CHAPTER V.
THE ALBIZZI AND COSIMO DE’ MEDICI.
COSIMO DE’ MEDICI was a man of mature age when his father died. Born
on September 27, 1389, the day of the saints Cosmo and Damian, he
was christened after the former; and a Florentine expression blended
veneration for the sacred martyrs with veneration for the ruling
family, who had chosen them as patrons: ‘Per San Cosmo e Damiano
ogni male fia lontana.’ His education was excellent; and, although
he was intended for a mercantile life, he studied the Latin language
thoroughly, and under the guidance of masters such as the grammarians
Niccolò of Arezzo,[52] and Roberto de’ Rossi, acquired a taste for
literature and science which remained with him, and even increased,
during the whole of his long life. He was, perhaps, twenty-four years
old when he married Contessina de’ Bardi. Her father, Alessandro, Count
of Vernio, belonged to a family which is of note among the Florentines
from the eleventh century; and from which the principal street on the
left bank of the Arno, between the old bridge and that of Sta. Maria
delle Grazie, derived its name. The Bardi were originally a plebeian
family, but were afterwards counted among the nobility. They, with
other nobles, had aided the people to break the tyranny of the Duke of
Athens, but were defeated a year later in valiant strife with the same
people, who would no longer suffer ‘the great’ to have any share in the
government, and set on fire the houses of those who had shortly before
fought beside them. Piero de’ Bardi, Contessina’s great-grandfather,
then withdrew to his castle of Vernio, situated in the Apennines to
the north of Prato, which had been purchased ten years before by
his brother from the Alberti, and recognised by the Emperor Charles
IV. as a fief held under him. The enmity between the castellans and
the Florentine people grew so violent, that Sozzo, Piero’s son, was
condemned by the commune _in contumaciam_ to death by fire, under the
seemingly false accusation of having coined false money in Vernio.[53]
Sozzo’s son was the father of Contessina, whose mother, Milla
Pannocchieschi, was descended from the ancient Sienese dynasty of the
Counts of Elci, which has lately become extinct. The name of Contessina
(Contessa, Tessa), which we so frequently meet with in earlier times
in Tuscany, calls to mind the great Countess Matilda, whose memory was
preserved by a grateful people. The enmity between the great and the
plebeians, though it still prevailed, and was used as a pretext when
the question of political rights arose, never at that time interfered
with family alliances.
We hear nothing of Cosimo till the time when Pope John XXIII., on his
eventful journey to the Council of Constance, halted in Florence.
The relations between the republic and the Pope were to be traced
from the time when the latter was all-powerful under his predecessor,
Alexander V., as Cardinal Baldassar Cossa. When John XXIII. called
upon the Florentines to send plenipotentiaries to Constance, and the
counsellors were undecided, Filippo Corsini observed that they must not
say ‘No’ to the Pope. He it was who had first originated the Council
of Pisa, through which the way had been paved to the new assembly, and
without his active assistance Florence would not have been able to
resist King Ladislaus. The Pope had been already in connection with
the Medici when he was legate of Bologna, and during his reign the
money matters of the Curia were chiefly in the hands of Giovanni di
Bicci. After John XXIII., yielding to King Sigismund’s urgency, had
consented to the Council of Constance, in spite of his disinclination
to a council on German soil, he was for a time in Florence, where he
resided in the convent degli Angeli of the Camalduli. It was here that
the Medici, with many respected citizens, visited him, and entered into
negotiations with him. Here, too, he addressed to Bartolommeo Valori,
in whom he had great confidence, upon his warning of the danger of
holding this council in a foreign country, the remarkable words: ‘I own
that this council is not to my advantage; but what can I do if my fate
compels me to it?’[54] When the Pope set out for the Lake of Constance
in the autumn of 1414, Cosimo de’ Medici was among his escort; not, as
has been supposed, overrating the position as an aid to him in his own
affairs, but simply to manage the money matters of the Holy See.
In these matters the Medici, who always remained true to John XXIII.,
were helpful to him even after his fall. On December 6, 1418, the
deposed and imprisoned Pope drew up a bond in the Castle of Heidelberg
for 38,500 Rhenish florins, which Giovanni de’ Medici and Niccolò
da Uzzano, with the consent of Pope Martin V., paid by a bill on
the Nuremberg house of Romel, as ransom to Duke Louis of Bavaria.
When, after many difficulties, the liberated man had by means of his
Florentine friends come to terms with his persecutor and obtained a
safe-conduct from him, the Medici received him in Florence, where they
undoubtedly aided in his reconciliation with Pope Martin. When the
afflicted man, who in his misfortunes assumed a far more dignified
attitude than formerly in the times of his greatness, made his last
will on December 22, 1419, he appointed Giovanni di Bicci and three
other distinguished Florentines as executors. That the first enriched
himself with the legacy was a calumny which has long been disproved,
for Baldassar Cossa left scarcely enough for his legatees to be
paid.[55] The beautiful monument which the Medici erected to the
deceased stands in the baptistery; the reclining figure was cast in
bronze by Donatello, and in the marble portions Michelozzo assisted.
‘Johannes quondam Papa XXIII.’ says the significant inscription.[56]
Their friendship with the late Pope did not prevent the Medici from
coming to a good understanding with the new one. The mark of favour to
Giovanni di Bicci already mentioned tells of friendly relations even
at a time when Martin V. was not well disposed towards the city, on
account of disagreeable occurrences during his residence in Florence
in 1420. We have seen how Cosimo accompanied John XXIII. to Constance,
where, in the words of a contemporary, the whole world was assembled.
On the flight of his patron he left the town in disguise, and resided
for some time in Germany and France, till he returned home after about
two years’ absence. In 1426, having been entrusted with embassies in
Milan, Lucca, and Bologna, he stayed for some months in Rome, employed
in State affairs at the time that the tedious strife with Filippo Maria
Visconti had, by the conquest of Brescia, taken a favourable turn for
the allied Florentines and Venetians; and it was important to persuade
the Pope to act as umpire, since all parties, and especially the
Florentines, longed for peace. This peace was actually signed at Venice
on December 30, the Bishop of Bologna, the excellent Niccolò Albergati,
representing Martin V.; and when the duke broke the treaty, which had
only just been concluded, new and heavy misfortunes in arms forced him
to appeal to the same mediation which he had so lately scorned. But it
was only in the spring of 1428 that terms were agreed upon advantageous
to Venice, which retained Brescia, but offered no compensation to
the Florentines for their enormous expenses, thus justifying the
prudence of old Giovanni di Bicci, who had counselled against the war.
In gratitude to the Pope for his support, the Florentines, in 1427,
bestowed the freedom of their city on his relations, the Colonna family.
At the death of his father, Cosimo was forty years old. In all
business, public as well as private, he had proved himself skilful,
active, and prudent. All who did not belong to the party which guided
affairs since 1380 regarded him as their natural leader. The number of
these opponents of the ruling faction was great, not only among the
people—in whom more or less indistinct hereditary traditions were
instinctively hostile to a government which had now existed for fifty
years, and which, though it originated with the people, had from the
first been tinctured with the character of an oligarchy—but also
among the higher classes, many of whom were considerably oppressed by
this faction. Giovanni di Bicci had always avoided appearing as the
actual head of a party, perhaps from prudence, perhaps also for fear of
exposing himself to the risk of catastrophes such as he had experienced
in his youth. It was to be proved whether his son shared this feeling,
and Cosimo’s behaviour hitherto implied that he did. It was a question,
however, whether the oligarchy would find it advisable to suffer a man
beside them whose reputation and wealth daily increased, and who, even
without wishing it, must be dangerous to them if misfortune or blunder
should arouse discontent. Since the death of Maso degli Albizzi, his
son Rinaldo, Niccolò da Uzzano, and Palla Strozzi stood at the head of
the party.
The Albizzi, who, as we have said, derived their origin from Arezzo,
were at first of the Ghibelline faction, and appeared in Florence
about the middle of the thirteenth century. They soon obtained repute
among the plebeian families. From 1282 ninety-eight of their family sat
in the magistracy of the priors, and fourteen attained to the office of
_Venner_ or Gonfalonier. Piero son of Filippo, the first Gonfalonier,
was he who in a short time raised the authority of his family above
that of all others. He led an active life at a time when the republic
claimed much of the time and pecuniary means of the principal citizens,
but in return afforded them opportunities of satisfying their ambition,
and attaining to a height of power which might become dangerous to the
commonwealth. He had repeatedly been charged with embassies to princes
and republics; had been present at coronations; concluded treaties,
among them those with the plundering mercenary bands, and with Bernabò
Visconti; had been sent with congratulatory messages, as in 1367, when
Pope Urban V., summoned by all the Italian patriots, returned from
Avignon to Rome, unfortunately only for a time. Jealousy of his rising
authority induced the heads of the Ricci, a rival family to his own,
and their friends, to propose the exclusion from office of all such
as were suspected of Guelphism. This measure was directed principally
against the Albizzi; but Piero, cleverer than his opponents, helped
to carry it through, while they had counted on his opposition. He
knew how to make use of them. In 1357, being chosen president of the
tribunal entrusted with this political inquisition of the Parte Guelfa,
it was he who, with his friends, began that proscription which united
all power in the city and government in his hands and those of his
adherents, but also created that unendurable condition of affairs
against which the rebellion of 1378 broke out. In the following year
Piero, banished at first from Florence, having returned to one of
his estates, fell a victim to the summary justice executed by the
aristocratic leaders of the mob. A false accusation brought him to the
scaffold; at a time when no law was respected, he paid the penalty of
having himself made the laws subservient to political ends.
The family retired into exile; their houses were plundered and burnt.
One of the branches, in a quarrel with relations, had discarded
the name and altered the coat of arms, and flourishes still under
the name of the Alessandri. The reaction of the year 1381 brought
the exiles back, and they were soon more powerful than ever. Maso
(Tommaso), Piero’s nephew, had been first banished to Barletta, on
the Apulian coast, and then made a ‘Grande,’ _i.e._ disqualified for
holding communal offices. He now attained almost dictatorial power,
and exercised it with political insight, and a consistency which
essentially aided in raising the republic to that height of power
and repute on which it remained thenceforward, and long after his
own faction was destroyed, till the revolution in Italian affairs at
the end of the fifteenth century. If he acted intolerantly in home
affairs; if proscriptions did not cease, and the prosecution of the
Alberti, who were concerned in the insurrection of 1378 and in the
execution of Piero degli Albizzi, showed cruelty in the enactment
which commanded their houses to be razed to the ground, their coats
of arms to be destroyed, and their property confiscated; a law that
punished alliances by marriage and commercial transactions with them,
extended even to their posterity;[57] it is less the fault of the man
than of the spirit which had prevailed in the republics for centuries,
and which led even the most discerning to make the commonwealth ever
subservient to party policy, and to look upon their own faction as
the State. Embassies to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, to King Rupert of
the Palatinate, Pope Gregory XII., &c., alternated for Maso with a
continuous series of the most important offices. Even when he was out
of office, nothing was done without him. When the republic manfully
resisted the progress of Gian Galeazzo in Central Italy, enlarged and
secured her own territory by the conquest of Pisa, actively contributed
to ecclesiastical union, and brought the dangerous war with King
Ladislaus to a successful end, it was all really due to Albizzi. He was
a rich man; the street outside the oldest district of the town, still
named after his family, was almost entirely occupied by their houses
and those of the Pazzi; and in our time, the palace belonging to his
descendants, as well as that of the Alessandri, the half-ruined tower,
the walled-up loggia, the passage to the market of San Piero, with the
portico of the demolished church built by a descendant of Maso, remind
us of the brilliant days of the family, whose coat of arms is still
to be seen on the buildings—two concentric golden circles on a black
field, and above it on a silver field the cross of the German order
granted to Maso. In the lower valley of the Arno, on the right bank of
the river, where a low range of hills stretches between the Lake of
Bientina, reaching to the foot of the mountains of Pisa, and the green
level of the marshes of Fucecchio, lies the large Villa Montefalcone,
which came into the possession of the family in the second half of the
fourteenth century. It was formerly a castle (destroyed by Castruccio)
with a splendid view over the valley, strewn with villages lying mostly
on low hills, and the beautiful wooded heights of Monte Albano, behind
which the fertile Pistojan plain joined the Florentine valley of the
Arno, which, while more varied, rivalled it in fertility.
Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417, aged seventy-four. His eldest son,
Rinaldo, was the heir to his position in the Senate. He was a boy
eight years of age when his relations fell in the tumult of Ciompi,
had grown up in the traditions of his house, and from the year 1399
was active in affairs of State. No citizen was employed so much as
he in embassies and commissions of all kinds. We meet with him in
great and small matters; for the statesmen of the free city as little
thought of declining small matters, as the greatest artists thought it
beneath their dignity to paint shields and domestic implements, or to
carve coats of arms on door-posts and chimney-pieces. Fifty different
commissions were entrusted to Rinaldo, some in the vicinity, and some
to the Popes, King Sigismund, to Naples, Lombardy, Genoa, Ferrara,
Romagna, &c. The hard-working man left careful and detailed notes of
all, which, with the documents and letters relating thereto, he first
collected in 1423, and afterwards continued. They are models of a
natural, pure, perspicuous, and always appropriate diction, at a time
when the Tuscan dialect was threatened with an overgrowth of learned
affectation and distortion, and was losing its popular simplicity.
These notes are a source of the amplest knowledge of details for any
one who earnestly studies the history of this period, remarkable in
so many ways.[58] While he was so frequently employed in foreign
service—for the year before his exile we find him at Rome—his
opponents laboured at home for his ruin. It is as if Gino Capponi,
Neri’s son, had thought of him when he wrote the advice intended for
his son: ‘He who wishes for a great position in his native city, should
not leave it too often, except in important cases.’ ‘Messer Rinaldo,’
says Giovanni Cavalcanti, a contemporary and adherent of the Medici,
‘knew not what fear is. He had clean hands, was well read in the
sciences, was full of perseverance and love of justice, so that the
multitude accused him of being hard and cruel. He lived only on simple
fare, and hated feastings, and was accustomed to say that he who wished
to keep in health must be no gormandizer; which his enemies interpreted
as meanness. Would to God that we could not have said of this man that
he was proud! for else he would have excelled many others in good
qualities. But his pride clouded his own virtues, and misjudged those
of others.’[59]
Beside the two Albizzi, none exercised greater influence in the
guidance of affairs in the half-century of the oligarchy than Niccolò
da Uzzano. The name of the family, extinct in the second half of
the seventeenth century, was Miglioretti; but they were generally
named after a little castle, now a gentleman’s villa, lying south of
Florence, in the Greve valley, the environs of which are renowned for
their excellent wine. The Da Uzzano appeared first in Florence in the
days of the Emperor Henry VII. Niccolò, the son of Giovanni and Lena
de’ Bardi, born about the middle of the fourteenth century, represented
the moderate principle in the ruling party, as Giovanni di Bicci did
among the opposition. He wished for an oligarchy, but did not desire
the supremacy of a single family. As long as he lived, a restraint was
laid upon the Albizzi; nay, he was even reported to have said, that,
if he must live to see one stand at the head of affairs, he would
sooner endure Cosimo than Rinaldo. For he feared the violent ambition
of the latter more than the crafty calculation of his rival, and said
of Rinaldo, that he would see no citizen by his side, but all beneath
him, and did not think so much of destroying the Medici as of acquiring
unlimited authority over his own party.[60] Niccolò did not, however,
trust to its unity, and sought, therefore, to hold and preserve matters
equally balanced. His repute was so high, that the faction was indeed
named after him, and his beneficence equalled his wealth. In the Via
de’ Bardi we still see the great palace which he is said to have had
built by the painter Bicci di Lorenzo, and which, as he had no sons,
passed with his daughter Ginevra to a branch of the Capponi, which
still possesses it.[61] The severe unadorned façade of Opus rusticum
still represents the simplicity of the time, which was soon replaced
by the greater richness of form of the Medicean epoch; and his statue
in marble, said to be a work of Donatello’s, is still shown in the
house; whereas another likeness, painted by Masaccio, and once in one
of the houses of the Corsican,[62] is said to have disappeared.
But Niccolò wished to leave his native town a memorial of his
affection, and began building a lyceum for young men after a design by
the same Bicci. By his last will he left a considerable sum invested in
the national funds for completing the work and endowing lectureships;
but the State expended the money for other purposes, and in the present
day only the name of the broad Via della Sapienza, leading from the
Piazza di San Marco to the Annunziata, reminds us of Niccolò da
Uzzano’s patriotic intention. ‘He who wishes to be of use to the world,
and to found of himself an honourable memory,’ remarks Giorgio Vasari,
‘must work himself as long as he lives, and not trust to posterity and
heirs.’
Palla Strozzi was not made for the strife of factions; his heart
belonged to study. ‘Messer Leonardo of Arezzo,’ remarks the Florentine
bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci,[63] ‘who has left us a whole
gallery of interesting portraits of remarkable and meritorious men,
used to say of him, that he was the happiest man he had known; for he
possessed all that is requisite for human happiness, in intellectual
as well as physical gifts. He was very useful to his native city, and
obtained all the honours in the home and foreign administration which
could be granted to a citizen. As ambassador he received honourable
commissions, and, at the same time, always promoted the welfare of his
country. With these gifts he united the strictest sense of honour, and
was personally the most cultivated and respected burgher of the city.
His modesty extended from his private life to his public position. He
sought to avoid envy as much as he could, well knowing what harm is
wrought by it to the commonwealth, and how it pursues deserving men.
He did not like to be seen in public; he never appeared on the square
of the Signoria, or the new market-place, except when he was summoned
thither. If he went to the Piazza, he took the way past Sta. Trinità,
through the Borgo Sant’Apostolo, stayed there only a short time, and
then repaired to the palace. He was sparing of time, never wandered
about the streets and squares, and scarcely had he arrived at home than
he studied Greek and Latin, and lost not an hour.’ He was a rich man.
In the registers of 1427 he opened the list of the tax-payers with a
sum exceeding the valuation of Giovanni di Bicci by more than a fifth.
A great part of his income he employed in the purchase of manuscripts
and for scientific purposes. The origin of his family is unknown: the
name occurs towards the end of the thirteenth century. That the Strozzi
were Guelphs and plebeians is shown by their whole position; that they
were popular, we see from the circumstance that the names of more than
a hundred of their family occur among the priors of the corporations,
while not less than sixteen attained the office of Venner. Their
wealth increased rapidly, as did the branches into which they were
divided, and in the territory they possessed lands and castles. One of
them, Tommaso, was among those of higher rank who turned the popular
insurrection of 1378 to their own purposes, and had to esteem himself
fortunate in escaping the victorious reaction by a flight to Mantua,
where he founded a branch of his family, which is still flourishing.
Onofrio (Noferi), Palla’s father, who had died in 1417, seventy-two
years old, was one of the most respected men of the republic. He was
twice elected Gonfaloniere, and, beside other offices, he filled that
of superintendent of the Mint; while embassies led him to the Popes
Gregory XII. and Alexander V., when Florence tried her best to restore
unity in the Church. It was he who determined on building the beautiful
chapel in Sta. Trinità which now serves as sacristy, a building which
was completed by his son, and the exterior of which is adorned with the
three crescents, the arms of the Strozzi. The epoch of their greatest
brilliancy had not yet begun, but they were approaching it rapidly.
As long as the different elements which formed the political parties
held the balance of power, peace remained intact at home. The city
had never been so rich or so splendid, trade and industry never so
flourishing as then; the great burghers had never shown more lively
common feeling, or created more beautiful public works, or devoted more
helpful interest to science. It was felt that any inconsiderate step,
from whatever side it might come, would disturb this peace; but it was
this very consciousness of responsibility which enforced prudence.
Niccolò da Uzzano used to say that he who summoned a parliament—_i.e._
who would bring about any decided change in the existing state of
things—would dig his own grave.[64] Many respected burghers shared his
views. It was natural however that an event should at last occur to
cause open discontent in the city, and a more hostile position of the
parties. The conquest of Pisa had not satisfied Florentine ambition;
Lucca, with which Florence had so often quarrelled, remained a thorn in
her side. When, a hundred and twenty six years after the time of which
we are treating, Giorgio Vasari was employed in painting the great
hall in the former palace of the Signoria with representations from
the history of Florentine conquests, he was visited by the Lucchese
ambassador at his work, and on his question, what he intended to
portray on the remaining space, gave the bold answer, ‘The conquest of
Lucca.’ This is only an insolent expression of the popular wish. In the
Milanese war, Lucca, where, for nearly thirty years, a citizen, Paolo
Guinigi, had ruled with almost absolute power, had taken sides for
the Visconti, and thereby certainly placed Florence in some danger.
Rinaldo degli Albizzi stood at the head of those who demanded that
their neighbours should be chastised. But division arose in his own
party; Niccolò da Uzzano, Palla Strozzi, Agnolo Pandolfini, and others,
opposed him. The attitude of Cosimo de’ Medici was ambiguous. The
reproach of having agreed to the plan of war in order to ruin the hopes
of his rival, cleaves to him in spite of its being contradicted.[65]
The war party, supported by Neri Capponi, one of the most influential
burghers, and son of him who had taken Pisa, prevailed. In the Council
the opponents were scarcely allowed to speak; a pretext was easily
found, and the determination was taken at the end of 1429. Rinaldo
degli Albizzi undertook the guidance of affairs as Commissary of the
Republic, with extensive authority.
It was an undertaking as unsuccessful as it was unjust, notwithstanding
the guilt of the Lucchese. The Florentines accomplished nothing from
a military point of view; their great architect, Filippo Brunellesco,
forfeited his fame as an engineer; the land was as cruelly as uselessly
desolated; and the Duke of Milan was drawn into the war. Venice, Genoa,
even Siena, took sides for or against; and after the leadership of
Guinigi, by no means to the advantage of the Lucchese, had been lost by
it, a peace was concluded in April, 1433, which was to restore every
one his own—in what condition no one ventured to ask. The unsuccessful
campaign had already caused much disturbance in Florence from the
beginning, and given abundant material for evil speaking. Rinaldo degli
Albizzi had returned from the camp without leave of absence: he was
accused of having acted as a trader, and employed rations and booty for
his villa of Montefalcone. His successor, Messer Giovanni Guicciardini,
did not fare much better; the least offence he was accused of was, that
he had sold the bread intended for the camp to the Lucchese.[66] Every
one was in an ill-humour and at enmity when the costly and fruitless
war was ended. Rinaldo could not conceal from himself the fact that his
authority had suffered a dangerous blow. He thought to re-establish it
more firmly by drawing the reins tighter. The one man of his party who
had always dissuaded him most decidedly from this was no more: Niccolò
da Uzzano had died during the war, in 1432. The void created by his
death was soon visible to all.
The bitter enmity between Cosimo and Rinaldo seems first to have arisen
at this time, for the two men do not appear to have been personal
opponents till then. In the autumn of 1430 Cosimo had repaired to
Verona on account of a sickness prevailing in Florence; at Ostiglia,
on the Po, he heard of the loss suffered before Lucca. Appointed with
Francesco Tornabuoni as ambassador at Venice, he had, on what grounds
is unknown, declined the commission, but had gone, in March 1432,
with Palla Strozzi to Ferrara, to make an agreement with Milan in the
affair of Lucca, which, however, as we have said, was not carried out
till a year later.[67] What had kindled such irreconcilable hatred
between Rinaldo and Cosimo—who, hitherto, whatever might be their
private feelings, had frequently worked together—is not known. The
rival party reproached both Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo, who had
for some time resided at Milan as Florentine ambassador, with having
taken part in intrigues against the State, in order to prolong the
war. But accusations of this kind usually rest on one-sided testimony,
and it is much more likely that both the Medici quietly waited for a
change at home, which public discontent, and the loss of reputation
to the reigning party in consequence of the failure in war, seemed to
announce. Cosimo did not deceive himself respecting the prevailing
opinion against him. He kept himself aloof from the eminent men of the
ruling faction, and appeared seldom in the palace; but it availed him
little, for it was said he wished to lull the suspicions of the rulers,
and his relations to the lower orders, which he could not, and perhaps
would not, conceal, were made out a crime. The large loans which at
different times he had been making to the public finances, as well as
those to private citizens for whom he procured access to office by
paying their arrears of taxes, had made him a popular favourite, but at
the same time had increased the number of his political adversaries. It
became more and more plain that things could not remain as they were.
Rinaldo had tried, through Niccolò Barbadore, to persuade Niccolò da
Uzzano to mediate shortly before his death, but had been repulsed.
He now determined to act. He could reckon all the more on support
because Cosimo, if he relied on popular favour, was suspected by the
decided Guelphs from his connections with the old nobility—being
a brother-in-law of the Bardi and Pannocchieschi, and through his
brother Lorenzo related to the Cavalcanti and Malaspina, families of
the Lunigiana; while he was united by friendship to the Buondelmonti
and other nobles. Rinaldo had attempted to secure the consent of many
partisans to violent measures against Cosimo and his adherents, when
the election of a Signoria decidedly favourable to his plans, which
entered on office with the gonfaloniere Bernardo Guadagni on September
1, 1433, seemed to offer the favourable moment. Bernardo Guadagni
belonged to a distinguished family, the name of which occurs in various
offices since the beginning of the thirteenth century; he was opposed
to the Albizzi in the political movements of 1378, but afterwards
became attached to them. Bernardo had not been eligible because he owed
taxes, but Rinaldo cancelled the debt, and made him his tool.[68]
On September 7 Cosimo de’ Medici was summoned before the Signoria.[69]
He had been at his villa in Mugello, from whence he was recalled to
town under the pretext that his counsel was desired, and he was in
fact appointed a member of a commission (_pratica_) for affairs of
the commonwealth. As he passed the Or San Michele, Alamanno Salviati
warned him that evil was intended, but he replied that he must obey
the Signoria. Arrived at the palace, he was confined as a prisoner
in a chamber of the upper storey called _La Berberia_. The principal
accusation concerned treasonable machinations in the Lucchese war. That
his life was aimed at is scarcely to be supposed, though certainly
possible: that the prisoner feared it, is certain. The waves of party
feeling ran so high, tongues were so sharp, and even the assemblies
held in churches, ostensibly for purposes of Divine worship, were so
openly employed for political ends, and for manœuvring against the
Government, that it was not difficult by inquisitorial proceedings
to justify the severest measures. The city was in the power of the
opponents of the Medici; Lorenzo, his brother, who was in the country,
seems to have tried in vain to bring about a rising. Niccolò da
Tolentino, the general of the Republic, and a friend of Cosimo’s, rode
with a squadron from Pisa to the village of Lastra, on the Arno, seven
miles from the city, but hesitated to proceed farther, and declared
that he appeared in support of the public peace. It was an anxious time
of suspense.
The Signoria summoned the people to a parliament on the Piazza,
surrounded by armed friends of the Albizzi. The result at first was
favourable; but when the newly-appointed Balia had to decide on
Cosimo’s fate, the differences of opinion showed themselves. The
prisoner had found means to employ his money, and had bribed the
Gonfaloniere, among others, with 1,000 gold florins. He has himself
remarked that the people did not understand their own advantages; if
they had wished for 10,000 gold florins, he would have paid the sum
to save himself from the danger. There was no lack of representations
of many kinds, even from foreign countries. The end was, that all the
Medici, with the exception of Vieri’s descendants, were excluded from
office. Cosimo was banished on September 29 to Padua for ten years,
his brother for five years to Venice, and others of the family to
Naples, Rimini, Ancona, and other towns. On the evening of October 3,
as Ormanno degli Albizzi held the Piazza, guarded with his people,
and an attack upon Cosimo was feared if the latter left his prison
in the palace, the Gonfaloniere caused him, after the penalty had
been announced to him, to be brought into his own lodgings under a
safe-guard. Here he partook of some supper, left the city by the Porta
San Gallo, and rode through Pistoja to the village of Cutigliano,
on the road leading over the Apennines to Modena, where he arrived
on October 4, the day of St. Francis d’Assisi. ‘On the 11th,’ so he
relates, ‘I reached Venice, where many nobles with Lorenzo came to
meet me, and I was not received like an exile, but as an ambassador.
On the following day I visited the Signoria, to thank them for their
influential mediation in my favour. The Signoria received me with
kindness and honour, expressed regret at what had happened to me,
offered residence and money supplies to whatever extent I wished. Many
nobles came to visit me. On the 13th I repaired to Padua, as I had been
enjoined, accompanied by Messer Jacopo Donato, who placed his beautiful
house, provided with everything, at my disposal.’
While Cosimo de’ Medici thus resided, partly in Padua and partly
in Venice, where he was allowed to go, honoured and loved for his
well-calculated liberality, in personal connection with some of his
friends and in correspondence with others, affairs in Florence rapidly
approached another crisis. Other banishments had followed: that of the
brothers Pucci, the eldest of whom, Puccio, was one of the most eager
adherents of Cosimo, and one who had circulated the gold florins of his
patron, when in prison, most skilfully; and Agnolo Acciaiuoli, whose
correspondence with the exiles had been discovered. The fortune of war,
already unfavourable to the Albizzi, now entirely forsook them. When
new quarrels broke out in the Romagna between the Florentines and the
Duke of Milan, the former were defeated. The excitement in the city
increased to an alarming degree. Rinaldo soon perceived that he was no
longer master of the situation. When, towards the end of August 1434,
came the election of the Signoria, who were to take office on September
1, Rinaldo perceived that he must use force if he would prevent his
enemy’s return. When neither the attempt to force new elections nor
the endeavours to attract the old nobility succeeded, and the new
Signoria expressed itself without reserve in favour of the Medici,
while representations on the other side were useless, the Albizzi
began to arm their followers, and to draw a number of discharged
warriors to their service, in the hope of having the majority of the
city with them, and dictating the law to the highest magistrate. But
they calculated wrongly; even the heads of their own party, like Palla
Strozzi and Giovanni Guicciardini, did not all flock to them. The city
remained divided.
At the news of the warlike preparations which threatened them, and
relying upon the support of the majority of the people, the Signoria
determined to be beforehand with their opponents. On September 26,
they caused the Piazza to be lined with armed men, and invited Rinaldo
and some of his most eminent friends to appear before them; when,
however, instead of obeying, the latter came to Sant’Apollinare, and
advanced to the Piazza, with more than 600 men, the gates of the palace
were hastily closed. Had the assailants proceeded vigorously, their
cause would have prevailed—at least for the moment; but instead of
advancing, they condescended to bargain, and then they were lost. While
Ridolfo Peruzzi, one of the leaders of the party, was parleying in the
palace with the Signori, who did not spare fair words, Rinaldo allowed
himself to be persuaded to repair to the convent Sta. Maria Novella, to
Pope Eugene IV., who, having fled before the insurrectionary Romanists,
had reached Florence not long before, and now wished to play the
peace-maker. As the adherents and people of Albizzi in vain awaited
their leader, whom the Pope delayed with long speeches, the crowd
dispersed, some going here, some there. The Signori gathered courage
as they saw the crowd of opponents diminish, and ordered the alarm to
be rung. Armed burghers hastened from all sides, and country people
flocked into the city.[70] Messer Bartolommeo Orlandini caused the
entrances to the Piazza to be guarded: Papi di Medici came at the head
of the peasants. The Signori appeared on the balcony of the palace,
and summoned the people to a parley. About three hundred and fifty
voices gave the Signoria full power to appoint a Balia, after the usual
manner, to proceed to urgent measures. With the Pope it was easy to
come to an agreement by means of his confidant, Giovanni Vitelleschi,
then Bishop of Recanati, the same whom Rinaldo had withheld from
advancing. The revolution had succeeded without bloodshed. The speedily
chosen extraordinary commission, more numerous than any before,
conjointly with the colleges, recalled with one voice, Cosimo and his
companions from banishment, into which they sent Rinaldo degli Albizzi,
and with him more than seventy of his most distinguished partizans.
‘Oh, Pope Eugenius,’ said the knight to him, who now sought to console
him with words, as he had before put him off with words, ‘I am not
surprised at the destiny which befalls me, but I blame myself for
having trusted to the promises of one who could not help himself; for
he who is powerless in his own affairs cannot help others.’ Rinaldo
degli Albizzi never saw his home again.
Cosimo de’ Medici had set out from Venice, September 26, accompanied by
his brother, on the news of the first favourable events in Florence.
On October 1 they learned the victory of their party; on the 5th they
reached the territory of the Republic—on the same date, and at the
same spot in the Pistojan mountains, where they had quitted it. ‘I have
noted this,’ he observes in his ‘Ricordi’ above mentioned, ‘because at
our expulsion several good and devoted persons said not a year would
pass before we should again be in Florence. On the way several burghers
met us, and in Pistoja the whole population flocked out of the gates to
see us so armed. We did not enter the city. On the 6th we dined at our
villa at Careggi, where a number of people had assembled. The Signori
informed us that we should not enter Florence till they had sent us
word. This happened after sunset, and we set out with a numerous
escort. As it was expected that we would repair to our house, the whole
street was filled with men and women. Lorenzo and I, accompanied by a
servant, rode, however, along the wall, and so we passed the Santissima
Annunziata and the back of the cathedral, the palace of the Podestà
and that of the executors, to the palace of the Signoria, almost
without being observed, for every one was in the Via Larga and at our
house. The Signori had arranged it so in order to avoid excitement.
They received us kindly, and I thanked them as was fitting, and at
their wish we remained with them. We heard that, before our arrival,
Messer Rinaldo and Ormanno his son, Ridolfo Peruzzi, and several other
citizens, had been banished. The city was quiet, but, nevertheless, for
security, the square and palace were guarded by a number of armed men.’
Florence had now a master. On January 1, 1435, Cosimo de’ Medici
entered upon office as Gonfaloniere.
In an early work, unfortunately incomplete, and unknown till a few
years ago, which relates the history of Florence from the return of
Cosimo de’ Medici to the League of Cambray, Francesco Guicciardini[71]
thus condenses his views on the government of the Albizzi: ‘After
various disorders, a firm order of government was at last introduced
by Parliament in 1393,[72] when Maso degli Albizzi held the office of
Gonfaloniere. He, in order to avenge his uncle Piero, expelled almost
all the Alberti, and the government remained in the hands of clever
and sensible men, who conducted it in great harmony and safety till
towards the year 1420. One cannot be astonished at this, for the people
were so tired of the preceding disturbances that, when an orderly state
of things began, every one adapted himself gladly to it. At this time
it was plainly shown how great the power of our city is when unity
prevails in her. For twelve years she maintained the war against Gian
Galeazzo with infinite expense, and with Italian or foreign armies,
for they often summoned a duke of Bavaria, a count of Armagnac, or a
King Rupert over the Alps, to their aid. Scarcely was this war at an
end, and, as was thought, the city exhausted and without means for some
time, when she began the undertaking against Pisa which cost heavy
sums in buying as well as in the siege. Then followed the war with
King Ladislaus, in which she not only defended herself bravely, but
also gained Cortona, though certainly at a heavy price. In short, the
city attained such important success, preserved her freedom under the
guidance of capable and honest men, warded off powerful enemies and
enlarged her territory so considerably, that it was rightly said to be
the wisest, most glorious, and successful government which Florence
had ever had. The years from 1420 to 1434 were occupied with the war
against Duke Filippo Maria, and the division of the city into two
parties. At the head of one stood Niccolò da Uzzano, a man respected
by all as wise and a lover of freedom; at the head of the other,
Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, and then his son Cosimo. Disunion and
various excitements were introduced by the year 1433, after Niccolò had
departed this life—first, Cosimo’s exile, then his return and the fall
of his opponents; and as both changes, that of 1433 as well as of 1434,
were brought about by the Signoria which entered on office on September
1 (it was usually elected on the day of the decapitation of St. John,
August 29), it was decreed that the drawing of the lots should no
longer take place on this day, but on the preceding, as has happened
since, with the exception of a few years at the time of Fra Girolamo
Savonarola.’
When the government of the Albizzi came to an end, the domain of the
Republic had, with the exception of some smaller territories and
villages in the mountainous regions of the Casentino and the valley of
the Tiber, attained pretty nearly the same extent which she preserved
up to the union of the Sienese State with that of Florence, and the
consequent formation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The enlargement
of this territory had proceeded of course gradually, but constantly.
Dante Alighieri says once it would have been far better for Florence
had the inhabitants of Campi, Figline, and Certaldo remained her
neighbours, instead of becoming her fellow-citizens, and corrupting the
pure Latin blood of her old families. Two centuries after the writer
of the ‘Divina Commedia,’ the most famous statesman of modern Italy
expressed pretty nearly the same opinions. ‘Venice and Florence’—such
are Niccolò Machiavelli’s words in his reflections on the first ten
books of Titus Livius—‘were far weaker when the first had attained
the supremacy over Lombardy the latter over Tuscany, than when Venice
was content with the sea and Florence with six miles of territory.’
The increase of subjects by the absorption of other communities is
certainly of small advantage: when it once exceeds due measure it is
ruinous. While it cannot contribute to the strength of warlike States,
it has a most hurtful influence on unwarlike ones, of which the Italian
republics give evidence: an opinion which would sound paradoxical
if we did not consider that he who expressed it had before his eyes
the spectacle of a State, without unity in itself, consisting of the
most different elements, united only by an outward bond, whose laws,
founded on systematic oppression of the nobles, appeared to him as the
reason of its evident helplessness in the second half of the fourteenth
century.
With the aid of many hundreds of documents in the Tuscan archives[73]
we can closely follow the history of the growth of the Florentine
territory, as it increased in all directions above the valley of the
Arno, often with difficulty and with the most violent struggles, beyond
Prato, Pistoja, on the shore of the Mediterranean towards Leghorn,
through the Elsa and Chiana valley, where the conflicts took place with
Siena, beyond Arezzo; finally, by way of Cortona, to the upper valley
of the Tiber, and towards the Umbrian frontier, as along the Apennines
to that of Romagna, including, on the other side, Volterra and the
long-contested Pisa. The forms under which the villages and territories
were annexed were very various. First of these, was the submission
(_submissio_), a result generally of war, but which sometimes was
brought about by compacts with other commonwealths and rulers, and
at times occurred spontaneously. The submitting commune assembled in
such case a parliament to appoint a syndicus, who repaired to Florence
to settle affairs with the Signoria, after which the Chapter was
consulted, and a commissary of the Republic was sent to the place in
question to receive homage, and complete the so-called act of taking
bodily possession. These things were very simple in small communes.
They expressed to the Signoria by their syndics and procurators the
hope that they might be well governed by them, and live in peace;
promised faith and obedience—appointing a fine in case of a breach
of this promise; received a podestà and judge from Florence; retained
free choice of their presidents from their own citizens; stipulated
conditions in respect to markets, customs, weights and measures,
etc., as well as observance of their own statutes, such as even the
smallest communes possessed. For if, with the decline of the imperial
power towards the time of the Swabian emperors, the legal power once
pertaining to the empire might be considered as having passed actually
to princes and commonwealths, the case now occurred that princes and
larger towns claimed the former rights of the empire over little
towns, which defended themselves as far as they could by reservations.
In such cases the statute of the chief town represented towards the
subject communes the common law, to which there was an appeal from
the separate municipal statutes where appeal to the Roman law was not
stipulated. After the subjection of Pisa, the Pisan statutes remained
valid for all the dependencies of this town; but in Florence such
dependencies had always a hearing if they appealed to the Florentine
statute law. But where there was a special fortress in the stipulating
place (Rocca, Cassero), the garrisoning of it was decided by the ruling
commune.
The different conditions are as different as the nature of the
community was varied. Larger cities naturally made their importance
felt. A whole series of treaties were concluded with Pistoja, beginning
with the peace made after the death of Castruccio Castracane on May
11, 1329, at the time of the confusion caused by Louis the Bavarian’s
Roman expedition. In the summer of 1331 the Florentine Signoria
received full powers for a year for ‘the security of freedom’ and
the government of city and territory. These temporary powers were
repeatedly prolonged: commissions of Florentine citizens were appointed
for the revision of statutes; the powers of the sovereign Signoria, and
those of the magistrates of the subject town, were carefully limited
in such a way that the actual decision in local government remained
to the latter, which limited the supreme government. Volterra, which
acknowledged the supremacy of the Duke of Athens, but had asserted its
own independence after his fall, preserved it nominally up to the end
of the fourteenth century; but the Republic of Florence had attained to
such extensive rights that scarcely more independence remained to the
commune than to subject States, especially after a rebellion excited
by the introduction of the _Cadastre_ had ended to the disadvantage of
the people of Volterra. As can easily be understood, quite peculiar
circumstances followed, when places were obtained through agreement
with foreign powers. By the repeated interference of the Neapolitan
Angevin princes in Tuscan affairs, and the increasing military weakness
of the communes, this occurred only too frequently. Prato, in the
midst of the wars of the Ghibellines and Guelphs, in the times of the
emperors of the houses of Bavaria and Luxembourg, powerless to protect
itself, had acknowledged King Robert of Naples as its Signore in 1313,
and remained under the rule of Neapolitan viceroys till Robert’s
granddaughter Johanna gave up the town to the Republic of Florence, in
the year 1350, for the sum of 13,500 gold florins, which a citizen of
Florence, Francesco Rinuccini, advanced without interest. Florence thus
succeeded to the king’s rights, and appointed the superior officers,
while the town retained her own municipal government. It had happened
most strangely of all with Arezzo. Unable to assert herself against the
superior powers of the Guelphs, she had acknowledged the supremacy of
Florence in 1337, and while retaining her own territories, statutes,
and privileges, received only the higher magistrates, Podestà and
Capitano, from Florence, to whom she promised fidelity and assistance
in peace and war. The oppressions, and especially the building of
fortresses, by which the ruling community here, as elsewhere, sought to
secure itself, went so far, that when, after the fall of the Duke of
Athens, the majority of the larger towns revolted from Florence, Arezzo
also regained her independence, which she preserved till 1380, when
she fell into the power of Duke Charles of Durazzo, in his expedition
against Queen Johanna. Four years later the town was taken by the
French army under Duke Louis of Anjou, marching to the assistance of
the queen; and the commander, Enguerraud de Coney, sold it four years
afterwards to the Florentines for 50,000 gold florins.
But there were other political connections beside that of subjection.
The Accomandigia, or assumption of a protectorate, was an act, more
or less solemn, by which a possession, either of the Church or the
commune, was recommended to protection, that might extend to the
person of the possessor, who was then called _Raccomandato_. It was
a very old connection, which united Florence with other communes, as
for instance with Siena. As in the earliest times of the commonwealth,
the distinguished family of the Buondelmonti recommended their castle,
Montebuoni, to the Florentine bishop for protection, so did numerous
and powerful lords of the commune recommend themselves afterwards. A
kind of homage was always combined with the Accomandigia; it usually
consisted of a pallium or banner of brocade or gold and silver cloth,
presented on St. John’s day. Those recommended for protection promised
to be friendly to the commune, to assist it at its summons in its
feuds, to share friendship and enmity with it, to grant free passage
through their territories, not to hinder the transport of provisions
and merchandise, and to grant refuge to none who had been banished by
the commune. The commune, on the other hand, allowed the _Raccomandati_
law of arms on their own territory, promised defence or compensation
for loss, and empowered the planting of the Florentine banner on
their castles. The second half of the fourteenth century and the
first of the following were exceedingly rich in such Accomandigie,
because the smaller landowners felt themselves more and more weakened
and threatened in their independence, in consequence of the great
diminution of the number of independent communes, and thereby the
accession of power to those still remaining, as Florence, Siena, and
Lucca. Florence had begun by drawing the nobles in the nearer vicinity
of the Arno valley into such a connection with herself, and also to
absorb the smaller communes. Then the Accomandigia expanded more and
more, till all the great noble families, so to say, for the most part
originally free, imperial and Ghibellines, had lost their independence
in the higher sense of the word. At last the turn came to others, even
distant, where the relation of protection was essentially altered, as
with the Grimaldi of Monaco, the Genoese Campofregoso, the Appiani of
Piombino, the Marchese of Monte Sta. Maria, the numerous Malaspine,
who resided at their imperial fiefs in the Lunigiana, but naturally
looked more to Florence and Genoa, to the Visconti and the Esti, than
to the empire. Even Roman barons entered into connections of this kind.
In 1395 the Colonna of Palestrina placed themselves, with all their
castles, for five years under the protection of the Republic, whose
service they entered. The Orsini of Savona whose relations, the Counts
of Pitigliano, stood in the same relation to Siena, had preceded them.
More important for Florence was the protection of many dynasties of
Romagna and Umbria, of which we shall speak farther on. With regard
to the landowners settled in Tuscany, if we except a few independent
imperial vassals, who remained so up to the French time, the Counts
Bardi of Vernio and Barbolani of Montanto, as well as the Macchesi of
Monte Sta. Maria (Bourbon de Monte), whom we have just mentioned, the
Accomandigia led to their subjection. In the States of the Church the
Papal sovereignty prevailed, as might be expected.