The Medici Popes E-Book

Herbert Vaughan

• Herausgeber: Jovian Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 507

Beschreibung

From the frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity and ignorance, from the oppression of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a degraded peasantry, which the annals of England and France present to us, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened states of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the factories swarming with artisans... With peculiar pleasure every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young eye of Michelangelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-Day dance of the Etrurian virgins...

Leseprobe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE

MISFORTUNE AND EXILE

RISE TO POWER UNDER JULIUS II

RETURN OF THE MEDICI TO FLORENCE

LEO DECIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS

MEDICEAN AMBITION

THE COURT OF LEO X

LEO’S HUNTING

LEO X. AND RAPHAEL

CONSPIRACY OF THE CARDINALS

DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LEO X

CLEMENS SEPTIMUS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS

THE SACK OF ROME

LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VII

THE LATER MEDICI POPES

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH IN FLORENCE

~

FROM THE FRIGHTFUL SPECTACLE OF poverty, barbarity and ignorance, from the oppression of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a degraded peasantry, which the annals of England and France present to us, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened states of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the factories swarming with artisans. . . . With peculiar pleasure every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young eye of Michelangelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-Day dance of the Etrurian virgins (Lord Macaulay, Essay on Machiavelli).

IN our efforts to realise the leading events of our own history we experience no small difficulty from the fact that so much of the face of England has completely altered its outward appearance under the stress of modern development, so that we find it particularly hard to picture to ourselves their original setting. Our overgrown yet ever-spreading capital owns scarcely a feature to-day in common with the London of the Tudors or Plantagenets; the relentless pushing of industrial enterprise has turned whole shires from green to black, from verdant countryside to smoke-grimed scenes of commerce. It is therefore well-nigh impossible for us in many cases to conjure up the old-world conditions of Merrie England. But in writing of Italian annals we are confronted by no such problem: altered to a certain extent no doubt is the present aspect of Italy, yet in Florence, Venice, Siena and most of her cities we still possess the empty stages of the pageants and deeds of long ago, all ready prepared for us to people with the famous figures of the historic past.

Standing on the airy heights of San Miniato, where the golden mosaics of its venerable church have caught the passing glories of the sunset for nigh upon a thousand years, or strolling amongst the ilex alleys of “ Boboli’s ducal bowers,” we can still gaze below upon the Florence of the Medici, the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and of Savonarola, the Florence of Popes Leo and Clement, of Michelangelo and Machiavelli. For beneath us swift Arno still shoots under the arches of Taddeo Gaddi’s ancient bridge piled high with its load of tiny shops that Florentine goldsmiths have inhabited for the past six centuries. There still dominates the red-roofed city Brunelleschi’s huge cupola, and beside it still springs aloft “into blue aether that no clouds o’ercast” the delicate parti coloured campanile of the Shepherd-Painter. Nearer to us the graceful yet sturdy belfry of the old civic palace soars majestically into the clear atmosphere, and hard by we note the fantastic spire of the Badia, and alongside it the severe outline of the turret that adjoins the grim castle of the Podestà. Westward the slender pinnacle of Santa Maria Novella greets our eyes, whilst amidst this varied group of towers there obtrudes on our sight the square mass of Or San Michele, that sacred citadel of the Florentine guilds. Oltr’ Arno nestling at our feet remains wholly unchanged, and of a truth the only conspicuous objects that can interrupt our mental retrospect of the city of Lorenzo and Leo are the mean tower of Santa Croce, the long colonnades of the Uffizi, and the clumsy-dome that surmounts the gorgeous charnel-house of the Medicean Grand-Dukes. To make the picture perfect, we must blind our eyes to these excrescences of a later age, and by another slight effect of the imagination we must behold the modern raw suburbs and their smoke-belching factories sink into the soil of the Florentine plain to give place to tracts of garden and orchard, to shady groves and smiling vineyards, that lie outside the broad coronal of towered walls, wherewith Arnolfo di Cambio endowed his native city for her protection. We must next conceive the steep hillside of Fiesole less populous than at the present day, less marred by quarries and mean houses, yet freely besprinkled with ample villas. Amidst this radiant scenery the practised eye can easily detect the chief Medicean residences;—that sheltered pleasaunce with its long terraces below the crest of ancient Faesulae; the favourite retreat of the sickly Piero and the Magnificent Lorenzo, with its broad roof peeping forth from bosky thickets of elm and cypress at sunny Careggi; and again by directing our glance across the fertile plain towards Prato, we seem to discover the whereabouts of Sangallo’s stately palace at low-lying Cajano, where the luckless Clement VII. spent much of his childhood. No stretch of the imagination is however required on our part to realise the eternal hills which form the northern background to the City of the Lily; forever unchanged and unchangeable remain the stony stretches of familiar Monte Morello, the green and russet slopes of the heights that rise in endless succession eastward of Fiesole, and the barren violet-tinted mountains bounding the plain above Prato and Pistoja. How exquisite, and also how unaltered even to-day, is the distant aspect of Florence, “la bellissima e famosissima figlia di Roma,” as one of her most famous sons thus addressed his ancient mother ! With so superb a setting, amid such glorious surroundings, the past history of Florence becomes a living thing, which it needs no striving to quicken, for the true Medicean city of the Italian Renaissance stands before us to-day sharply defined in the crystal-clear air of Tuscany—

Dove l’ humano spirito si purga

E di salir al Ciel’ diventa degno.

In the heart of the town itself, almost beneath the shadow of the vast dome, out of sight of which no true-born son of Florence is said ever to feel happy, rises that group of buildings which is so closely associated with the origin and fortunes of the House of Medici. Here lies the great basilica of San Lorenzo with its pitiful naked façade, that Medicean popes and princes were always intending to convert into a costly thing of beauty; at its transepts up-rear the rival sacristies of Brunelleschi and Michelangelo, above which looms the red cupola of the Grand-Ducal mausoleum. Βeside the church extends the long window-pierced form of the Laurentian Library, overlooking the quiet cloister in a dark angle of which sits eternally the robed and mitred figure of the grim-visaged Paolo Giovio, the venal Plutarch of his age and the earliest biographer of Pope Leo X. Upon the little piazza before the church, nowadays the busy scene of a daily market of cheap or tawdry goods, abuts the massive palace which was the cradle of the Medicean race. Much changed in outward aspect is the mansion that Michelozzi constructed for Cosimo il Vecchio, for the Riccardi, who bought this historic building in after years, must needs spoil its original proportions by adding largely to the structure. The statue-set garden wherein Cosimo and Lorenzo were wont to stroll has wholly disappeared, but the central courtyard with its antique friezes and its stone medallions remains intact. A most precious relic of its former owners it still retains in the exquisite little chapel covered with Benozzo Gozzoli’s renowned frescoes, wherein are portrayed in glowing colours and in gleaming gold Cosimo the Elder, his son Piero, his grandchildren, and his Imperial guests from distant Byzantium, all riding with their trains of richly-clad attendants, with hawk and hound, and even with trained leopard, amidst a landscape of marvellous but fantastic beauty. The old Medicean mansion, lying between Piazza San Lorenzo and the broad curve of Via Larga, cannot perhaps aspire to the symmetry and rich decoration of Palazzo Strozzi hard by, nor can it vie in bulk and majesty with Messer Pitti’s vast palace on the slopes of Oltr’ Arno; nevertheless it is a goodly building, well-proportioned and imposing, and withal suitably contrived for defence.

It was in a chamber of this historic house that Giovanni de Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X., first saw the light on nth December, 1475. Of his sire, the Magnificent Lorenzo—uncrowned king of Florence, genial tyrant of an adoring populace, statesman, diplomatist, banker, scholar, poet—it will be superfluous to speak; his mother, Clarice Orsini, a member of the haughty feudal Roman house, was the first “foreign” bride to enter the portals of the Medicean palace. She was a good woman and a faithful wife, but in intellect the inferior of her brilliant consort, whose versatile nature and marvellous powers often puzzled or alarmed her. But she had at least the merit of bestowing on her second son the pontifical name by which all the world speaks and thinks of Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici. For on the night before her infant was born the good Clarice had a dream, wherein she imagined herself seized with pangs of childbirth in the Florentine Duomo, and delivered of a huge but most docile lion instead of the expected infant. Man has always been a superstitious animal, and in the year 1475 dreams such as Clarice’s were taken very seriously indeed as intentional warnings or compliments from the Unseen, so that there can be no reasonable doubt that Giovanni de Medici on being elected to fill the papal throne in after years chose his official title of Leo X. out of deference to his mother’s nightmare, over the mystical meaning of which he had probably often pondered.

Of the little Giovanni’s brothers and sisters we must speak one word. First, there was Piero, the heir, who was four years old at Giovanni’s birth, and last there was Giuliano, born in the year of the Pazzi conspiracy and so named after his ill-fated uncle. Then there were the four sisters—Lucrezia, Maddalena, Contessina and Luisa—of whom the three first-named were married respectively to a Cybò, a Salviati, and a Ridolfi; whilst Luisa died prematurely on the eve of her nuptials with Giovanni, son of Pier-Francesco de Medici, head of the younger branch of the Medicean House. To his children, Lorenzo always showed himself an affectionate and indulgent father, even condescending on occasions to take part in their noisy games of the nursery: a circumstance that the merciless Machiavelli records with a sneer in the pages of his Florentine history—” he would forget the dignity of his office in romping with his children, for he would oftentimes indulge in any idle or childish amusement they might put him to “. Nevertheless, most persons will agree with a modern French critic, who declares that never could the great Lorenzo have shown himself more human or more lovable than when playing at soldiers with Piero and Giuliano, or rolling on the floor with the future Leo X.

Giovanni must have been far too young to remember the conspiracy of the Pazzi with its terrible scenes, when the mangled corpse of his uncle Giuliano was borne from the cathedral to the palace that was surrounded by angry crowds calling for summary vengeance on the murderers, and professing boundless devotion towards their surviving ruler, who had escaped the assassin’s knife as though by a miracle. Later, perhaps, he may have recalled an addition to the Medicean nursery in a little dark-eyed boy with the name of Giulio, the bastard son of the murdered Giuliano, who was sometimes brought to share the lessons and amusements of Lorenzo’s own children. In any case he must have been conscious of the change of scene from busy crowded Florence to the quiet and solitude of the family estate of Caffagiolo, whither the Magnificent despatched his household for safety after the Conjuration of the Pazzi. The dark forests of pine and fir, the fleecy flocks, the rough but kindly shepherds of the hills, the keen air of the wind-grieved Apennines, must have had their early influence on any son of Lorenzo the Poet, who loved dearly the life and people of the Tuscan country-side. But in strange contrast with the rural surroundings of airy Caffagiolo on its distant mountain-top must have seemed the conversations overheard by the sharp ears of the children between their tutor, Angelo Poliziano, and the handsome young Pico della Mirandola, or the abstruse arguments indulged in by their father with the learned Marsilio Ficino on the chance occasions when Lorenzo was able to join his family in their country retreat. But more often Politian was left alone with his charges and their mother, whose views by no means coincided with those of their chosen preceptor. Fiercely did the anxious Clarice wrangle with Politian over the methods of education, which she wanted to be conducted on her old-fashioned lines, the tutor complaining meanwhile to Madonna Lucrezia, Lorenzo’s mother, a Tornabuoni by birth, to whom in an amusing letter he sends a comically dismal account of the daily life at Caffagiolo, which was by no means a residence to the taste of the fastidious scholar.

“ The only news I can send you is that we have here such continual rains that it is impossible to quit the house, and the exercises of the country are exchanged for childish sports within doors. Here I stand by the fireside in my great coat and slippers, so that you might take me for the very figure of Melancholy. . . . Were we in Florence, we should have some consolation, were it only for that of seeing Lorenzo, when he returned home; but here we are in continual anxiety, and I for my part am half-dead with solitude and weariness. The plague and the war are incessantly in my mind. I lament past evils, and I have no longer at my side my dear Madonna Lucrezia, to whom I might unbosom my cares.”

But besides complaining thus to Madonna Lucrezia, the spoiled Humanist does not scruple to upbraid Clarice to her own husband for wasting the time of his most promising pupil, the precocious little Giovanni, by forcing him to squander his newly-acquired power of reading in spelling through the Psalms of David instead of the masterpieces of antiquity. That the mother and tutor of Lorenzo’s children were on the worst possible terms at lonely Caffagiolo is evident from one of Clarice’s letters, wherein she relates her side of the case with regard to the thorny question of education, nor does she shrink from abusing Lorenzo’s favourite poet and companion to her husband.

“… I do not like Messer Angelo Poliziano threatening to remain in the house in spite of me. You remember I told you, that if it was your will he should stay, I was perfectly contented; and although I have suffered infinite abuse from him, yet if it be with your consent, I am satisfied. But I cannot believe this to be the case.

At length Lorenzo, growing weary of these appeals and bickerings, advised Politian to withdraw to the villa below Fiesole, where he quickly recovered his equanimity and spent a profitable time in composing his Rusticus, a charming Latin poem that his contemporaries did not hesitate to compare with the Georgics of Vergil.

With unerring instinct Lorenzo had already perceived his second son’s talents, and had decided to turn them to the advantage of his House and his policy, so that the little Giovanni was accordingly marked out for an ecclesiastical career almost from his infancy. Before reaching his seventh birthday the child received the tonsure—the solemn shaving of the scalp which notified his entry into the Church, and he was at the same time declared capable of preferment, whereupon Louis XI. of France, to whom Lorenzo had communicated his intention, at once presented the boy with the abbey of Fonte Dolce, and even promised him the see of Aix, until it was unexpectedly realised that its archbishop was still living. A canonry in each cathedral-church of Tuscany was promptly bestowed on this infantile pluralist, and even Pope Sixtus IV., that implacable foe of the House of Medici, granted him a little later the rich convent of Passignano. A detailed list of this child’s benefices would prove wearisome, but we may mention that he held twenty-seven separate offices, of which the abbeys of Fonte Dolce, Passignano and Monte Cassino were the most lucrative. No wonder then that the learned Fabroni, Leo’s first modern biographer, exclaims in horrified amazement, “ Dear Lord, what a mass of benefices concentrated in one single youth ! “ Yet it is difficult to dissent from Roscoe’s shrewd criticism on such a scandal, that it is of small consequence whether such preferment be bestowed upon an infant who is unable, or upon an adult who is unwilling, to perform the requisite duties.

In the following year, 1483, this young ecclesiastic was confirmed by the bishop of Arezzo in the beautiful Medicean chapel with its Gozzoli frescoes; a circumstance which Lorenzo naively mentions in his Ricordi:—

“ On the nineteenth day of May, 1483, we received intelligence that the King of France had of his own motion presented to my son Giovanni the abbey of Fonte Dolce. On the thirty-first we heard from Rome that the Pope had confirmed the grant, and had rendered him capable of holding benefices, he being now seven years of age. On the first day of June, Giovanni accompanied me from Poggio a Cajano to Florence, where he was confirmed by the bishop of Arezzo, and received the tonsure, and from henceforth was called Messire Giovanni. This ceremony took place in the chapel of our family.”

But it is needless to add that Lorenzo had far more ambitious ends in view than the mere obtaining of rich sees and abbeys for his second, who was perhaps his favourite, son. His many experiences of the Protean changes in Italian politics, of which he was now becoming the acknowledged moderator—"the beam of the Italian scales"—had already impressed upon his marvellous mind the paramount importance of a close connection between his own House and the Papacy. The preponderance of Italian influence in Lorenzo’s days was divided between the duchy of Milan and the republic of Venice in Northern Italy, and the kingdom of Naples and the Papacy in the south, whilst in the centre the wealthy commercial state of Florence under the judicious sway of Lorenzo himself had for some time past managed to keep the balance of power between the jarring elements of North and South, and to prevent any dangerous combinations amongst the four leading states, whose intrigues also shaped the policy of the smaller Italian cities such as Mantua, Ferrara, Siena, Bologna and the like. But dangerous and tangled as was the skein of political threads held in Milan, Naples, Venice and the minor capitals, it was the uncertain action of the Papacy which the ruler of Florence had most cause to dread. For it had been the unconcealed hostility of Sixtus IV. that had made the Pazzi conspiracy possible, and it was also the same Pope’s aggression that had later forced Lorenzo to risk his life at the court of the treacherous Ferdinand of Naples on his famous diplomatic mission of 1480. From a repetition of past dangers at the hands of the Pope, Lorenzo had fully determined to guard himself by obtaining the admission of his younger son into the College of Cardinals, whenever a favourable opportunity might present itself. This attempt to obtain the scarlet hat for Giovanni de Medici was therefore as much an act of political foresight as an object of mere family aggrandisement, since a Medicean Cardinal would not only help to raise the prestige of the burgher House, already allied with a proud Roman family, but he would also be able to influence the policy of the Sacred College and the shifting aims of successive Popes.

So long as Sixtus IV. sat in St. Peter’s chair, such an ambition could remain only a day-dream, but on 13th August, 1484, the Delia Rovere Pope, so dreaded by Lorenzo, expired unloved and unlamented. The subsequent election of Giambattista Cybò with the title of Innocent VIII. now placed a personal as well as a political friend on the pontifical throne, so that a rare chance presented itself to Lorenzo to push his intentions at the Roman court. Two serious obstacles lay in the way of his cherished scheme; the feeble health of the aged Pontiff, whose tenure of the dignity did not promise to be of long duration, and the extreme youth of Lorenzo’s own little Cardinal in petto. Yet nothing daunted, the Magnificent at once began eagerly to press his request upon the new Pope, although the latter was naturally, in spite of his regard for the father, extremely loth to nominate his infant son a prince of the Church. In fact, at his election Innocent had in the conclave not only promised never to admit any candidate to the Sacred College who was under thirty years of age, but also not to create any more members of the College itself until its numbers were in the course of nature reduced to twenty-four. These restrictions, absurd and illegal as they undoubtedly were, the new-made Pope could hardly have been expected to comply with strictly, yet certainly Giovanni’s proposed elevation constituted an extreme case. To raise a mere child to the highest rank in the Church, even in that age of universal corruption, would have caused a grave scandal; nevertheless, Innocent wavered between the fear of offending the Sacred College and a warm desire to serve his true friend, Lorenzo, who kept on demanding this boon from the Pontiff with no less fervency than he would have asked of God the salvation of his soul”. So eager and intimate an appeal the scruples or fears of Innocent were unable to withstand, especially since in the previous year the existing ties between the Houses of Medici and Cybò had been drawn closer by the union of the Pope’s son, Francesco Cybò, with Lorenzo’s daughter Maddalena. Besides arranging this marriage between the two families, Lorenzo had left no stone unturned to obtain his desired end. By means of his envoy Lanfredini at the Roman court, the two leading cardinals, Roderigo Borgia, whose name was soon to become notorious throughout Christendom, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of the usurper of Milan, were approached on this delicate matter. Both cardinals worked diligently on little Giovanni’s behalf, especially the cardinal of Milan, until the Pope, wearied out by this judicious policy of alternate teasing and flattery, finally complied with Lorenzo’s wishes, so ardently expressed. On 8th March, 1489, therefore, Giovanni de Medici was formally nominated a Cardinal Deacon by the title of Santa Maria in Domenica, the small antique church that stands to-day half-hidden amidst the vineyards and acacia groves of the deserted Coelian Hill. The Cardinal de Balue, Louis XL’s minister, writing after the consistory to Lorenzo in Florence, thus announces the joyful news: “ Ο happy man, what a blessing and what an honour for your most reverend son, for your own Magnificence, and for the city of Florence ! “ But supreme as was Lorenzo’s satisfaction on receipt of this news, his transports of joy were not a little tempered by certain restrictions which accompanied his son’s admission into the College. In the first place, Innocent—very reasonably and properly it will be admitted—refused to allow the new-made thirteen-year-old Cardinal to wear the vestments or exercise any of the privileges of his rank for the space of at least three years. Lorenzo’s irritation was extreme at this command, but in spite of shrewd arguments and persistent entreaties the Pope, to his credit, remained unshaken in his resolve. Another stipulation made by the Pope, who evidently did not consider the education of a Humanist as altogether sufficient for a cardinal, was that Giovanni should quit Florence immediately in order to study canon law at Pisa during his three years of probation. Accordingly the boy was sent to Pisa, that magnificent failure amongst the historic cities of mediaeval Italy, which had lately been endowed with an university by Lorenzo himself. For the brooding quiet of the famous but derelict old city, the cheapness of lodging within its walls, and its central position near the coastline midway between Rome and Genoa, had already made Pisa a flourishing seat of learning. Here then the future Pontiff studied diligently under Decio, Sozzini and other learned professors, recently nominated to the various chairs of Pisa by his father, whilst his household was managed for him by a young scholar of great promise, whose career was from this time onward bound up closely with that of his brilliant pupil, who was but five years his junior. This was no less a person than Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose shrewd face is so familiar to us from Raphael’s splendid portrait in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, and whose attainments will ever shed reflected glory on the humble

village amongst the Tuscan uplands that gave him birth :—

Fia nota per costui, dicea,

Bibbiena, Quanto Fiorenza, sua vicina, e Siena.

Meanwhile Lorenzo himself, already ailing in the prime of life, was kept in a perpetual fever of suspense for fear the Pope might die before the close of this probationary period, and there can be little doubt that this continual anxiety contributed not a little to the Magnificent’s premature decease. Nor was he idle in urging Innocent, by means of his ambassadors in Rome, to withdraw the odious conditions, so as to allow his son the full enjoyment of his rank. But the Pope continued to shut his ears to all appeals and arguments, so that Lorenzo had to rest content with vague assurances of the Pontiffs good-will. “ Leave the fortunes of Messire Giovanni to me,” replied Innocent to Piero Alamanni’s entreaties on his master’s behalf ; “for I look upon him as my own son and shall perhaps make his promotion public when you least expect it, for it is my intention to do much more for his interests than I shall now express.”

Such promises proved cold comfort to Lorenzo, ever intriguing to shake Innocent’s fixed resolve, and ever dreading each post from Rome lest it might bring tidings of the old Pope’s death, in the event of which he foresaw only too clearly the certain collapse of all his secret schemes. For it was highly probable that a new Pontiff, if a virtuous reformer like Pius II., would postpone for many years the desired consummation; whilst a bad Pope of the type of his old enemy Sixtus would either extort an immense sum for bestowing the hat or else try to repudiate altogether the promises made by Innocent with regard to a child of thirteen. Nor were Lorenzo’s fears of failure unfounded, for, as we shall see, the papal permission arrived only a few weeks before his own decease; in short, but for the frantic efforts of Lorenzo, Giovanni de Medici would never have received the scarlet hat, and the world’s history would have lacked the pontificate of Leo X.

At length the day so anxiously expected by Lorenzo arrived, and on the evening of 8th March, 1492, the young Cardinal, now aged sixteen years and three months, left Florence with a small train to ascend to the ancient abbey that stands on the fertile slopes below Fiesole. This church, commonly known as the Badia Fiesolana, adorns the left ridge of the vine- and willow-clad valley of the Mugnone, and lies within a few hundred yards of the better-known convent of San Domenico with its cherished memories of Fra Angelico. The Badia itself, with its tall tower and its picturesque façade of black and white marble, had long been associated with the name and bounty of the Medici, so that it made a suitable spot for the intended ceremony of investiture, which, probably owing to Lorenzo’s ill-health, it had been decided to make as simple and brief as possible. Within the walls, therefore, of this church distinguished by the gifts and emblems of his ancestors, Giovanni spent a long night’s vigil in solitary prayer, until with the dawn appeared on the scene Pico della Mirandola and Jacopo Salviati, together with Messer Simone Stanza, the public notary. The young Cardinal now received the Sacrament “with the greatest devotion and humility,” after which High Mass was sung. During the performance of the service the Superior of the Abbey pronounced a blessing on the insignia of Giovanni’s rank—the pallium or mantle, the biretum or scarlet cap, and the galerus, the broad-brimmed hat with the long depending tassels —and these were exposed before the high altar. In its proper place the papal brief of 1489 was read aloud, and attention was openly drawn to the circumstance that the probationary term of three years had at last expired. Then the Cardinal was solemnly vested with mantle, cap and hat of scarlet, and also with the sapphire ring (emblematic of the Church’s celestial foundation) at the hands of Canon Matteo Bosso, from whose personal narrative this account is largely drawn. The choir having sung the hymn Vent Creator Spiritus, the youthful Cardinal stood up to pronounce an indulgence upon all who had attended the ceremony that day, and also upon all such as should repair to the altar of the Badia Fiesolana on succeeding anniversaries of the event. Returning to the refectory, the assembled company was now joined by Piero de Medici, who had ridden up from the city on a charger of remarkable size and spirit. Meanwhile an immense crowd of friends and sympathisers was beginning to ascend the old Fiesole road in order to witness the ceremony, which was already finished at so early an hour; but this eager throng’s progress was arrested at the bridge over the Mugnone, where all persons were compelled to await the return of the two brothers and their chosen suite. At the Ponte di Mugnone therefore the cavalcade coming from Fiesole was duly welcomed by deputations of the leading citizens, by the whole body of the Florentine clergy, and by the general mass of the people, who with cheers and demands for a blessing from the newly-vested Cardinal, accompanied Piero and Giovanni to the church of the Anunziata, where the latter alighted from his mule to perform hisorisons at the Madonna’s famous shrine; thence to the Duomo, where more prayers were offered up ; and finally to the Medicean palace, where Lorenzo, sickening with his mortal illness, was impatiently awaiting his younger son’s return. Here the Cardinal was presented with a costly service of plate, said to be valued at 20,000 florins, by order of the Signory. Shows and banquets, that occasioned much grumbling amongst the political opponents of the Medici, were given at the public expense in honour of the event, which in the words of the republican chemist, Luca Landucci, “ ennobled the city as well as the House of Medici”.

The meeting between Giovanni and his father on this occasion has been commemorated for us in one of Giorgio Vasari’s frescoes in the Sala di Lorenzo il Magnifico in the civic palace of Florence. Although not of contemporary date, this composition is of exceptional interest, because it affords us one of the very few extant portraits of Leo X. in his boyhood. Lorenzo in a long violet robe appears seated on a throne in a garden; languid and suffering, he can yet regard with proud satisfaction the son who kneels at his feet dressed in the gorgeous robes of a cardinal, and offering his scarlet hat to the parent whose indefatigable efforts had obtained for him so high an honour. Beside the form of Lorenzo are introduced Politian, Ficino and other members of his court, whilst a warrior waves aloft a white banner emblazoned with the Magnificent’s chosen device of three ostrich plumes, red, white and black, clasped by a diamond ring. Above this group towers the strange head of the giraffe which the Grand Turk presented to Lorenzo, and the like of which, so Jovius informs us, neither the Portuguese could discover in the Indies nor the Spaniards in the New World. True it is that the spotted ungainly creature, which for some months had been the pet of the Florentine populace, succumbed to the sharp Tuscan climate many years before the event thus commemorated, yet Vasari deemed it not beneath his dignity as a painter to introduce this departed favourite of the people into the scheme of his historical picture. Giovanni himself appears as a tall stripling with light brown hair and a fair complexion, whilst a medallion portrait in the same hall likewise presents him as a youth with a pale heavy face, with flabby cheeks and light hazel eyes. From the peculiar angle at which every portrait of the future Pope has been drawn, it is evident that Giovanni must have possessed a blemish of some sort in the right eye: in any case it is certain that even in these early years he did not share the good looks of his brothers, although his countenance must have been singularly attractive from its marked expression of intelligence and humour. But already at sixteen Giovanni de Medici gave only too evident promise of that corpulence of body which was destined to become in after-life so great a hindrance to the health and comfort of the Pope.

Three days later Giovanni bade farewell to his father and brothers, and with a well-equipped train of followers took the road towards Rome. Travelling by easy stages, which included halts at his own abbey of Passignano, at Siena and Viterbo, he finally arrived at the Flaminian Gate of the Eternal City on 22nd March. Here he took up his temporary abode in the Augustinian convent of Santa Maria del Popolo—famous in after years as the residence of Luther during his visit to Rome —and made his preparations for his approaching audience of the Pope.

Amongst the Italian cardinals then residing in Rome during that momentous year 1492, Giovanni de Medici was likely to find some friends, notably in the powerful Roderigo Borgia, papal vice-chancellor, and in Ascanio Sforza, both of whom had helped considerably in the matter of his own promotion. He could scarcely expect much sympathy from the two nephews of the late Pope, Giuliano Delia Rovere and Raffaele Riario, the latter of whom had been Sixtus’ envoy at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy, and had actually been present at that historic service in the Florentine Cathedral, whereat Giuliano de Medici had been stabbed to death by innumerable dagger thrusts. According to vulgar report, Riario had not yet fully recovered from the alarm and horror of that terrible scene, whilst his nervous pallid face bore lasting witness to that abominable act of mingled sacrilege and treachery. Lorenzo Cybò, Innocent’s own son, would of course be well-disposed to the new-comer, whilst out of the all-too-few members of the College who were conspicuous for genuine piety or learning, the Cardinal Piccolomini, nephew of Pius II., and Oliviero Caraffà of Naples, were naturally inclined to take an interest in the proper development of Giovanni’s still unformed character. And though some members of the diminished College were ‘ disposed to regard their new brother with disfavour, such persons with easy Italian duplicity concealed their private feelings, and openly at least appeared ready to extend a warm welcome to their young Florentine colleague. Thus did Giovanni de Medici, Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Domenica, make his first appearance at the age of sixteen in the midst of “that sink of iniquity,” as Lorenzo did not scruple in private to describe the seat of Western Christendom: and his first letter telling of his arrival and early experiences in Rome to his anxious father in Florence, although couched in simple, rather childish terms, is not without human interest.

“ To Lorenzo the Magnificent, Best of Fathers in

Florence

“… On Friday morning I was received in state, being accompanied from Santa Maria del Poplo as far as the palace, and from the palace back to the Campo de Fiori by all the Cardinals, and by nearly the whole court, although it was raining heavily. I was warmly welcomed by Our Lord; he spoke scarcely a word, but the following day our envoys visited him, and they had a most gracious audience of him. The Pope set aside the next day for my own reception, that is to-day. Thither I went, and His Holiness addressed me in as loving a manner as possible. He has reminded me, and also exhorted me to return the Cardinals’ visits, and this I have begun to do in the case of all who have visited me. I shall write another day to tell you who they all are; they profess themselves to be very well disposed towards yourself. Of all matters that passed, I know you are fully informed. I shall write nothing more concerning myself, except that I shall ever strive to do you credit. De me proloqui ulterius, nefas. The news of your much improved state of health has given me great joy. I have no further desire for myself except to hear such good tidings often, and for this recent information I beg to thank my brother, Ser Piero. I recommend myself to you. No more.

“John, Your Son

“At Rome, 25th March, 1492 “

It was probably on receipt of this simple missive from his second-born in Rome that Lorenzo indited that famous letter of advice, which the good Fabroni eloquently calls the Magnificent’s swan-song ("vox cycnea"), seeing that it was composed within a very few days of his premature death at the age of forty-two; and indeed, apart from the intrinsic value of this epistle, such a circumstance would naturally lend it a pathetic interest. However early in life Lorenzo’s physical powers may have sunk beneath the fearful strain of his public and private cares, this letter provides the fullest proof that his marvellous and versatile intellect continued unimpaired to the last. It was indeed a swan-song of peculiar strength and sweetness, wherein excellent spiritual advice, not unworthy of a Fénelon, was so blended with worldly maxims that a Chesterfield might have penned, that it is well-nigh impossible to separate its component elements of an exhortation to a Churchman’s strict morality and of a subtle suggestion to turn an ecclesiastical career to the private interests of the House of Medici. That a careful perusal of this remarkable letter is essential to the student of Leo X.’s career, it is needless to state; whilst it is of special interest to note the extent to which the young Cardinal, for whose future guidance this unique piece of admonition was composed, either followed or deviated from the path thus carefully pointed out beforehand for him by his illustrious father.

“ LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT IN FLORENCE TO THE CARDINAL DE MEDICI IN ROME

“… You and all of us who are interested in your welfare ought to esteem ourselves highly favoured by Providence, not only for the many honours and benefits bestowed on our House, but more particularly for having conferred upon us in your person the greatest dignity we have ever enjoyed. This favour, in itself so important, is rendered still more so by the circumstances by which it is accompanied, and especially by the consideration of your youth, and of our situation in the world. The first thing that I would therefore suggest to you is, that you ought to be grateful to God, and continually to recollect that it is not through your prudence, or your solicitude, that this event has taken place, but through His favour which you can only repay by a pious, chaste, and exemplary life, and that your obligations to the performance of these duties are so much the greater, as in your early years you have given some reasonable expectation that your riper age may produce such fruits. It would be indeed highly disgraceful, and as contrary to your duty as to my hopes, if at a time when others display a greater share of reason and adopt a better mode of life, you should forget the precepts of your youth, and forsake the path in which you have hitherto trodden. Endeavour therefore to alleviate the burden of your early dignity by the regularity of your life and by your perseverance in those studies which are suitable to your profession. It gave me great satisfaction to learn that in the course of the past year, you had frequently of your own accord gone to Confession and Communion; nor do I conceive that there is any better way of obtaining the favour of Heaven than by habituating yourself to a performance of these and similar duties. This appears to me to be the most suitable and most useful advice, which in the first instance I can possibly give you.

“ I well know that as you are now to reside in Rome, that sink of all iniquity,—che è sentina di tutti I mali,—the difficulty of conducting yourself by these admonitions will be increased. The influence of example is itself prevalent, but you will probably meet with those who will particularly endeavour to corrupt and incite you to vice, because, as you may yourself perceive, your early attainment to so great a dignity is not observed without envy; and those who could not prevent your receiving that honour will secretly endeavour to diminish it, by inducing you to forfeit the good estimation of the public, thereby precipitating you into that gulf wherein they have themselves fallen, in which attempt the consideration of your youth will give them a confidence. To these difficulties you ought to oppose yourself with the greater firmness, as there is at present less virtue amongst your brethren of the College. I acknowledge indeed that several of them are good and learned men, whose lives are exemplary, and whom I would recommend to you as patterns for your conduct. By emulating them you will be so much the more known and esteemed, in proportion as your age and the peculiarity of your situation will distinguish you from your colleagues. Avoid, however, as you would Scylla or Charybdis the imputation of hypocrisy. Guard against all ostentation either in your conduct or your discourse. Affect not austerity, nor even appear too serious. This advice you will in time, I hope, understand and practise better than I can express it.

“ You are not unacquainted with the great importance of the character you have to sustain, for you well know that all the Christian world would prosper, if the Cardinals were what they ought to be, because in such a case there would always be a good Pope, upon which the tranquillity of Christendom so materially depends. Endeavour then to render yourself such, that, if all the rest resembled you, we might expect this universal blessing. . . .

“You are now devoted to God and the Church, on which account you ought to aim at being a good ecclesiastic, and to show that you prefer the honour and state of the Church and of the Apostolic See to every other consideration. Nor, while you keep this in view, will it be difficult for you to favour your family and your native place. On the contrary, you should be the link to bind this city of Florence closer to the Church, and our family with the city, and although it be impossible to foresee what accidents may happen, yet I doubt not but this may be done with equal advantage to all, observing that you always prefer the interests of the Church.

‘ ‘ You are not only the youngest Cardinal in the College, but the youngest person that was ever raised to that rank, and you ought, therefore, to be the more vigilant and unassuming, not giving others occasion to wait for you either in the chapel, the consistory, or upon deputations. You will soon get a sufficient insight into the manners of your brethren. With those of less respectable character converse not with too much intimacy, not merely on account of the circumstance in itself, but for the sake of public opinion. Converse on general topics with all. On public occasions let your equipage and dress be rather below than above mediocrity. A handsome house and a well-ordered household will be preferable to a great retinue and a splendid palace. Endeavour to live with regularity, and gradually to bring your expenses within those bounds which in a new establishment cannot perhaps be expected. Silks and jewels are not suitable for persons in your station. Your taste will be better shown in the acquisition of a few elegant remains of antiquity, or in the collecting of handsome books, and by your attendants being learned and well-bred rather than numerous. Invite others to your house oftener than you yourself receive invitations. Practise neither too frequently. Let your own food be plain, and take sufficient exercise, for those who wear your habit are soon liable, without great caution, to contract infirmities. The situation of a Cardinal is not less secure than elevated, on which account those who arrive at it too frequently become negligent, conceiving that their object is attained and that they can preserve it with little trouble. This idea is often injurious to the life and character of those who entertain it. Be attentive therefore to your conduct and confide in others too little rather than too much. There is one rule which I would recommend to your attention in preference to all others: Rise early in the morning. This will not only contribute to your health, but will enable you to arrange and expedite the business of the day, and as there are various duties incident to your station, such as the performance of Divine service, studying, giving audience, etc., you will find the observance of this admonition productive of the greatest utility. Another very necessary precaution, particularly on your entrance into public life, is to deliberate every evening on what you have to perform the following day, that you may not be unprepared for whatever may happen. With respect to your speaking in the consistory, it will be most becoming for you at present to refer the matters in debate to the judgment of His Holiness, alleging as a reason your own youth and inexperience. You will probably be desired to intercede for the favours of the Pope on particular occasions. Be cautious, however, that you trouble him not too often, for his temper leads him to be most liberal to those who weary him least with their solicitations. This you must observe, lest you should give him offence, remembering also at times to converse with him on more agreeable topics; and if you should be obliged to request some kindness from him, let it be done with the modesty and humility which are so pleasing to his disposition. Farewell.”

Scarcely had the young Cardinal received this extraordinary proof of a father’s devotion and wisdom, than there was brought to Rome news of the Magnificent’s fatal illness and death at the Careggi villa on 8th April. And thus at the very outset of his career in the Church was the youthful Giovanni de Medici deprived of a loving parent and a judicious guide, who perhaps whilst he was inditing his final letter to his absent son realised only too well the impending disaster of his own death.

MISFORTUNE AND EXILE

~

Ο ITALY ! Ο ROME ! I am going to deliver you into the hands of a people that will wipe you out from amongst the nations. I behold them descending upon you like famished lions. Hand in hand with War stalks Pestilence. And the mortality will be so great that the grave-diggers will pass through your streets calling aloud for the dead bodies. And then will one bear a father to the charnel-house, and another his son. Ο Rome ! again I warn you to repent. Repent, Ο Venice! Repent, Ο Milan! . . . Florence, what have you done? Shall I tell you? The cup of your iniquities is full, therefore stand prepared for some great vengeance (Sermons of Savonarola).

ROMANCE and mystery have ever brooded over the death-bed of the Magnificent Lorenzo from contemporary times to the present day. Historians still disagree concerning the real facts of Savonarola’s undoubted visit to the dying prince at Careggi, whilst his end was accompanied by strange portents or coincidences in Florence itself, which at the moment excited the alarm alike of the learned and the vulgar. Not many hours before he expired, there fell from the cupola of the Cathedral a huge fragment of stone-work with a fearful crash in the dead of night, striking the pavement on the side towards the Medicean palace, whereat it was commonly reported that Lorenzo himself recognised his coming dissolution in this mysterious accident. Men told each other also how a fine lion kept at the public expense had sickened and died, and again certain of the more credulous spoke of comets trailing their light over Careggi and of a fire-breathing monster which had been seen in Santa Maria Novella. There was an universal feeling of restlessness and expectancy in the .air; a vague presentiment of coming peril, as men began dimly to realise that the loss of their beloved Lorenzo, “ the most glorious man that could be found,” must of necessity cause far-reaching changes not only in Florence, but throughout all Italy. Yet Piero—Piero the Second, as he is sometimes called—was straightway confirmed in the exalted position held by his late father, and in particular the French King’s envoy was instructed to recognise the transfer of the dignity from parent to heir, so that outwardly at least, the state of Florence pursued its normal course, as though it had been guided for generations under an hereditary monarchy.

As soon as the fatal news reached Rome, it was at once suggested that the young Cardinal should return to Florence, in reality for the purpose of strengthening his brother’s hands, but ostensibly on account of the coming heats, which the Florentine envoy in Rome affected to consider injurious to the health of young persons. During the short space of his residence in the Eternal City it is evident that Giovanni de Medici had gained golden opinions from the Pope, who had been favourably impressed both by the Cardinal’s modesty and by his application to business. How far the papal satisfaction was shared by the Sacred College at large, it is difficult to determine; yet everyone expressed pleasure when Innocent announced his intention of investing this fortunate youth with legatine authority in Tuscany, so that these additional powers might prove of service to his elder brother, thus suddenly called upon to fill the difficult post of an uncrowned and officially unrecognised monarch. The legatine authority was formally bestowed on Giovanni de Medici in the Sistine Chapel during the ceremony of the blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday, and the news of this honour, according to the young-Cardinal’s tutor, Stefano di Castrocaro, made a profound sensation at the Roman court, so that we cannot help reflecting on the gratification which this early mark of favour would have afforded to the ambitious Lorenzo, had he been still living. Yet Castrocaro’s report also contains a curious postscript addressed to the Florentine envoy, whom he exhorts to speak seriously to the young Cardinal concerning his present mode of life, which differs much from that pursued by his colleagues, so the writer avers. He will not rise betimes of a morning, and will sit up too late at night, whereat the tutor is much concerned, since such irregular habits are likely to injure his general health. On this vital point, therefore, upon which his father had laid such stress, Giovanni evidently did not intend to follow the excellent advice bequeathed him, and, as we know, his lazy habits in later life are severely commented on by those candid critics, the Venetian ambassadors in Rome.

The Cardinal, who did not return to his native city till 20th May, had early written to his brother, bewailing their irreparable loss and also expressing a subject’s deep devotion towards one who was now both an elder brother and a sovereign, although Giovanni’s profession of unquestioning loyalty is tempered by a delicate hint as to future conduct on Piero’s side:—

“Johannes Franciscus, Cardinal de’ Medici, to his Magnificence, Piero de’ Medici

“ Dearest Brother and sole Pillar of our House!

“What am I to write, brother mine, for there is nought save tears to tell of, and of a truth in dwelling upon the pious memory of our father, mourning seems better than language? And what a father he was to us! That no parent was ever more indulgent to his sons, there needs no witness save his own conduct. No wonder therefore that I lament with tears and find no repose; yet sometimes, dear brother, I obtain consolation in the thought that I have yourself to regard ever in the light of our lost parent. Yours it will now be to command, and mine to obey cheerfully, for it will give me the highest pleasure possible to perform your orders. Despatch me into dangers; command me; for there is nothing wherein I would not assist your ends. Nevertheless, I implore you, Piero mine, for my sake to contrive to show yourself generous, courteous, friendly and open towards all, but especially towards our own followers, for by such qualities there is nothing one cannot achieve or keep. But I do not remind you of this for lack of confidence in your powers, but because I feel it my duty to mention it. Many things go to strengthen and console me—the crowds of mourners at our gates, the grief-stricken aspect of the city, the public lamentations in Florence, and all those other details which help to alleviate sorrow like ours—but what solaces me more than aught else is my having yourself, since I trust in you to a degree I cannot easily express. . . . Fare you well ! As for myself, I am in such health as my grief permits.

“ From the City

“ 12th April, 1492 “

Of his three sons, Lorenzo had long ago predicted that Piero would grow up headstrong (un pazzo), Giovanni a scholar (un savio), and Giuliano good (un buono),