Death in Florence

By Paul Strathern

By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances. In Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations and intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events—invasions, trials by fire, the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions and mysterious deaths—featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.In an exhilaratingly rich and deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts, and political compromises that made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex and important moments in Western history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Release date: Aug 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781605988276

Paul Strathern

Paul Strathern is a Somerset Maugham Award-winning novelist, and his nonfiction works include The Venetians, Death in Florence, The Medici, Mendeleyev's Dream, The Florentines, Empire, and The Borgias, all available from Pegasus Books. He lives in England.

Book preview

DEATH IN FLORENCE

THE MEDICI, SAVONAROLA, AND THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF A RENAISSANCE CITY

PAUL STRATHERN

PEGASUS BOOKS

NEW YORK LONDON

To my brother Mark

Contents

List of Illustrations

Maps

The Medici Family Tree

Leading Dramatis Personae and Main Factions

Prologue: ‘The needle of the Italian compass’

1   A Prince in All but Name

2   ‘Blind wickedness’

3   Lorenzo’s Florence

4   Securing the Medici Dynasty

5   Pico’s Challenge

6   The Return of Savonarola

7   Cat and Mouse

8   The End of an Era

9   Noah’s Ark

10   A Bid for Independence

11   ‘Italy faced hard times ... beneath stars hostile to her good’

12   ‘I will destroy all flesh’

13   Humiliation

14   A New Government

15   The Voices of Florence

16   ‘A bolt from the blue’

17   The Bonfire of the Vanities

18   ‘On suspicion of heresy’

19   Open Defiance

20   The Tables Are Turned

21   Ordeal by Fire

22   The Siege of San Marco

23   Trial and Torture

24   Judgement

25   Hanged and Burned

Aftermath

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

List of Illustrations

1. Contemporary portrait of Savonarola by his friend Fra Bartolomeo. Florence, Museo di San Marco. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.

2a. Portrait bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici, probably after a model by Andrea delVerrocchio and Orsini Benintendi. Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence, Italy /The Bridgeman Art Library.

2b. Portrait of Piero de’ Medici by Angelo Bronzino (1503–72). Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Gallery.

3. The ‘Carta della Catena’ showing a panorama of Florence, 1490. Museo de Firenze Com’era, Florance, Italy/Alinari/The Bridgeman Art Library.

4a. Portrait of Alexander VI. Vatican, Pinacoteca. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence.

4b. Portrait bust of Charles VIII, King of France (c.1483–1498). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Alinari Archives, Florence.

5a. Portrait of Pico della Mirandola by Cristofano dell’ Altissiomo (c.1525–1605). Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi (Gioviani Collection). © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.

5b. Portrait of Angelo Poliziano (1485–1490). Detail of a fresco of the sacrifice of the prophet Zechariah, by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Main Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Alinari Archives, Florence.

5c. Portrait of Marsilio Ficino. © 2010. White Images/Scala, Florence.

6a. Savonarola preaching. © 2010. Photo Ann Ronan/Heritage Images/Scala, Florence.

6b. Self-portrait of Sandro Botticelli. Detail from Adoration of the Magi. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.

7. The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510). Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali.

8. Botticelli’s illustration to Dante’s Divine Comedy – c.1480. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence/BPK, Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin.

The Medici Family Tree

Leading Dramatis Personae and Main Factions

Alexander VI – notoriously corrupt Borgia Pope who became Savonarola’s sworn enemy

Alfonso, Duke of Calabria – son and heir of King Ferrante I of Naples. Would later become Alfonso II of Naples

Anne of France – acted as Regent during the youth of Charles VIII

Arrabbiati – the most powerful anti-Savonarola faction Bigi – faction supporting return of Piero de’ Medici

Sandro Botticelli – renowned painter and friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Fra Pacifico Burlamacchi – wrote early biography of Savonarola, much of it heard from Savonarola himself

Piero di Gino Capponi – leading Florentine citizen who famously defied Charles VIII

Cardinal Caraffi of Naples – friend of Alexander VI who nonetheless supported Savonarola

‘Ser Ceccone’ (real name Francesco de Ser Barone) – Savonarola’s chief civil interrogator

Charles VIII – the young King of France who invaded Italy

Compagnacci – fanatically anti-Savonarola group led by Doffo Spini

Commines (Commynes) – leading adviser of Charles VIII who kept a diary

Cardinal della Rovere – sworn enemy of Alexander VI, who encouraged Charles VIII to set up a council to depose him

Bartolomeo Cerretani – contemporary Florentine chronicler

Domenico da Pescia – the Dominican monk who was Savonarola’s closest and most loyal supporter, who followed his master to the end

Lucrezia Donati – ‘the most beautiful woman in Florence’, to whom the young Lorenzo the Magnificent addressed love poems

Ferrante I – King of Naples who received Lorenzo the Magnificent

Marsilio Ficino – celebrated Platonist and close friend of Medici family

Francesco da Puglia – a Franciscan monk from Santa Croce and a bitter enemy of Savonarola who issued the challenge for the ordeal by fire

Battista Guarino – the celebrated humanist scholar whose lectures Savonarola attended at the University of Ferrara

Francesco Guicciardini – contemporary historian of Florence and Italy

Fra Leonardo da Fivizzano – Augustinian monk at Santo Spirito who preached in Florence against Savonarola when he was at the height of his power

Giovanni della Vecchia – ‘the Captain of the Square,’ responsible for keeping the peace in the Piazza della Signoria, and later at San Marco

Giovanni Manetti – the Arrabbiati responsible for stirring up the crowd at the ordeal by fire, who later demanded permission to inspect Savonarola

Niccolò Machiavelli – contemporary historian of Florence and Italy

Fra Malatesta (Sacramoro) – the Arrabbiati spy in San Marco

Domenico Mazzinghi – pro-Savonarolan gonfaloniere who later argued in favour of the ordeal by fire

Fra Mariano da Genazzano – the Augustinian who was Florence’s favourite preacher before his ‘contest’ with Savonarola

Cosimo de’ Medici – the man who built up the Medici bank, grandfather of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Giovanni de’ Medici – second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who became a young cardinal

Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – taken into the Palazzo Medici by his uncle Lorenzo the Magnificent as a youth when his father Pierfrancesco died.

Giuliano de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s younger brother, who was murdered

Lorenzo de’ Medici (‘Lorenzo the Magnificent’) – effective ruler of Florence until 1492

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – son of Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. Taken into the Palazzo Medici as a youth when his father died

Lucrezia (neé Tornabuoni) de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s influential mother

Fra Ludovico da Ferrara – despatched to Florence by Alexander VI to investigate Savonarola

Fra Silvestro Maruffi – monk at San Marco prone to visions who would follow Savonarola to the end

Pierfrancesco de’ Medici – cousin of Piero de’ Medici and grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, the founder of the Medici bank

Piero de’ Medici – first son of Lorenzo the Magnificent who took over his rule of Florence in 1492

Dietisalvi Neroni – long-term business associate of Cosimo de’ Medici, who grew jealous of Piero de’ Medici

Clarice (neé Orsini) de’ Medici – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s Roman bride

Pico della Mirandola – charismatic Renaissance philosopher, befriended by Lorenzo the Magnificent, his biography was written by his nephew, Francesco Pico della Mirandola

Piero Parenti – Florentine diarist during this period

Piagnoni – Savonarola’s supporters, mainly drawn from amongst the poor, but extending into all sections of Florentine society

Angelo Poliziano – renowned poet and member of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s circle

Bishop Remolino – finally despatched by Alexander VI to conduct Savonarola’s ‘examination’

Bernardo Rucellai – leading Florentine citizen sent by Lorenzo the Magnificent on delegation to persuade Savonarola to tone down his sermons; later turned against Peiro de’ Medici (‘the Unfortunate’)

Girolamo Rucellai – moderating voice at the Pratica called to debate the ordeal by fire

Marcuccio Salviati – commander of the pro-Savonarolan troops at the ordeal by fire

Girolamo Savonarola – the Dominican friar who stood against all that the Medici represented

Michele Savonarola – Girolamo’s grandfather and a formative influence. Despite being a pioneering physician, he remained a strict medievalist.

Niccolò Savonarola – Girolamo’s unsuccessful father

Galeazzo Maria Sforza – nephew of Ludovico Sforza, and rightful heir to the Dukedom of Milan

Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza – uncle of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who acted as ruler of Milan during his nephew’s minority

Paolantonio Soderini – leading citizen and supporter of Savonarola

Doffo Spini – the headstrong leader of the Compagnacci extreme anti-Savonarola faction

Giovanni Tornabuoni – Lorenzo the Magnificent’s uncle, manager of the Rome branch of the Medici bank

Fra Mariano Ughi – the second Dominican who volunteered for the ordeal by fire

Francesco Valori – sent by Lorenzo the Magnificent on a delegation to warn Savonarola to tone down his sermons; later pro-Savonarolan gonfaloniere

Simonetta Vespucci – celebrated at the age of 17 as the most beautiful woman in Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s brother Giuliano is said to have pined for her love

Prologue: ‘The needle of the Italian compass’

IN THE FIRST week of April 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent, the forty-three-year-old ruler of Renaissance Florence, lay seriously ill in his villa at Careggi, in the countryside a couple of miles north of the city walls. Lorenzo, a charismatic figure in a charismatic age, had powerful but curiously ugly features, which appeared to lend his personality an almost animal magnetism. His intellectual brilliance and physical daring also contributed to his attraction. Amongst other accomplishments he was a distinguished poet, a champion jouster and a prolific lover of beautiful women (and, on occasion, similar men).

Yet for two months now Lorenzo’s powerful frame had been racked with incapacitating pain, a manifestation of the congenital gout and chronic arthritis that had stricken so many amongst the recent generations of the Medici banking family. However, for Lorenzo the worst was yet to come: his beloved friend, the poet Angelo Poliziano, watched as he succumbed to:

a fever [that] gradually passed into his body, spreading not into his arteries or veins, like others do, but into his frame, his vital organs, his muscles, his bones too, and their marrow. But since it spread subtly and invisibly, with utmost stealth, it was hardly noticed at first. But then it gave clean evidence of itself ... it so speedily weakened the man and wore him down that because not only his strength had ebbed away and been consumed, but his entire body, he was wasted away to nothing.

By this stage Lorenzo was being attended by the celebrated Lazaro da Ticino ‘a very creative physician’, who had arrived from Milan. According to Poliziano: ‘in order not to leave any method untested, he tried a highly expensive remedy which involved grinding pearls and precious stones of all sorts’. This was a traditional remedy deriving from classical times, which almost certainly arrived in Europe from China, where such concoctions were thought to be ingredients of the fabled ‘elixir of life’. Lazaro da Ticino had been despatched to attend Lorenzo the Magnificent by Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza, the de facto ruler of Florence’s powerful northern neighbour, Milan. Ludovico Sforza was probably nicknamed ‘il Moro’ (the Moor) on account of his dark features; yet there was also a distinctly dark side to his character. A braggart, given to rash gestures, he was deeply superstitious, yet liked to regard himself and his court as highly cultured. In fact, he was a tyrant, of paranoid tendencies, who ruled from behind the high, dark walls of the imposing Castello Sforza, which looked down over the rooftops of his capital city. Some ten years previously, when intelligence had reached Lorenzo the Magnificent that Ludovico ‘il Moro’ Sforza might be wavering in his vital support for militarily weak Florence, Lorenzo had launched a charm offensive, part of which involved despatching Leonardo da Vinci to Milan. Ludovico Sforza had been deeply flattered; the alliance with Florence had been reinforced, and the Milanese ruler came to regard Lorenzo the Magnificent as his valued personal friend.

During the twenty-three years of his reign Lorenzo had gained the admiration and affection of rulers all over Italy. Late fifteenth-century Italy was split into five major powers – Milan, Venice, the papacy, Florence and Naples – and several minor city states, which tended to ally themselves with their nearest powerful neighbour. The balance of power between the major territories was constantly threatened by the covert shifting of allegiances. Militarily weak Florence had clung to its status as a major power largely through Lorenzo the Magnificent’s diplomatic skill, and his tactical astuteness in perpetuating the idea of the city as the centre of Italian culture. Here the Renaissance had first come to fruition, financed by the patronage of its great banking families, with Florentine artists and architects regarded as the finest in Europe, the pride of Italian civilisation. Even so, Florence remained vulnerable to brute military force, requiring a constant diplomatic effort to keep its neighbouring states at bay.

As a consequence, Ludovico Sforza of Milan was not the only powerful Italian leader with whom Lorenzo the Magnificent maintained constant diplomatic dealings, and whom he succeeded in making his personal friend. Perhaps his most surprising alliance was with the ageing King Ferrante of Naples, a man notorious for his treachery, who in his earlier years had delighted in showing visitors his ‘museum of mummies’, consisting of the embalmed bodies of his enemies. Yet when Ferrante had hatched a plot to assassinate Lorenzo and sent the Neapolitan army to invade virtually defenceless Florence, Lorenzo had been willing to risk his life by dashing to Naples to confront Ferrante personally. The sheer bravado of the twenty-nine-year-old Lorenzo’s gesture had so won the admiration of Ferrante that he too declared himself Lorenzo’s firm friend. Likewise Pope Innocent VIII, a slippery character of part-Greek descent, of whom it was said that he ‘begat eight boys and just as many girls, so that Rome might justly call him Father’. Lorenzo cemented an alliance with Innocent VIII by arranging for the pope’s eldest son, Franceschetto Cybo, to marry his daughter Maddalena de’ Medici.

Lorenzo certainly lived up to his soubriquet.* Even his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, ever the sardonic and incisive observer of political affairs, was dazzled:

Lorenzo was loved by fortune and by God in the highest degree, and as a result all his enterprises came to a successful conclusion ... His way of life, his prudence and his fortune were known and admired by princes far beyond the borders of Italy.

This last was no exaggeration. Machiavelli names the Sultan of Turkey and the King of Hungary as Lorenzo’s friends, and in the grounds of Lorenzo’s villa of Poggio a Caiano he kept a pet giraffe ‘so gentle it [would] take an apple from a child’s hand’, which had been sent as a gift by the Sultan of Babylon. But as Machiavelli makes plain, Lorenzo was no saint: ‘His great virtues may not have been flawed by serious vices, but he did however involve himself in the affairs of Venus to an astonishing degree, as well as delighting in facetious gossip, pungent wit and childish games more than was fitting for a man of his position.’Yet such apparently frivolous traits may well have contributed to his charm and aided his more serious endeavours, as Machiavelli understood: ‘His reputation for prudence grew with every year, for he was winning and eloquent in discussion, of sympathetic wisdom when it came to resolving issues, as well as being quick of impulse when action was necessary.’ Thus was the man who had guided Italy through such treacherous political waters that Innocent VIII would famously refer to him as ‘the needle of the Italian compass’.

Despite all this, in Florence Lorenzo’s position was rather more contentious. The city was theoretically a democratic republic, a matter of great pride to its citizens. At this time, when the separate territories that made up Italy were ruled for the most part by absolute rulers – a king, a pope, an oligarchy, hereditary dukes, petty tyrants, and so forth – only in the republic of Florence did citizens have a say in their government. In times of crisis, all male members of the population over the age of fourteen would be summoned by the tolling of a bell to assemble in the main square for a parlamento. Here they would vote in a balià, an emergency committee that had full power to deal with the crisis as it saw fit.

Under more normal circumstances, the city was ruled by the gonfaloniere (literally ‘standard-bearer’) and his eight-man council, the Signoria, each of whom was regularly selected by lot from special leather bags into which were placed the names of members of the guilds. When selected, the new gonfaloniere and his Signoria would take up residence in the Palazzo della Signoria, the imposing medieval palace with its tall castellated campanile, which to this day dominates the centre of Florence. Here they would don their ceremonial red robes and be wined, dined and entertained at public expense through their two-month period in office, their opinions and discussions being beyond outside influence. The comparative brevity of their tenure, as well as their isolation, was intended to prevent the city falling under the permanent power of any faction or tyrant.

The same system of selection by lot was used to choose the members of the various councils that advised the Signoria. Unfortunately, the conditions and complexities of the system by which the names placed in the leather bags were chosen had, over the years, proved open to manipulation. The leading families of Florence had long since succeeded in influencing the selection for all powerful posts, and finally even these competing families had succumbed to the single overwhelming influence wielded by the huge wealth of the Medici family. Such corruption was grudgingly tolerated by the citizens of the republic because Lorenzo himself was popular, or at least managed to maintain a façade of popularity by lavish spending on entertainments for the citizenry. But with Lorenzo now ill and incapacitated, how much longer would this state of affairs last?

The prospect of change was not exclusive to Florence at this moment of history. As Lorenzo lay dying, Western civilisation itself was undergoing a profound transformation. Later that very year Christopher Columbus would make landfall in the New World, an event that would soon lead Europeans to realise that much of the world remained to be discovered. Indeed, some four years previously the Portuguese navigator Bartholomew Diaz had rounded the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean, opening up passage to a largely unknown Eastern world. At the same time, many thinkers in western Europe were becoming aware that much of their life within this world extended to wider mental horizons that remained unexplored: a profound evolution in human self-consciousness was taking place. The medieval vision of the world, where knowledge was largely accepted on authority from such sources as Aristotle and the Bible, was beginning to give way to the new vision of humanism. During the medieval era, the world and our life within it had been regarded as a mere preparation for the eternal life of the hereafter, when our souls were judged – assigned to heaven, purgatory or hell – in accordance with how we had behaved during this brief life of the flesh. Now a Renaissance was taking place: a rebirth of knowledge from the pagan classical era was giving humanity a greater confidence in itself and its powers. New ways of painting, as well as advances in architecture and knowledge of all kinds, were encouraging humanity in a more realistic view of the world, transforming both our self-belief and our self-understanding. Instead of the essentially spiritual outlook of medievalism, the new humanism regarded life and the world from a more human perspective.

In Florence, the Renaissance was approaching its zenith, with the city’s leading artists recognised as the most advanced in Italy, producing works that continue to this day to be regarded as pinnacles of human achievement. By 1492, Botticelli had already painted his masterpieces Spring (Primavera) and The Birth of Venus, and had worked on the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Leonardo da Vinci had left for Milan, where he had already sketched detailed plans for a manned flying machine and would soon begin painting The Last Supper. Meanwhile the precocious seventeen-year-old Michelangelo had begun sculpting his first masterwork, The Battle of the Centaurs, which had been commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent himself.

Lorenzo was by now well practised in the policy of using Florentine artists in the pursuance of his political aims. Although his despatch of Botticelli to Rome, and of Leonardo to Milan, had been prompted by specific strategic concerns, Lorenzo the Magnificent also regarded the artists he sent abroad as serving a wider purpose, acting as general cultural ambassadors for their native city. For him, art always had both a higher and a lower purpose, even at home. Prior to using his artists as instruments of foreign policy, he had employed them in Florence to contribute to the flamboyant celebrations that he laid on to maintain his popularity with the people of the city, as well as to mark historic events. In this way, Botticelli had been commissioned to paint an exemplary public mural depicting the hanging bodies of those apprehended after the failed Pazzi conspiracy to murder Lorenzo and overthrow Medici rule; on a lighter note, Leonardo had been responsible for spectacular firework displays and ice sculptures that had provided centrepieces for Lorenzo’s popular celebrations.

Despite such diversions, a curious atmosphere of foreboding had begun to pervade the city. Its people seemed to sense something hollow at the heart of the new way of life that was coming into being around them. They were not yet fully at ease with the art, knowledge and self-confident celebrations of the Renaissance era. The human soul, which for the long centuries of the medieval era had been the moral focus of every individual’s life, was suffering from unwonted neglect. The old spiritual certainties were in danger of being overwhelmed, and with the approach of 1500 many citizens became gripped by a mounting sense of apprehension. It would soon be one and a half millennia since the birth of Christ, and whispers began to spread of a coming apocalypse, heralding the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. Amidst this pervasive undercurrent of metaphysical angst, many began turning to a fiery young monk from Ferrara called Savonarola, who had begun preaching the Lenten sermons in the Church of San Marco.

At first glance, Girolamo Savonarola presented an unprepossessing figure: ‘the little friar’, as he often called himself with deceptive humility. He was indeed short, and thin, intense in manner, and spoke with the heavy accent of his native Ferrara, which lay seventy miles north across the Apennine mountains and was regarded as something of a provincial backwater by the Florentines. Savonarola was not given to social graces, and his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo depicts a cowled, plain-faced man with hollow ascetic cheeks, a hooked nose and thick, sensual lips. Apparently there was nothing particularly remarkable about his appearance apart from his eyes, which were said to have glinted with a burning intensity beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.

When Savonarola spoke, he had the knack of investing his words with all the power of his driven personality. His sermons were charged with the Holy Spirit with which he felt himself to be filled. He raged with an Old Testament fury, and his words were filled with prophecies of doom. Here, with a vengeance, was a return to the old certainties of times gone by. Savonarola impressed upon the citizens of Florence how they should be devoting themselves to the life of the spirit, not wasting their substance on the sensuality and baubles of the worldly life. All such things were nothing but a wicked delusion, foisted upon them by evil rulers.

In early April 1492, as Lorenzo the Magnificent lay dying in his country villa at Careggi, he unexpectedly sent word to none other than Savonarola, asking the friar to visit him. According to a contemporary report, Lorenzo is said to have justified this request ‘using these very words: Go for the Father [Savonarola], for I have never found one save him who was an honest friar.’

Lorenzo recognised Savonarola for what he was, just as Savonarola did Lorenzo. Ironically, it was Lorenzo himself who had been responsible for inviting Savonarola to Florence. Lorenzo’s invitation had perhaps inevitably involved ulterior political motives, and these concerned the plans he had laid for the continuation of Medici power after his death. Lorenzo intended his eldest son Piero to succeed him in taking over the reins of power in Florence, but he had ambitions in a different direction for Giovanni, his highly intelligent second son. Giovanni had been brought up amidst the humanistic atmosphere of the poets and scholars of Lorenzo’s circle, with the poet Poliziano even acting as his tutor. But now Lorenzo wanted Giovanni to enter the Church, in order to advance the Medici family name in this new sphere. It was thought that Savonarola’s sermons might act as a corrective to Giovanni’s liberal education and inspire in him a suitably religious attitude.

Descriptions of what took place when Savonarola visited the dying Lorenzo’s bedside vary slightly, although one thing is certain – this unlikely visit definitely took place. Another undisputed fact is that Savonarola stood his ground and refused to be swayed by the sight of his dying ruler, behaving towards him with some severity, and even making certain demands of Lorenzo before he gave him his blessing. These demands are said to have been as follows. Initially, Savonarola asked Lorenzo whether he repented of his sins and believed in the one true God – to which Lorenzo replied that he did. Next, Savonarola demanded that if Lorenzo’s soul was to be saved, he would have to renounce his ill-gotten wealth ‘and restore what has wrongfully been taken’. To this, Lorenzo replied, ‘Father, I will do so, or I will cause my heirs to do it if I cannot.’ Finally, Savonarola demanded that Lorenzo should restore to the people of Florence their liberty, which could only be guaranteed by a truly republican government. To this last demand Lorenzo refused to reply, finally turning his face away.

Whether Savonarola actually made these precise demands is not certain – yet most sources agree that he did make three demands, and that they were similar to those cited above. When Lorenzo refused to reply to Savonarola’s final demand, the priest is said to have stood in silence before him for some time, until at last he gave Lorenzo his blessing and departed.

The following day, 8 April 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, and his body was carried back to Florence, where it was laid out in the Church of San Lorenzo. It was said that every citizen of Florence had deep feelings concerning the passing of this man who had ruled them for the past twenty-three years – though the precise nature of these feelings was varied. Many loved him, certainly; equally certainly, others secretly hoped that his passing might hasten a return to the old ways of more republican government. The grief-stricken Poliziano wrote:

Lightning flies from heaven down

To rob us of our laurel crown† ...

Now silence rings us all around,

Now we are deaf to all thy sound.

Savonarola felt that his moment of destiny was now approaching.

What took place in fifteenth-century Florence has been seen as a clash of wills between a benign enlightened ruler and a religious fanatic, between secular pluralism with all its internal self-contradictions and the repressive extremism demanded by a thorough-going spirituality. Yet as the story unfolds, it soon becomes clear that this black-and-white picture is in fact a gross oversimplification. In describing the turbulent events that characterised these times, the nuances and subtleties that underlay this struggle will be revealed. Even so, the struggle was intense and the stakes were the highest. Not for nothing is this a story of death in Florence.

The Medici ruled for themselves and the preservation of their own power. By 1492, their interests had little to do with the people over whom they held sway. All knew this, but only Savonarola was willing to stand up and preach against such corruption – wherever he saw it. Savonarola was a fundamentalist: in the city that had celebrated the first glories of the new age of the Renaissance, he sought to return to the basic principles of early Christianity and establish a ‘City of God’. This was to be a simple, pure, Godfearing republic – where all that was required were the necessities for living a life dedicated to the Almighty, before whom all stood in equality. All distinctions of rank and class, all luxuries, baubles and distractions, all licentious and frivolous enjoyment were to be renounced.

Although Savonarola was essentially medieval in outlook, paradoxically his disparaging of the old corrupt powers pointed the way towards an egalitarianism that was quintessentially modern. Savonarola’s envisaged republic would prove to be the most democratic and open rule the city had ever known. By a paradox that this narrative will attempt to illuminate, it was also one of the most repressive and inhuman in the city’s history. Both sides of this struggle for power were riven by such paradoxes.

All this took place 500 years ago, against the backdrop of the city that gave birth to the Renaissance, the moment that was to transform Western civilisation and provide the first inklings of our modern world. Yet this clash between the secular and the religious has continued to reverberate down the centuries – first in Europe, then in America, and now finally throughout the world the struggle continues. It is nothing less than the fight for the soul of humanity, a struggle over the direction that humanity should take, the way we should live our lives, what we are, and what we should become. This is a struggle that will become all the more pressing and relevant as we exhaust the resources and despoil the environment of the planet that we inhabit, as we face the choice – for perhaps the first time in our progressive civilisation – of how we are to limit our way of living. Five centuries ago in Florence this coming battle was played out for the first time in recognisable modern terms.

* ‘II Magnifico’ was in fact a courtesy title, frequently used to address leaders, heads of important families and even those in charge of successful commercial enterprises. For instance, when the manager of the Medici bank in Rome wrote to the head of the Medici bank in Florence, he would address him as ‘magnifico’. In English, the loose contemporary equivalent would have been ‘my lord’, as often appears in Shakespeare’s plays. However, in the case of Lorenzo the Magnificent the title seems to have taken on a more formal, admirable quality. Many of the citizens of Florence and elsewhere had begun to know him as ‘il Magnifico’ long before his death. In such fashion, this title had become conventionalised in the familiar medieval manner. During this era nicknames assigned on account of personal characteristics often took on a more permanent aspect – much as Lorenzo’s father had been called Piero the Gouty, and earlier kings of France had gone down in history as Louis the Quarreller or Charles the Mad.

† Poliziano uses the Latin word laurus, as in the laurel wreath with which poets were crowned in classical times, but this is also intended as a loose pun on Lorenzo.

1

A Prince in All but Name

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI was born on 1 January 1449 at the Palazzo Medici in Florence. During this time his sixty-year-old grandfather Cosimo de’ Medici, head of the Medici bank, was de facto ruler of the city. Cosimo was an extremely astute businessman and had increased the fortunes of the Medici bank to the point where it had branches in all major Italian cities, as well as branches as far afield as London and Bruges, with agents operating in Spain and North Africa, the Levant and the Black Sea. As a result the Medici had soon amassed a fortune which dwarfed that of the older leading Florentine bankers and powerful political families.

Originally the Medici had been against taking power, but it had been virtually forced upon them when they had come to realise that without power they would not be able to protect their fortune. In 1433 the jealousy and resentment of certain influential Florentine political factions, led by the ancient Albizzi family, had resulted in Cosimo’s imprisonment on the charge of interfering in state affairs, with the intention of taking over the state. This amounted to treason, a charge that incurred the death penalty, which Cosimo had only been able to escape by means of bribery and outside intervention. Even so, he had been sentenced to exile for ten years. Yet after a year of inept rule, hampered by lack of funds, the gonfaloniere and his ruling Signoria had invited Cosimo back to Florence to put his considerable talents and extreme wealth at the disposal of the city. From this moment on, Medici rule over Florence was consolidated. The gonfaloniere and the Signoria continued to be selected by lot as before, but Cosimo established an efficient political machine which covertly ensured that all men selected to positions of political power were Medici supporters. The seat of government may officially have remained the Palazzo della Signoria, but this only operated in consultation with the Palazzo Medici, where all the important decisions were taken by Cosimo. Indicatively, from now on all ambassadors and visiting foreign dignitaries called at the Medici residence.

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’. 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.* 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’. 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’. 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.’

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’.

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’, ‘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.†

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.’ 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.’

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