She had seen herself in the Cathedral, writhing in agony and about to be delivered; but the baby when it came was not a human child. It was an immense lion.

As though encouraged by this vision to believe that the House of Medici would derive great profit from a son being made a prince of the Church, Lorenzo determined to launch Giovanni on an ecclesiastical career. As soon as the boy displayed sufficient promise to merit early preferment, orders were given to the manager of the Lyons branch of the bank to keep a sharp look out for vacancies, French benefices being easier to obtain than Italian. Early preferment Giovanni certainly achieved. Having received the tonsure at the age of eight he was presented with the abbey of Fontdouce by the King of France who would also have made him Archbishop of Aix in Provence had it not been discovered just in time that the present Archbishop was still alive. To compensate him for this disappointment, Giovanni was given the priory of Saint-Gemme near Chartres, made a canon of every cathedral in Tuscany, and presented with the abbeys of Passignano and Monte Cassino as well as with over twenty other honourable and profitable offices. After the death of Sixtus IV and the election of Giovanni Battista Cibò as Innocent VIII, the way lay open to even higher preferment. Fearing that the new Pope might the before his hopes were fully realized, Lorenzo did all he could to persuade him to create Giovanni a cardinal at the earliest possible
date. And after the marriage of his daughter, Maddalena, to the Pope’s son, Franceschetto Cibò, he instructed the Florentine ambassador in Rome to miss no opportunity of pressing Giovanni’s claim. He enlisted the help of two cardinals, Roderigo Borgia and Ascanio Sforza, both of whom had great influence at the Curia; and he wrote letter after personal letter reminding the Pope of his ‘chief desire’. In March 1489 Innocent gave way, making the appointment conditional, however, upon Giovanni’s leaving Florence to study canon law at Pisa and upon his elevation remaining secret for three years. Lorenzo had no objection to the first condition, but, constantly apprehensive that Innocent might the within the stipulated period and that a new Pope would declare his predecessor’s unusual appointment invalid, he tried to have his son’s elevation made public immediately. He was unsuccessful. The old Pope, his health declining slowly month by month, refused to give way. Lorenzo afterwards confessed that scarcely a day passed when he did not expect to receive the dreaded news from Rome. Innocent died on 25 July 1492, but he had lived just long enough for Lorenzo’s ambitions to be fulfilled. Three months before the Pope’s death and three weeks before his father’s, in March 1492 Giovanni had entered the ancient Badia at Fiesole and there the insignia of his rank had been blessed before the High Altar and the papal brief had been read out.

Emerging from the church wearing his mantle, scarlet hat and sapphire ring, the sixteen-year-old boy had not presented a prepossessing appearance. He was tall enough and looked both good-natured and intelligent; but his face was pasty and flabby, his body already extremely fat, and his eyesight evidently failing. His nose was markedly snubbed and he kept his mouth half open. Nor did his appearance belie his nature. He was intelligent, his tutors all agreed; he was of a happy and generous disposition; but they had due cause to complain of his laziness, his precocious and excessive predilection for good food, good drink and pleasure. In Rome he had ample opportunity to indulge these tastes, and he did not stint himself. ‘He
will
not get out of bed in the morning,’ one of his tutors reported. ‘And he
will
sit up late at night. I am most concerned, since these irregular habits are likely to injure his health.’

Well aware of these faults, his father had thought it as well to write him a long letter of advice in the hope that he might be persuaded to lead a life more befitting his exalted rank:

The first thing that I want to impress upon you is that you ought to be grateful to God, remembering always that it is not through
your
merits, or
your
wisdom that you have gained this dignity, but through His favour. Show your thankfulness by a holy, exemplary, and chaste life… During the past year I have been much comforted to see that, without being told to do so, you have often of your own accord gone to confession and to Holy Communion. I do not think mere is a better way of keeping in God’s grace than to make this a regular practice. I know only too well that in going to live in Rome, which is a sink of iniquity, you will find it hard to follow this advice because there will be many there who will try to corrupt you and incite you to vice, and because your promotion to the cardinalate at your early age arouses much envy… You must, therefore, oppose temptation all the more firmly… It is at the same time necessary that you should not incur a reputation for hypocrisy, and in conversation not to affect either austerity or undue seriousness. You will understand all this better when you are older… You are well aware how important is the example you ought to show to others as a cardinal, and that the world would be a better place if all cardinals were what they ought to be, because if they were so there would always be a good Pope and consequently a more peaceful world…