 Chapter 10 Pietro the Unfortunate PART I On Lorenzo's death Pietro, the eldest of his three sons, succeeded to the headship of the family in the rule of Florence. He himself was twenty-one. His brother Giovanni, who returned from Rome two months after Pietro's rule began, was sixteen, and his brother Giuliano, a boy of thirteen. Pietro was strong, handsome, and excelled in all athletic pursuits, but he gained almost in boyhood the name by which he is always known. It seemed merely to require that he should be a party to any project for it invariably to fail of success. This peculiarity his qualities of character did not tend to neutralize. He had a heedless temperament and was more inclined to occupy himself in sport and amusement than in attending to affairs of state, while he was cursed with a haughtiness of disposition which he took no pains to conceal, and which ill-accorded with the sentiments of Republican Florence. Pietro was not a fool, as often stated. He was simply an ordinary young noble of his day, without more brains than other people possessed. But the menace he had always had more brains than other people possessed. It was expected of them, and they were not wanted by the Florentines' rulers if they ceased to be thus gifted. His wife, Alfonzino Orsini, was just of the character calculated to double the difficulties created by his own faults. She had a full share of the Orsini pride, and by her unconcealed contempt for the Florentines, had, even before Lorenzo's death, made herself intensely disliked by them. Seeing how essentially the Medici rule depended upon popularity, Pietro was evidently as unfortunate in the character of the wife who had been given him as in other matters. We now come to an important turning point in the history of the Medici, whereas each generation of this family had had to encounter a formidable attempt to crush them, storms which they had weathered. There was now to come upon them one destined to involve them in many vicissitudes. Within a year of his succeeding to the rule of Florence, Pietro, chiefly from his disregard of Republican forms, and of that attitude of equality with every citizen of Florence, which his father had so scrupulously observed, began to be very unpopular. Moreover, this unpopularity was increased by his cousins of the younger branch, Lorenzo and Giovanni, the two sons of Piet Francesco. The first two generations of the younger branch had evinced no jealousy against the elder branch on account of their more exalted position. But in the third generation, we find Piet Francesco's two sons, their father having died in 1476, beginning, even in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent, to grow jealous of the importance of the elder branch and to show a marked coolness towards him, and this feeling Pietro contrived to excite still more strongly. Towards the end of the life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giovanni, who was four years older than his cousin Pietro, fell in love with a lady beloved also by the latter. This naturally did not tend to improve matters, nor did a lawsuit instigated by Pietro which was its consequence. Whatever the reasons, these two cousins of his now began a regular course of hostility towards him. They fanned his rising unpopularity, headed the party opposed to him, and declared themselves attached to the liberty of the people, which they said he was trying to destroy. It was unfortunate for Pietro that he succeeded to the rule of Florence just when a storm was about to burst upon Italy, with which it would have needed all his father's ability to cope. When death removed the influence of Lorenzo men foresaw that it would not be long before Italy was again plunged into war, but they did not foresee that to wars between the Italian states were now to be added those due to contests between France, Spain, and Germany, of which Italy would form the battlefield. The event with which this state of things began was the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France in order to attack the Kingdom of Naples. Very possibly, had Lorenzo the Magnificent been still at the helm of Italian politics, he would have found means to avert this particular invasion. But sooner or later similar results would have been certain to ensue. For the growing strength of other countries occurring simultaneously with a decline in power of the Italian states rendered foreign attacks certain eventually to come upon Italy. And we are now entering on the time when that change was beginning by which instead of Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, and Rome taking the lead in European politics, France, Spain, Germany, and England were to become the leading countries of Europe. The commencement of this new era in European politics is marked by the accession of the Emperor Maximilian I who in 1493 was elected Emperor on the death, after an uneventful reign of fifty-three years, of his father, the Emperor Frederick III. Milan. In 1490 the young Duke John Galliazzo Sforza came of age, but he being feeble and indolent his capable uncle Ludovico Sforza, Il Moro, who since 1480 had governed the Duchy in his name, refused to surrender the rule to him. John Galliazzo's young wife Isabella of Aragon appealed forcibly and continuously to her grandfather, Ferante, King of Naples, against this usurpation. But up to 1493 the protests of the latter had produced no effect. Some writers have held that it was because Il Moro saw himself about to be attacked by Naples that he invited the French King into Italy. There was, however, no sign that either King Ferante, who died in January 1494, or his son and successor Alfonso, was preparing any force to attack Milan. Other writers state that Il Moro, having resolved to compass his nephew's death and make himself Duke, invited the French invasion in order to stir up trouble, which would prevent the other Italian states from interfering with him. Whichever was the reason, Il Moro now invited Charles VIII to attack Naples and promised him the support of Milan. France. Louis XI, while he had consolidated France, had, by his method of doing so, crushed, to a large extent, the spirit of the French nation. Charles VIII, proceeding to rule on different lines from his hated father, had begun to look out for some opportunity for military exploits, both to assist in reviving the spirit of the nation and to gratify his own youthful desire for adventure. When, therefore, Ludovico Sforza urged him to put forward the old Angevin claim to Naples and to bring an army into Italy to attack that kingdom, Charles eagerly accepted the proposal. French imagination was fired by the idea of an invasion of Italy. All classes caught it up with enthusiasm, and preparations on a great scale were forthwith made for an expedition which, to the French, had all the attraction of novelty and romance. This expedition of Charles VIII has a special importance of another kind, for this was the first exercise of the new power created by a standing army, a power destined to create great political changes in Europe. Hitherto the armies of such countries as France and England had consisted of the feudal levies brought to the standard of the king by the barons, and the necessity of humoring the caprices and ever-recurring jealousies of the latter when such a force was gathered together greatly nullified its offensive power. These conditions tended to prevent wars being undertaken against other countries, since they made the invasion of another country, far from the homes of such levies, a most difficult operation. But the new weapon which had been forged by Louis XI, primarily as a means of crushing the barons and princes of France, had altered all this, and while making the king supreme over his barons, had also put in his hand a formidable weapon against other countries. Thus it is not surprising that we find historians stating that Charles VIII, who had no ability of his own, was at this time the most powerful sovereign in Europe. The reason was, because he alone was in possession of this new weapon, which his astute father had had the wit to forge, and which no other country as yet possessed. There was, however, one other point in which a standing army differed materially from a feudal army, vis, in the item of cost. Charles VIII's army, which included infantry, artillery, and cavalry, did not consist of more than about twenty thousand men, though this was a great effort for those times. But so little had the increased cost of such an army been realized that before it had penetrated any distance into Italy, Charles found his treasury exhausted, and had to borrow large sums from the merchants of Genoa at the ruinous rate of interest of forty-two percent. In August 1494, Charles VIII started from Vienna to invade Italy. Crossing the Alps he entered Lombardy, and was entertained at Milan by Il Moro, and at Pavia by the Duke Gian Galeazzo, and there the latter's wife, the beautiful and unfortunate Isabella of Aragon, threw herself at the French king's feet to intercede for her house, which she was marching to attack. But she gained nothing, and a few days later, on reaching Piacenza, Charles received the news that the Duke was dead. Poisoned, it was universally believed, by his unscrupulous uncle, Il Moro, who at once imprisoned Isabella and her four children, and notwithstanding that the late Duke had left a son in air, proclaimed himself Duke of Milan. Meanwhile, the other states of Italy prepared as best they might to meet this invasion. Naples, against whom the attack was directed, awaited it in her own territory. Rome made no preparations for defense, the pope hoping that Charles would not molest him. Venice declared herself neutral. Tuscany, having no particular reason to espouse the cause of Naples, would no doubt have liked to have done the same, but lying right in the course of the French king's march was obliged to defend her territory. And Tuscany was ill-prepared. The many years of peace had worked their usual effect in a want of preparedness for war. And to Pietro's difficulties on this account were added others. His disloyal cousins Lorenzo and Giovanni seized upon this opportunity, and at a time when all private feuds should have been sunk, made their countries need the occasion for gratifying their private jealousy. They sent secret assurances to Charles VIII that they would promote his views and would assist him with money, of which, as has been seen, he was much in need. This action of theirs was discovered, and they were arrested by Pietro's orders. No one could have been surprised if they had been executed as traitors to their country, or at all events imprisoned. Pietro, however, followed the example which his grandfather, Piero Il Cotoso, had set, and behaved very leniently toward them, simply confining them. Lorenzo to the villa of Caffaggiuolo, and Giovanni to the walls of Castello. They repaid him by escaping thence, going to Charles VIII, who was then at Vigevano, and assuring him that the Florentines would ally themselves with him against Naples if only he would help them to get rid of Pietro. By this time Charles's army was entering the borders of Tuscany, and laying siege to its frontier fortresses, which were defended by such mercenary troops as Pietro had been able to collect. But these troops being quite unfit to cope with such an army failed to arrest the French. The frontier fortress of Sarzana, which Charles attacked at the end of October, was soon captured, and the French king continued his advance. Pietro had now only two courses open to him. He has been spoken of with contempt by all riders for his action in this crisis, but whether this view is correct seems open to question, as it would appear to have scarcely sufficiently considered the problem before Pietro. On the fall of Sarzana the only two alternatives possible to him were either to be prepared to sustain a siege of Florence by the French army, or to endeavor by a partial surrender to induce the French king to pass peaceably through Tuscany, avoiding the capital. The first course meant inevitably, in view of the complete disparity in military power between the organized army which Charles commanded and Florence's mercenary levies, the assault and sack of Florence by foreign troops. Had the French king been attempting to conquer Tuscany, the matter would have been different, and Florence would have been bound to resist to the end and to fall with honour. But this was not the case. The French king had no special quarrel with the Florentine state, so that the sack of the city would have been endured on behalf of another state which had no claim upon Florence for such a sacrifice, and which, though principally concerned, had no force to join with her in opposing the French king. Pietro therefore chose the second course, and in order to persuade Charles VIII to accept terms and pass without further aggression through Tuscany by the coast road which avoided Florence went off in person to the camp of the King of France to try and achieve this by a personal interview. He there saw for the first time what a regular, organized army was like, and, if he had not done so before, must have realised at once how futile would be any opposition which Florence could offer to such a force, and that it could only have a result which he was bound at all costs to prevent. The French king agreed to pass peaceably through Tuscany, but would not consent to avoid the capital, and required, as the condition on which Florence should be spared from assault and her territory from devastation, that Pisa and the fortresses of Sarzana, Sarzanello, Ripafrata, and Pietro Santa should be held by him until the conquest of Naples had been completed. Most of these places were already in Charles's possession, while it was only a question of days before all would be so, and he had power to hold them for as long as he chose, so that Pietro in agreeing to these terms did not make any very great concession. Pietro returned to Florence on the 8th November in expectation that the citizens would be thankful, under the circumstances, for what he had achieved, but the seeds so assiduously sown by his cousins at last bore fruit. The citizens had not seen Charles's army and did not know their own weakness in the French king's strength. Their pride was wounded by the idea of the surrender of fortresses, and the combined result brought matters to a climax. Pietro was met by a storm of indignation. The measure of his unpopularity was now full, and there was a general clamour for his banishment and that of his whole family. The Signoria assembled, and promptly passed a decree banishing the Medici permanently from the state of Florence, 9th November, 1494. This banishment was not carried out in the dispassionate manner of that in Cosimo's time. They were driven to fly from the city for their lives, and the Signoria subsequently offered a reward of 4,000 Florence for the head of Pietro, and 2,000 Florence for that of his brother Giovanni, while the mob were permitted by the government to plunder the Medici palace, which we are told was sacked from roof to cellar. And so, notwithstanding all that the Medici had, during a hundred years, expended from their private fortune to benefit the citizens of Florence, there were now robbed from them, and scattered to the four winds, all those treasures of art gathered with so much diligent labour by Cosimo Paterpatrie, Pietro Ilgotoso, and Lorenzo the Magnificent, a greater collection of art treasures than was to be found in any other single building in Europe. The destruction of this invaluable collection is pathetically related by the scholar Li Bernardo Urcelli in a long lament over the priceless treasures, both of learning and art, destroyed on this occasion. In the former category were valuable manuscripts in every language collected at great expense, and most of them quite unable to be replaced. Not less deplorable was the loss in the domain of art. Irrespective of pictures and statues which were plundered, many valuable pieces of ancient sculpture, exquisite gems, cameos, vases, and countless specimens of the work of the minor arts, were destroyed, sharing in a general ruin which reduced a palace which had been the admiration of every foreign visitor, and the chief ornament of the city, to the condition of one sacked by an enemy's troops. The contemporary French historian, Philippe de Comines, after giving a long list of the valuable things lost in this great act of vandalism, computes that over and above what was carried off, the money value of what was destroyed represented more than 100,000 crowns. All that energetic labor and artistic taste had collected in half a century was dispersed or destroyed in a day. We have a glimpse of one item among these plundered treasures eight years later, vis the four valuable vases which had belonged to Lorenzo and which we find in 1502 offered for sale in Florence. Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, writes in that year requesting that Leonardo da Vinci, who was then in Florence, would inspect them for her, as she heard they were for sale, and would send her a report on them and the price at which they were valued. Leonardo, having examined them, was in ecstasies over their beauty. He reported that all four had Lorenzo's name engraved in Roman letters on the body of the vase, and as to the prices at which they were to be obtained said, The crystal vase, all of one piece and very fine, is valued at 350 ducats, the Jasper vase, of variegated colors and encrusted with pearls and rubies on a gold stand at 240 ducats, the Agate vase at 200 ducats, and the Jasper vase on a silver stand at 150 ducats. They were evidently too costly an ornament for the Marchioness of Mantua, and she did not buy them. They therefore remained in Florence, and some fifty years afterwards were sought out and repurchased by Cosimo I, and are now in the gem room of the Ophizzi Gallery. One of the statues taken from the Medici palace was made to serve as a monument of this casting forth by Florence in ignominium ruin, of the family which had so long made that city's greatness. The signoria took from amongst the plundered works of art the bronze statue of Judas slain Holofernes, executed by Donatello for Cosimo Patrepatrie, which had always stood in the center of the Cortile of the palace and set it up in front of the Palazzo de la Signoria, engraving an inscription round its base, declaring it set up as a warning to all who should think to tyrannize over Florence. The inscription was a fine sounding one, and helped, as was intended, to justify the action of those who had cast forth Pietro and his family, because he had been unable to protect Florence from a foreign aggression with which they themselves were just as little able to cope. But it gave no real picture of the case. Pietro had in no sense tyrannized over Florence. He had not the power to do so, and he had never committed any act which showed that he even had the wish. All that he had done was to offend her republican sentiments by what the citizens called a haughty demeanor. In after-years, when a real tyrant came to rule over them, they were defined by most bitter experience how very different a thing tyranny was from the matters chiefly of mere outward behavior which had called forth their complaints against the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. When, with their senioria abolished, they groaned under the tyranny of Cosimo I, with the utmost joy where they have welcomed back the free and untrammeled existence which they had enjoyed under the rule of Pietro the Unfortunate. The members of the family who were thus hurriedly driven forth from Florence were the three brothers, Pietro, then twenty-three, Giovanni, eighteen, and Giuliano, fifteen, with their first cousin Giulio, sixteen, also Pietro's wife, Alfonsina, and their two infant children, Lorenzo and Clarice. They fled first to Bologna and thence to Venice, where they obtained a temporary asylum. Pietro's ignoble second cousins, Lorenzo and Giovanni, were not included in the decree of banishment. They gained immunity for themselves by abandoning, for a time, to their permanent discredit, the name of Medici, and taking instead the name of Popolano, erasing the family arms from the outside of their palace. CHAPTER X Pietro the Unfortunate PART II Sixty years had passed since the Medici had last been cast out with ignominy from Florence. They were now for the second time to suffer the hardships of exile. The sentence passed against them furnished an example of how evanescent his popular favour and the memory of public benefits. All the deliverance of his countrymen from unjust taxation and the tyranny of the nobles, affected by Giovanni di Bici, all the unweary generosity of thirty years which had won for Cosimo the title of father of his country, all the prosperity of Florence wrought by Lorenzo were forgotten as completely as though they had never been. And the edifice founded by Giovanni di Bici, gradually built up by Cosimo, strengthened by the qualities of Pietro, and perfected by the ability of Lorenzo, fell in ruins. The Medici were back again at the point they had occupied before Giovanni di Bici began to lay the foundations of the family greatness, but with the additional obstacle to their ascending the latter again that now, by the combined effect of Pietro's failure to follow the line of conduct laid down by his father, and the disaffection stirred up by his cousins, their popularity was gone, and the citizens were determined to keep them out of Florence for the future. This second banishment meant the entire ruin which had been aimed at but not achieved in the first. The change in their circumstances was most complete. The numerous activities of public life, which for four generations had become the accustomed occupations of this family, their patronage of art and letters, the social pleasures of an exalted station and great wealth, all were at an end. And, deprived of all their possessions, they went forth to lead a nomadic and poverty-stricken existence for eighteen years. Pietro spent all the remaining nine years of his life in fruitless endeavors to get himself reinstated in Florence by force of arms, not seeing that this was just the way to defeat his object by setting the Florentine still more against him. His father, had he found himself in a like position, would have left no stone unturned to make the Florentines recall him voluntarily. But Pietro lacked his father's wisdom, and so turned to those measures which could by no possibility obtain for him success. He became a pawn on the political chessboard to be used whenever any state found itself in opposition to Florence, and in this way various states in turn lent him troops, with which he made three successive attempts against Florence, which all proved abortive. In these endeavors the Medici brothers wandered from state to state in Italy, but after five years of failure, which rightly or wrongly they attributed to Pietro's proverbial misfortune, his two brothers and their cousin Giulio separated themselves from him, declaring that they should never succeed while combined with him. Having already sought the protection, in turn, of most of the states of Italy, and finding themselves becoming regarded as troublesome refugees, the trio, Giovanni, Giuliano and Giulio, determined to abandon Italy for a time, and in 1499 started on a wandering tour to traverse the principal countries of Europe. They went first into Germany, where on reaching Ulm they were arrested and sent under regard to the Emperor Maximilian, who however released them and treated them well, complimenting Giovanni on bearing his adverse fortune with patience, and on his prudence in employing the time which was thus at his disposal in gaining a knowledge of foreign countries. Experiencing various adventures, and being several times detained in custody, they visited, during the years 1499 and 1500, most of the principal cities in Germany, Flanders and France, and desired to have visited England, but were prevented by adverse weather from crossing the sea. Returning through France, they at length arrived at Marseille, whence they proceeded to Genoa, where they resided with Giovanni's sister, Maddalena Cibo. From Genoa, after a time, they proceeded to Rome, where Alexander VI, having now cause of offence against Florence, laid aside his previous ill will and treated them with consideration. Meanwhile, Pietro, finding no more help obtainable elsewhere, had joined himself to the French, and in 1501 received a vague promise of assistance from Louis XII, which however came to nothing. Eventually, Pietro, unfortunate to the last, accompanying the French army in their campaign in southern Italy, was, during the confusion of the retreat towards Gaeta, after the disastrous defeat on the gardeniano, upset in the boat in which he was conveying down the river to Gaeta, four pieces of heavy artillery, which he had saved from capture by the enemy, and was drowned, December 1508. Botticelli has painted a well-known portrait of Pietro, which hangs in the Ophizzi Gallery, and as he knew him well, it is certain to be a good likeness. He has dark brown hair, and the remarkably fine eyes which, through many generations, were a noted characteristic of his family, while his face has a melancholy expression attributable to his invariable ill fortune. He wears a scarlet cap, and holds in both hands a medallion of his great grandfather Cosimo, appealing to the people of Florence, by the memory of him to whom they had themselves given the title of father of his country, not to treat his descendants as they were doing. This portrait, always known to be by Botticelli, was formally thought to represent Pico della Merandola, while another suggestion has in recent years been made that it represents Giovanni, the son of Cosimo, who died in 1468. As however Giovanni died as a man of forty-two when Botticelli was only nineteen, it is sufficiently obvious that the portrait, which represents a man of twenty-four or twenty-five, cannot be that of Giovanni. It undoubtedly represents Pietro the Unfortunate, and has been correctly so labelled by the authorities of the Uffizi Gallery. The medallion held up in the hands and presented to the spectator, and forming the most prominent feature of the picture, is by itself sufficient to be absolutely convincing on the point. For that particular appeal to the memory of Cosimo Paterpatrie would be quite meaningless as regards either Pico della Merandola or Giovanni. It would, in fact, not be applicable in the case of anyone else than Pietro the Unfortunate. The picture was evidently painted a year or two after Pietro's banishment, either for himself or one of the exiled Medici party. Botticelli being the court painter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and almost living in the family, had known Pietro from the latter's very childhood, and owing, as he did, all his career, first to Pietro Ilgotoso, and afterwards to Lorenzo, undoubtedly sympathised much with the family in being driven from Florence, and mourned over the destruction of all their art treasures and the ruin of this great house. The feature of the medallion is just such a touch as Botticelli delighted to introduce in order to make his picture tell its own story. Having seen the Medici in the fifth generation of the family, banished for the second time from their country, and before we enter on those 18 years in which Florence lost all the power and prosperity she had enjoyed for sixty years, we may take a brief glance at what this family had achieved during the first hundred years of their course, and may also examine how far the two charges, which have been referred to, are justly to be made against them, so far as this portion of their history is concerned. Looking back at the position in the year 1400, there appears to be two grounds on which, irrespective of more personal considerations, the Medici justly deserve fame. First, they're raising Florence to so exalted a position, and second, the results they accomplished in the domain of learning and art. From a petty state, which did not exceed in power and influence many others around it, the Medici had gradually raised Florence until she had become practically the capital city of Italy, not only exceeding in power the other states, such as Pisa, Luca, Siena, Manchua, Ferrara, Urbino and others, which had formerly been her equals, but also as a city, surpassing in grandeur, prosperity and intellectual eminence, even Rome, Venice, Milan and Naples. And out of Italy, no city at that time could compete with these. When on the banishment of the Medici, the army of Charles VIII entered Florence, we are told they saw a city which immeasurably surpassed any at that time in France, and could not contain their astonishment at the grandeur of its palaces and public buildings, and the culture and refinement of its inhabitants, which they admitted to be far superior to their own. But the second point is of far wider importance. The Medici have a just right to fame for the permanent benefits which they conferred on mankind at large by their fostering care over learning and art, and their readiness to expend a colossal fortune upon these things in an age before men had yet fully learnt to appreciate their value. This liberality was specially important in regard to the resuscitation of learning, since this was a work which could not have been carried out without an expenditure such as the Medici alone among families of that period could afford. And it was well for mankind that the Medici, through four generations, were ready to shower their wealth, not upon the ostentatious display of riches which was common enough around them, but upon the resuscitation of learning and the advancement of art. Europe today reaps the result of this their character and owes them immeasurable gratitude for all that they did and were in this particular. Turning to examine the charge that the Medici deprived their country of its liberty and exalted themselves into tyrants over it, it would appear that this charge involves considerable resting from their proper meaning of both the word liberty and the word tyrant. The only liberty which the Medici took away was the freedom to indulge in an internecine strife which made life in Florence one perpetual faction fight, a state of things under which no previous government had been able to protect the lives and property of the citizens. With no due degree of liberty did the Medici rule interfere, and life in Florence in their time was as free as in any modern state. While as regards the word tyrant it is sufficient to observe that a tyranny cannot exist without a bodyguard of troops to support and protect the ruler when his acts are tyrannical or opposed to the will of the people. Well-falone cannot create a tyranny, for even should it go to the length of purchasing the suffrages of the majority of the citizens, its power still remains based upon the votes of the majority, and the minority, even though they may have much to say regarding the means by which these have been obtained, cannot call such a power a tyranny without misuse of terms. The Medici rule rested solely on popularity, and a rule which rests on that basis has no power to tyrannize. This was fully proved when two years after Lorenzo's death, and simply because the popularity which had formed the sole basis of his power was lost, Florence, with only a word, sent his successor and his whole family into exile. The usual theory put before us regarding the Medici is that it was by craft and dissimulation that they rose to power in Florence. It was not so. Nor amongst a people so abnormally well versed, through two hundred years of political intrigue, in every form of craft and dissimulation could that method ever have succeeded. There was no race in Europe with whom it would have so surely failed. It was by the display of a pre-eminent ability in the conduct of public affairs. It was by a large-minded magnanimity constantly evinced in their dealings with those brought in contact with them. It was by their defence of the people against the oppression of the nobles, by their freedom from arrogance, their clemency in victory over crafty and ungenerous foes, and a generosity which knew no bounds in spending their private wealth for the benefit of their fellow countrymen. It was by these qualities that the Medici rose to power in Florence. And we have this corroborated by Voltaire, who says of the Medici that, no family ever obtained power by so just a title. A statement which one such as Voltaire would certainly never have made had they obtained it either by force or by craft. With regard to the second of the two charges, it is truly a most significant fact when we find that, amidst all the virulent abuse which has been poured forth by so many pens, during three centuries upon these five generations of the Medici, no accusation of murder has ever been made against either Giovanni di Bicci, Piero Ilgotoso, Lorenzo the Magnificent, or Pietro the Unfortunate, so that if we accept the single case of the accusation made by Cavalcanti against Cosimo Patte Patrie, of complicity in the death of Baldaccio d'Anghiari, which is rejected by all reliable historians, the whole five generations of the Medici whose lives are covered by these hundred years are free from any charge of murder. Yet this is during a period, 1400 to 1508, especially notable for such crimes, and when the records of almost all other states show a long catalogue of thoroughly authenticated murders committed by their rulers. It is said to be the just penalty of greatness to endure severer criticism than is applied to others, and certainly the Medici may be held to exemplify the fact. The history of that time is full of cases of families who were seizing upon thrones and wading through blood to gain them, without any higher object than that of enriching themselves. Yet the Medici, who took a more patriotic course, while they certainly evinced, however its degree may be disputed, a higher aim, have been criticized and condemned as these others have never been. The accusation that they made themselves despots in order to extract from a downtrodden people wealth to spend upon themselves has been made of a family whose liberality in spending their private fortune upon matters for the public benefit exceeded all that has been elsewhere known in history. It was not the Florentines, but the citizens of London and Paris, Lyon and Bruges, Genoa and Venice, who supplied the income which the Medici spent to so limited an extent upon themselves, and to so large an extent upon Florence. Nor will the assertion that they destroyed the liberties of Florence in order to exalt themselves into despots continue to be tenable when their rule is compared with that set up at this same epic by Louis XI in France or by Henry VII in England, or when we note that the citizens of Florence enjoyed under the Medici a far greater degree of representative government than the people of either France or England. Had not the Medici established the kind of rule they did, the Pazzi, the Caponi, the Strozzi, and others would have headed various factions as the Donati, the Cherqui, and the Albizi had done before them, and none of that internal peace and prosperity, that national importance and cultured eminence, would have resulted which Florence was so thankful to possess while it lasted, and so proud to look back upon after it had passed away. Nor does a wider outlook fail to give evidence on the same point. Throughout the greater part of the 15th century, the rule of the Medici, by its suppression of internal strife, the consequent increase of weight in internal politics, and the powerful assistance given to learning and art, produced results to Florence which were the envy of all surrounding states. And the failure of the latter to advance in a similar way, both politically and in art, has been directly attributed to the absence of any family with the capacity to do for them what the Medici did for Florence. Thus, as regards art, it has often been pointed out that up to the time when the Medici arose, Siena, for instance, was on a level with Florence, but from that time forward could no longer compete with her. While as regards politics, it has been remarked by Professor Langton Douglas that Siena, hitherto equal in power to Florence, was left behind by the latter, owing to that faction fighting which the Medici rule made impossible in Florence. We see, therefore, that to the very fact for which, on behalf of Florence, the Medici have been condemned, other states have attributed all Florence's greatness. Chapter 11 Interregnum 1494-1512 On the same day that Pietro and his family fled from Florence, Charles VIII entered Pisa, and thereupon declared that city free from Florentine yoke. The Signoria sent an embassy, which included Savonarola, to the king to protest against this action as to Pisa, and to treat with him, but the only reply they could extract was, once in the great city all shall be arranged. Savonarola had prophesied that a foreign invader should come to chastise the states of Italy for their proplicate ways. The first of those states was now beginning to discover what forms such chastisement might take. The Republic, though they had exiled Pietro owing to his inability to prevent the French king's advance, found themselves as little able to do so as he had been, and eight days afterwards Charles VIII entered Florence in the style of a victorious monarch entering a conquered city, while the Florentines found themselves required to accommodate in their midst an army of 20,000 men. And to have a medieval army of another nationality thus placed was a critical business. At any moment, the smallest contraintent might produce an explosion and the plunder in sack of the city. It may be judged, therefore, with what pleasure the citizens of Florence saw this army march into their streets. As this was the first standing army ever seen by Europe, and as we know something of what standing armies have become during the intervening 400 years, it will be interesting to have a look at this first one, to stand as it were in the crowd at the Frediano Gate on that 17th November 1494 and watch this army as it passes into Florence. It consisted of 8,000 cavalry, the flower of the French chivalry, 5,000 Gaskin infantry, 5,000 Swiss infantry, 4,000 Breton archers, 2,000 Crossbowmen, and a strong train of artillery, the latter drawn for the first time by horses instead of oxen, a new thing in that age. The general appearance of these troops has been described for us by an old chronicler who evidently watched them closely that day, and gives a vivid description of this entry into Florence. He says, The king of France entered the city at the Porte San Frediano, riding under a rich canopy born by four knights to on either side, and on each side of him rode his marshals. The royal bodyguard followed, consisting of a hundred of the handsomest youths of France, and two hundred knights of France on foot in splendid dresses. Then came the Swiss guard with their brilliant uniforms of various colors, having halberds of burnished steel, their officers wearing rich plumes on their helmets. The center consisted of the Gaskins, short, light, active men whose numbers seemed never-ending. After these came the cavalry, whose splendid appearance was admired by all, and in which there were to be found the most noble young men of France. They had engraved armor, mantles of richest brocade, banners of velvet embroidered with gold, chains of gold, and ornaments of gold. The cuirassiers presented a hideous appearance, with their horses looking like monsters from their ears and tails being cut quite short. Then came the archers, extraordinarily tall men from Scotland and other northern countries, and they looked more like wild beasts than men. Guicardini, who was then a boy of twelve, speaking of the whole procession, says that it was a spectacle in itself very grand, but one for which the spectators had small liking, by reason of the dread and terror with which it filled their minds. As regards Charles the Eighth himself, the incapable youth who wielded this formidable weapon, Guicardini says that he was short, ugly, deformed, and altogether uneducated, and in all matters that he took in hand displayed an entire want of prudence and judgment, while Philippe de Camine says that he was weak, willful, and surrounded by foolish counsellors. Such was the youth at whose mercy Florence now lay. The army was quartered about the city on the unwilling inhabitants, and Charles proceeded to the despoiled and dismantled Medici Palace where he took up his abode. There next day he summoned the Signoria before him to hear the humiliating terms which he intended to impose on the city. But the ancient spirit of Florence was as strong as ever, and when these terms were read out to them, the members of the Signoria utterly refused to accept them. Whereupon the king flew into a rage and swore that if the treaty he had dictated were not forthwith signed, they should have wore, that he would sound his trumpets, call out the troops, and sack the city. Upon this one of the senators, Piero Capponi, gave that answer which passed into a Florentine proverb, if you sound your trumpets we will sound our bells. Charles knew what that meant for he had on the day before seen a brief example of it in connection with a false alarm. He knew that it meant the ringing of the great bell La Vaca, which hung in the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, and which, when it sounded out over Florence, would call out into the streets the whole male population of the city armed and ready to fall on the French troops, scattered in the various quarters and before they could offer any collective resistance. He would find himself in a hornet's nest. Charles reflected for a moment and then, passing the matter off with a bad joke, gave in, and Florence was saved. A less humiliating treaty was drawn up and agreed to, though it was not a wit more satisfactory for Florence and that for agreeing to which Pietro the Unfortunate had incurred such a storm of indignation from the same men. Its chief articles for the Pisa and the fortresses of Sarzana, Sarzanello, Ripathrata, and Pietra Santa should remain in Charles' possession until the conquest of Naples was complete and that Florence should pay him an indemnity of 120,000 ducats. And two days later, Charles marched his army out again and departed for Rome en route to Naples. On Charles' arrival before Rome, Pope Alexander VI took refuge in the castle of Sant'Angelo, but was induced to come forth and to give Caesar Borgia as a hostage, and after spending a month in Rome, Charles marched on towards Naples. Alfonso II, king of Naples, had no lack of courage or military ability. His bravery had the battle of Atranto against the Turks had won him military renown. Nevertheless, he made no endeavor to defend his kingdom on this occasion. Fearing the strength of the French army, he fled to Sicily. And Charles VIII entered Naples on the 22nd February 1495 as a conqueror. But while he spent his time there in triumphs and festivals, a formidable confederacy was formed to crush him, consisting of the Emperor Maximilian, Fred Nun King of Aragon, the Pope, Venice, and Ivan Ludovico Sforza, by whose invitation he had invaded Italy. Meanwhile, his army, wasted by its excesses in Naples, was rapidly dwindling by disease. Charles saw no safety but in an immediate march back to France. Leaving part of his army in possession of Naples, he, in the beginning of June, started on his return march, proceeding by Rome and Siena, and hastening as much as possible. But the Allies assembled a force of 40,000 men to bar his way, awaiting him on the northern side of the Epinines. Owing to the losses by disease and the detachment left at Naples, Charles's army was reduced to 9,000 men. He reached Siena on the 18th June, and Pontremoli on the 29th June. From there he crossed the Epinines by the pass of that name, an operation which took him six days. The battle which ensued was fought on the 6th July, on the banks of the Tarot at Fornovo, on the northern side of the Epinines. The French had the greatest difficulty in transporting their artillery over the mountains, and most of it arrived too late to take part in the battle, which, though very short, was the bloodiest that had taken place in Italy for two centuries. The Italians were entirely routed and lost 8,000 men, including their second-in-command Rodolfo Gonzaga, uncle of the Marquess of Manchua. The French only lost, Commine says, about a hundred men, but the Italian writers say a thousand. Charles showed much personal courage and much bad generalship. Nevertheless, the French army succeeded in driving their opponents off the field and continued their march towards Asti, though their long line of baggage impeded by the difficulties of the mountains for the most part fell a prey to the enemy, so that both sides claimed the victory. Charles reached Asti on the 15th July and remained there until October when he returned to France. The king of Naples soon after regained Naples, and this all results to Charles the Eighth of his expedition were the debts he had incurred to meet its expenses. The superior power possessed by the new engine in war, which was wielded by Charles the Eighth so inefficiently, was very clearly shown at Fornovo. At that battle the allies had 40,000 men, Charles only 9,000. The latter fought under every disadvantage. They were weakened by disease, weary with long marches, insufficient food, and bad quarters, and had to fight as they emerged from the difficulties of a mountain pass, proverbially the position in which a force finds it hardest to bring up its full strength. On the other hand their opponents were fresh and well cared for, and awaited the French on the banks of a river, the passage of which the latter had to force. Nevertheless, as the result of the attack which the French delivered, the Italian force suffered so severely that though they still far outnumbered the French, no persuasion could make them rally and renew the fight. Charles's army, though less than a quarter the numerical strength of their foes, badly commanded and fighting under every disadvantage, beat back their enemy, forced the passage of the tarot, broke through the cordon drawn between them and their objective, and continued their march, thus gaining the honor of the day even though most of their baggage was plundered in their rear by the enemy. Fornovo was the first occasion on which a standing army was tested in battle, and the results showed very distinctly how much greater was its power than that of the kind of troops either to employed. This expedition of Charles VIII into Italy, though it was so barren of immediate results, had great ultimate consequences, and was a turning point in the history of Europe. Michel says that it was no less than the revelation of Italy to the nations of the North. It ushered in that new era already mentioned, in which the northern nations were to oust the Italian states from the foremost place in the politics of Europe, a process which was accompanied by a state of almost constant war in Italy. During the eighteen years that followed, Florence sternly kept the Medici out of her territories and foiled all schemes for their return. It was made death to be found guilty of attempting to restore that family, and in 1497, old Bernardo de Nero, who was seventy-two years of age, had had been three times confaloniere, being found guilty of this offense, was beheaded. This period, 1494 to 1512, which in a history relating to the Medici power in Florence, it is convenient to call the interregnum, and which covers the pontificates of popes Alexander VI and Julius II, was an eventful one in the history of Italy and of Europe. But Florence, her destinies no longer swayed by the family, which had known how to make their country strong and powerful, took an altogether insignificant part in these events, more so than any other state in Italy. While the struggle of contending nations was taking place all round her, she was entirely occupied in ignitable turmoil over domestic politics. She suffered severely in consequence, having to endure heavy taxation in order to pay subsidies now to one and now to another of the combatants, and only just missed being captured by Caesar Borgia, before whom she had most ignominiously to humble herself. So far, therefore, as Florence is concerned, the record of this period consists of little else than internal discord and misgovernment. Unceasing turmoil between rival factions, fresh constitutions formed every few months, and administration utterly corrupt, a total decline in political influence abroad, and anarchy, injustice, and misery at home, are the prevailing features of this period. And nothing could better have vindicated the rule which the Medici had exercised than the state of things which supervened when it was withdrawn. Some have contrived even here to found a charge against the family, declaring this due to their having innervated the Florentines. It was, however, simply the reversion to those conditions which had obtained before the Medici arose, and which reappeared upon the removal of the only power which had ever been able to keep Florence free from such conflicts. During the first four years of the above period, 1494-1498, the chief influence in the state was exercised by Savonarolla. Upon the departure of Charles VIII, one change after another in the form of government took place accompanied by constant disturbances, until at length an end to these was put for a time by Savonarolla, who, in accordance with the cry of the people for a constitution on the lines of that of Venice, formed the Grand Council, comprising every citizen of 29 years of age, who, or whose father, grandfather, or great grandfather, had held one of the higher magistracies. The number of members was limited to one thousand, with a change of members every six months. Savonarolla also made strenuous efforts to put down the luxury and profligacy to which the Florentines had become addicted, and for a while he succeeded. The extraordinary movement which he brought about is without a parallel, Florence for a time put on a Puritan garb. And the effect manifested itself in many differently minded men. Baccio della Porta became a monk in the monastery of San Marco, taking the name Fra Bartolomeo. Two of the della Robbia family became priests. Lorenzo di Credi spent the rest of his life in the monastery of Santa Maria Novella. Botticelli became an ardent disciple of Savonarolla, and would paint only pictures inspired by his sermons. Cronaca, the celebrated storyteller, would talk only of Savonarolla. Michelangelo, to the end of his life, retained a vivid remembrance of the powerful voice and impassioned gestures of the great preacher, and pondered over his sermons in his old age. Among the many notable scenes which the Piazza della Signoria has witnessed, none is more remarkable than the strange bonfire for the destruction of the worldly allurements, the vanities, which took place in 1497 at the time of the carnival in the midst of a concourse of the entire city. Harford, in his life of Michelangelo says, A pyramidal scaffold was erected opposite the palace of the Signoria. At its base were to be seen false hair, false beards, masquerading dresses, ruchpots, cards and dice, mirrors and perfumery, beads and trinkets of various sorts. Higher up were arranged books and drawings, busts and portraits of the most celebrated Florentine beauties. Ivan Fra Bartolomeo was so carried away by the enthusiasm as to bring his life academy studies. Lorenzo di Credi, another devoted follower of Savanarola, did the same. The Signoria looked on from the balcony. Guards were stationed to prevent unholy thefts. And as the fire rose, there was a burst of chants and the singing of the tedium to the sound of trumpets and the clanging of bells. But eventually the people got tired of a life bereft of their favorite vanities and about the same time Savanarola's preaching, which had hitherto concerned itself with the errors of Florence, began to thunder against the far greater iniquities of Rome and to urge for a reformation of the church. And it was indeed high time for such a reformation, for the state of things at Rome was arousing universal indignation. Alexander VI, Roderigo Borgia, who was Pope from 1492 to 1508, has been styled by Mosheim, the Nero among Popes, and the conjunction in him of shameless greed, perfidy, cruelty, and licentiousness brought the papacy to the lowest moral depth it had touched since the dark age of the tenth century. His politics were governed solely by one consideration, that of acquiring, by whatever means, as many of the minor states as possible in order to form a sovereignty for his son, Caesar Borgia, called by Ranke a virtuoso in crime. Such being the character of the Pope at the time, an earnest reformer like Savanarola could scarcely fail to give voice to what was becoming the sentiments of all Europe regarding the papal court. His sermons began to denounce its iniquities and to press for a general council to reform the Church. Neither Alexander VI nor Caesar Borgia had the smallest intention of suffering the fate which had overtaken Pope John XXIII eighty years before, and one such sermon delivered in Rome would have promptly ended Savanarola's life. But in Florence he could not be so easily got at. The Pope did his utmost to silence him and to get him into his power, but for some time unsuccessfully he being too popular with the Florentines. But Florence no longer had the strong government and united people which she had possessed when she hung an archbishop and defied a pope who attempted to stir up strife within her walls. Her condition now was just the reverse, and in a city torn by so many factions and with the government become both weak and corrupt it was easy to create a party hostile to the stern preacher of reform and ready to perform the Pope's work. So that at length in 1498 Alexander VI was able to send emissaries to Florence who soon persuaded the Signoria to act as his agents in a crime which has brought permanent infamy both on the Pope who ordered it and on the government which carried it out. Meanwhile Savanarola had written letters to various sovereigns pressing them to assemble a general council so that the Pope was more anxious than ever to have him put out of life with all speed. It was unfortunate for Savanarola that just at this juncture Charles VIII on whom he chiefly relied, though it was reliance on a broken reed, was on the 5th April 1498 accidentally killed at the castle of Amboise by striking his head against the top of a low doorway. He was succeeded by his distant cousin Louis XII. On the 7th April a challenge by the rival community of the Franciscans to an ordeal by fire to which Savanarola weakly agreed and for which elaborate preparations were made though the Signoria never intended it to be carried out served the purpose of destroying his popularity with the people who were furious when at the last moment the ordeal was vetoed. Accordingly on the 9th April Savanarola received a summons from the Signoria to surrender himself into their hands. The friars of San Marco refused to allow him to be taken from them to what all new meant torture and death and the church and monastery were furiously attacked by the troops of the Signoria during a whole day and bravely defended. In the evening however on the troops forcing their way into the church Savanarola refused to allow further bloodshed and after taking a sorrowful farewell of the brethren surrendered himself to the troops. He was taken to the Palazzo della Signoria imprisoned in the cell called the albergettino and day after day subjected to torture. The Pope sending frequent messages to the Signoria to ring something from him which might serve as a ground for putting him to death. Nevertheless this was a difficult task, one however to which those who wished to stand well with the Pope turned all their evil ingenuity with the result that the so-called trial became a mockery of justice. seldom has there been a blacker page in the proceedings of any government than that relating to Savanarola's trial and condemnation. The criminal court by which in the ordinary course he should have been tried the eight not being supposed to be sufficiently hostile to him had new members appointed to it though the period of office of their predecessors had not expired. When however it became apparent that even this would not suffice to attain the desired result a special court was constituted composed of 17 commissioners all of them Savanarola's avowed enemies. Even one of these, Bartolo Zatti, when he learns the nature of the work expected of him refused to serve declaring that he would take no part in a murder. Savanarola was subjected to successive trials and during these for a period of about 16 days was tortured daily once he was placed on the rack 14 times in a single day. Nevertheless nothing could be proved against him or wrong from him which his judges could twist into an admission of either treason or heresy so his enemies had to resort to forgery. A miscreant named Cerce Cone a notary who had said to one of the judges if no case exists one must be invented was employed to take down the victim's replies while under torture and this change in the arrangements produced the required results. In refutation of this opposition that on this last occasion Savanarola falsified his previous replies Mr. Hyatt says as follows. On the 19th April a document purporting to be a report of Savanarola's replies to the examiners was signed by him. It is probable that his signature was obtained by a trick but be this as it may it is certain that the signed deposition had been falsified or as one of the judges euphemistically put it for a good purpose somewhat had been omitted from and somewhat added to it. On the strength of this garbled report many writers have said that he broke down under torture and even Professor Villari gives a reluctant assent to this few and offers an elaborate apology for his hero but as evidence against Savanarola the document is not worth the paper it was written on. It is in part admittedly fictitious and which part of it are additions and which alterations and what has been omitted it is impossible to discover. Everything tends to show that Savanarola in spite of his physical infirmities displayed on the wreck heroic fortitude. On the 19th May the papal commissioners charged with the final proceedings arrived in Florence. Nardi states that their instructions were to put Savanarola to death were he even another saint John the Baptist. On 20th May and the two following days Savanarola underwent before them his third mock trial being examined under worse torture than ever. The results of this final examination were never signed or made public the trial being thus practically left unfinished. Nothing had been elicited from him proving his guilt of heresy or crime. Nevertheless on the evening of the 22nd May after many days of torture after every kind of fraud and injustice had been put in force and as the result of a so-called trial not even legally completed Savanarola whose only crime was his denunciation of the vices of the bourgeon papacy and his appeals for its reformation was condemned to death. And also the other two friars of San Marco who had been tried with him Fradomenico and Fras Elvestro. On the following morning 23rd May 1498 the three companions were brought out of the Palazzo de la Signoria on to the Ringhiera and after being subjected to various insults were conducted to the scaffold. And on the very spot where the bonfire of vivanities had taken place the reformer who had a short time before been worshipped by Florence was hanged and burnt in the presence of the whole city. Thus did Florence show before the eyes of Europe what the rule of the Medici had been to her. Such a crime as the above would have been as impossible under the rule of Lorenzo the Magnificent as under any government of the present day. In this episode we seem to see a totally different Florence from that of twenty years before. And instead of a united people strong in their sense of justice defying a pope even though he was backed by numerous allies we see a divided people and a corrupt and subservient government ready at a pope's command to set at naught every principle of justice and to employ methods from which every honest Florentine revolted. The defiance of all law, the disgraceful frauds, the corruptibility of the judges, and the faction fighting through which alone the pope was able to achieve his object all showed how greatly Florence had in only four years deteriorated through the loss of that rule under which she had during the previous sixty years made herself great and respected. The crime of Savonarola's judicial murder is the strongest possible vindication of the rule which had been established by the Medici. End of section 28. Section 29 of the Medici, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Medici, Volume 1 by G. F. Young. That movement which exercised a permanent influence on so many others had its effect also on Botticelli. The entire change in the mental atmosphere of Florence wrought by Savonarola during the years 1494 to 1498 caused a no less radical change in the character of Botticelli's pictures so that we have now a third period in his painting. Just as Cronaca could talk only of Savonarola so could Botticelli now paint only pictures which repeated the impassioned sermons of Florence's great preacher. Henceforth we have no more pictures from him of graceful Greek goddesses and classic myths but picture after picture on the one subject of the blessed virgin and child. The same train of thought runs through them all. No longer does Botticelli paint her in all the joy of the Magnificat. It is now the sorrow of the madre dolorosa that is said before us and with every variety of illustration. And in this too there is a distinction. It is not as the sorrowing mother beneath the cross that she is depicted but as the young mother with the ever-present sword of foreboding sorrow piercing her heart with the knowledge of that which was to come of which others around her were ignorant and in which therefore they could afford her no sympathy. Sometimes it is the mother alone who feels this foreboding sorrow. Sometimes it permeates both mother and child but whether in her alone or in both this is always the prevailing thought. Speaking of these pictures Steinman says, a presentiment of coming woe seems to cast its shadow on the virgin's soul. She embraces the child with a half repressed fervor of passionate love but all the time the shadow of an underlying sorrow makes the flame of joy burn dimly. All this is in accord with Savanarola's sermons and here we see painting able to bring to our minds the words of a preacher dead 400 years ago. In doing this Paticelli introduces many touching details by which to bring his point home to those to whom he speaks, as examples the following may be taken. The Madonna of the pomegranate This picture in its original frame hangs in the Tuscan room of the Uffizi Gallery. The child Christ holds in his left hand a bitten pomegranate and looking with a sad expression straight at the beholder holds up his right hand in blessing. Steinman says, in this picture both child and mother are more than ever conscious of bearing the burden of all the sorrow of mankind. He considers this to be Paticelli's best picture. Hanging as it does opposite the Madonna of the Magnificat, the two are well placed for comparison, the one painted in Paticelli's earliest years, the other not less than 30 years afterwards, the keynote of the one humility, of the other foreboding sorrow. The Madonna and Child in the Brewery Gallery Milan In this case the child is sitting on the virgin's knee and is playing with a rough wreath of thorns and three nails and looking up at her in wonderment at her sadness. The Madonna and Child in the National Gallery London The virgin embraces the child who stands on her lap. He looks in her face seeking the cause of her sorrow, while her face and attitude express a deep tenderness penetrated as usual with a profound sadness. This picture has been a good deal damaged in its travels, but the damage has spared the face of the child Christ, which is particularly beautiful. The Madonna of Saint Barnabas, painted for the convent of Saint Barnabas and now in the Academia delle belle Arti Florence. This picture has suffered through damage and removal and attempted restoration as regards the face of the child Christ, which has been quite spoiled, but the rest of the painting is beautiful and it is one of Paticelli's most admired works. Two angels stand on either side of the Madonna and Child, one holding up before her a crown of thorns and the other three nails, while two more angels hold back the curtains of the throne. The virgin looks straight out before her with a sweet sad expression. Six saints stand before the throne representing six different types of mankind. Saint Michael, manly strength and beauty. Saint John the Baptist, asceticism. Saint Ambrose, the strong practical bishop. Saint Augustine, theological learning. Saint Barnabas, unselfish devotion to the consolation of the miserable and oppressed. And Saint Catherine, womanly feeling. Steinman remarking on this picture says, It would seem as if Dante's wonderful characterization of the virgin struck the keynotes of the whole picture. This, his words, humble and high beyond all other created being. Sitting on her throne under the velvet canopy, affectionately served by angels, venerated by saints, she yet can feel no joy. She gazes straight out before her with a sad faraway expression in her eyes, humble and high in truth, yet sighing under the weight of her destiny and with the sword already piercing her heart. In one other point, noticeable in all these pictures, Paticelli differs markedly from the artists who were to follow in the next generation led by Michelangelo. Paticelli forces our whole attention on the subject, not on the painter. In looking at them it is not of Paticelli that we think. As Steinman says, There was never a painter who so entirely forgot himself in his subject. And in these pictures he has concentrated his whole thoughts on the character of the Madonna. And there has been none since his day who was so unwirried in inventing new modes of treatment which would both bring the virgin and child into human closeness to the beholder and at the same time arouse his awe and veneration. But a time came when, instead of Florence being swayed by Savonrola's sermons, it condemned him and put him to death. And for those who revered him, the only feeling left was horror, both at the crime itself and at the reign of anarchy and vice that succeeded it. And so now again we have a complete change in Paticelli's pictures caused by the change in the circumstances around him and have the pictures of his fourth and last period. In this there are, besides the sketches illustrating Dante's poem, only two pictures, but they are notable ones. This, one, Calumni, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. It's general idea taken from Lucien's account of a picture on that subject by the Greek painter Apelis. And two, the Nativity, now in the National Gallery, London. The drawings illustrating Dante's Divine Comedy were executed at various times between 1492 and 1497 but were left unfinished. Paticelli, the ardent partisan of Savonrola, being thenceforth entirely engrossed with the tragedy of the latter's end. The celebrated picture of Calumni is thus described. The scene is laid in a stately judgment hall in the classic style, on the decoration of which every resource of art has been expended. Between its lofty arches there is a distant view of a calm sea. Life-sized marble figures stand in the niches of the pillars of the hall, like figures outside Orsan Michele. And every vacant space is adorned with richly gilded sculpture. It is a magnificent Renaissance building which fancy imagines a place in which wisdom and justice alone would exist, a place of refuge in which poets and thinkers may prepare new intellectual achievements as they walk in this stately portico by the sea. Instead of this, we witness a fearful deed of violence. In bitter contrast with this splendid marble all round, in ironical mockery of the solemn statues of justice and virtue on the walls, a noisy throng is dragging the innocent victim of Calumni before the tribunal of the unjust judge who sits with crown and scepter on a richly decorated throne. Two female figures, ignorance and suspicion, whisper in the long asses ears of the unjust judge, while in front of him Anvy declaims with imperious force. With his right hand, Anvy leads on Calumni, who holds a burning torch before her as a treacherous symbol of her pretended love of truth. She dashes impetuously forward, with her left hand grasping mercilessly the hair of her victim, who lies on the ground stripped naked with his folded hands raised to heaven in assertion of his innocence. Calumni's appearance is plausible and crafty. Her clothing is costly, and her two attendants, fraud and deception, are busy twining fresh roses in her golden hair. Behind these, as what follows from injustice and cruelty, comes the tormentor, remorse, a hideous hag clothed from head to foot in ragged morning attire, who, clasping her trembling hands before her, turns her face round over her shoulder to look at the figure behind her of naked truth, a slim female figure recalling Botticelli's Venus, who gazes upwards and lifts her right hand to heaven in adoration against the scene of injustice, cruelty, and wrong. Now, what does all this mean? At first sight, this picture repels us by its strange scene of grotesque violence. But it has its meaning in the history of the time. For in this picture Botticelli writes for those who may come after the story of how Savonarola was done to death. In the stately Renaissance Hall, the refuge for poets and philosophers, with its solemn statues of wisdom and justice, and its profuse decoration by art, Botticelli represents Florence as for sixty years it had been. In the unjust judge, with his asses ears, seated on a throne with crown and scepter which he is not fit to bear, and in the scene of violence enacted at front of him, the painter represents the government of Florence as it had become, still occupying the localities where such different sentiments had once prevailed. In the figures of ignorance and suspicion, envy and calumny, fraud and deception, he represents the motives and the methods which had prevailed to put to death their victim, Savonarola, while the figures of remorse and truth embody Botticelli's prophecy of what shall afterwards follow. This picture was painted by Botticelli for his friend Antonio Seigni in the year 1498 or 1499, and it is stated that it was not allowed to be seen by the public eye until after Botticelli's death. If so, this would help to confirm the above theory as to its meaning. It is, of course, deeply interesting, both on account of the great preacher himself, and also, as the powerful record given by one then living as to the way in which Savonarola's life was taken, and how false were the lies which then, and for many years afterwards, were sedulously promulgated regarding the self-accusations declared to have been made by him under torture. And then we have another strange picture, the nativity, painted at the end of the year 1500, Botticelli's last picture, now in the National Gallery, London. And this again refers to Savonarola, and to the state of things in Florence after his death. In an inscription written over it in Greek, Botticelli explains its meaning thus. This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the year 1500, in the Troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time, during the fulfillment of the eleventh of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the Devil for three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be chained according to the twelfth of Saint John, and we shall see him trodden down as in this picture. In the center is the usual group of the Nativity, while right and left kneel the Magi and the Shepherds with Angel pointing out to them the miracle. On the penthouse roof and in the sky, Angels sing the Gloria in a Chelsus, and dance hand in hand, swinging olive boughs and crowns in their joy. In the foreground, Devils crawl away to hide in the rocks, while rejoicing Angels fall on the necks of Savonarola and his two companions, their witnesses slaying for the word of their testimony. The picture not only shows how deeply rooted was the memory of Savonarola in Botticelli's mind, but also it and its inscription testify to what was the condition of crime and vice which ran riot in Florence in these years, when Cambie tells us that citizens who sought redress in the law courts were frequently stabbed in the street the next night, judges pronounced iniquitous sentences, and there was no reverence for holy things or fear of shame. After this date Botticelli became to infirm to paint. He died in 1510 at the age of 64, and was buried in his father's vault in his parish church of Onnisanti. Footnote, Botticelli was buried with extreme secrecy, probably because he was a noted partisan of Savonarola, and his tomb still remains without any tombstone. End of footnote. Although Perugino belongs to Perugia, he painted for so many years in Florence, where all his best work was done, that he is always classed with the Tuscan school. When he died in 1524, he was almost the last of that great school which had given to painting its rebirth and had led the way in that art for over 200 years. Footnote, Lorenzo di Credi and Andre del Sarto were the only two first class painters of the Tuscan school who survived him, Andre del Sarto by seven years, and Lorenzo di Credi by 13 years. End of footnote. Ruskin considers Perugino the culminating point of the Tuscan school of painting. Having spent three years in Florence as the pupil of Verrocchio, 1479 to 1482, and having executed various works there in the years 1486 to 1491, Perugino in 1492 set up his studio in that city. Ruskin says, it is from this time that we date the great series of pictures in which he seems to carry to their deepest depth the expression of devotion, of self-sacrifice, and of holy grief. Perugino painted regularly in Florence from 1492 to 1498, and again during the great part of the years 1501 to 1510, after which date he did little notable work, so that all his best work was done during this period of the interregnum. As all know, he was Raphael's master, and he survived his great pupil by four years. Perugino has four chief characteristics. First, free open space, regarding which Mr. Bernhard Berenson says, space composition is not an arrangement to be judged as extending only laterally or up and down on a flat surface, but as extending inward in depth as well. It is composition in three dimensions and not in two, in the cube and not merely on the surface. In this space composition, Perugino excelled all either before or after him. By regular gradations, his distance is recede far into the background, giving a feeling of vast and limitless space. Second, aloofness in his figures. Dr. Williamson says, they stand apart from one another, connected by a thread of thought with each other, and with the central feature of the picture, but each of them in every other way self-contained. Third, his beautiful landscapes, with distant hills bathed in a blue mist, revealing long stretches of fertile land on either side, with single trees silhouetted against the sky and all bathed in pale golden sunlight. Fourth, a severe absence of strong action or excited emotion. Convulsive action was as much an offense to him as was its absence in his works an offense to Michelangelo. The joint effect of these four characteristics is to produce pictures breathing a wonderful piece. Regarding the entombment, now in the piti gallery, Dr. Williamson says, in this picture space composition is seen in its full vigor. How vast is the space in which the episode is placed, and how wonderful the sense of immeasurable distance produced. How quiet is the atmosphere of the scene, how reverent and tender a mood it creates. The picture is one of the best Perugino ever painted. Each figure is distinct, self-centered, and unfolded in its own grief. It is a picture full of sentiment, yet sober and thoughtful. And regarding his baptism of Christ, now at Roin, the same writer says, Around the two central figures are kneeling, angels and attendant figures, eight only in number, carefully graduated in size according to position, aloof, serious, and still. Away and away beyond is the rolling landscape with its exquisite hills, and dainty detached trees standing out clear against the sky. On and on the eye travels, seeking to reach the limits of this limitless vision, and impressed more and more by the skill that painted in so tiny a compass, so vast a scene. Of Perugino's masterpiece, his fresco of the crucifixion, painted in the chapter house of the Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi in Florence, it has been very generally felt that it is the most perfect representation of the crucifixion ever achieved by any painter, while the whole picture breathes an indescribable spirit of peace. End of Section 29. Section 30 of the Medici Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Medici Volume 1 by G. F. Young After Savonarola's death, Florence became more than ever a prey to anarchy. Three different factions, the Ottimati, the B. G., and the Frateschi, contended unceasingly, and frequent changes in the constitution only produced increased strife. At length, after three years of turmoil, the citizens were driven to a measure which stultified all their action in abolishing the rule of the Medici. They resolved that the only remedy for the evils of the city was the appointment of a gonfaloniere for life as a sort of permanent dictator. There were various candidates, but as might have been expected under the conditions which prevailed, instead of a strong man being elected, the majority of the votes were given to a weak one, whom no party had any reason to fear. Piero Soderini, a well-meaning and generally respected man with no strength or ability, was elected. And he remained permanently gonfaloniere during the rest of the periods of the interregnum. Though owing to his weakness and incapacity, this brought little amelioration of the evils under which Florence groaned. The illegal tribunals were utterly corrupt. Crime of every kind was rife. Men of ability kept aloof from public affairs. The great council refused to vote money necessary to meet the financial engagements of the state. Disputes and riots were incessant, and all writers give deplorable accounts of the conditions of the city. Cambi says, justice no longer existed among the citizens through fear of each other. And which Ardini remarks, it is difficult to imagine a city so thoroughly shattered and ill-regulated as ours was at this time. This condition of things in Florence naturally caused her to sink into a position of insignificance among the states of Italy. Her foreign affairs were unceasingly mismanaged, being in the hands of men who were without any talents for such a task. Yet it was a time when a capable direction of foreign affairs was above all necessary. After Charles VIII's expedition, Pope Alexander VI brought about a league between Rome, Venice, Milan, the Emperor Maximilian, and Henry VII of England against France, a league which threatened the very existence of the French monarchy and of those states, such as Ferrara, Florence, and Bologna, which clung to the French alliance. Louis XII, on succeeding to the French throne in 1498, set himself to break up this league, and the campaigns which during the next 14 years he carried on in succession against Milan, Naples, Venice, and the Pope kept Italy in a state of permanent warfare and through all states there into confusion. In 1499, Louis XII sent against Milan an army which drove out Il Moro, who fled to Ennsbruck to the protection of the Emperor Maximilian. The latter, in this year, married his eldest son, the Archduke Philip, to Joanna, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a marriage which had important consequences in the next generation. In the same year, Florence put to death the only man she possessed who had the talents of a general, Paolo Vitelli. The Republic had sent him with a force to retake Pisa, which Charles VIII had never restored, but the attempt failed, and Vitelli was accused of treachery, recalled, and executed, though it is stated by Quicardini that he was innocent. In 1500, Il Moro regained Milan, but was soon afterwards captured by the French and carried off to France, where he was imprisoned in the castle of Lush for the remaining eight years of his life, Louis XII taking possession of Milan. In the same year, the combined forces of Spain and France conquered Naples, but this was followed by a dispute over its possession, which brought on a three years war between them. Nor did central Italy fare any better than the north and south. In the endeavor to establish a sovereignty of central Italy, Caesar Borgia was seizing state after state, thus gaining in succession Imola, Forlì, Urbino, Faenza, Pesaro, Rimini, and Piumbino, and making himself the terror of Romania. In 1500 and I, Caesar Borgia, having gained Faenza by causing its ruler, the young Astorre Manfredi to be murdered, advanced into the Val d'Arno and threatened Florence. The Signoria ignanimously bought him off by agreeing to appoint him Captain General of Florence's forces at a fixed salary of 36,000 Florence a year. In the same year, Alexander VI, in order to detach Ferrara from the French king, succeeded in bringing about a marriage between his daughter Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso, the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara. In 1502, Caesar Borgia, who as the result of various crimes, had now become Duke of Valentino, Duke of Urbino, Duke of Romania, Prince of Andria, and Lord of Piumbino, informed Florence that her government did not please him, and that she had better amended. The Signoria, relying on Louis XII approaching return to Italy, ordered its envoys to temporize. Another events called off Caesar Borgia for a time from attacking Florence. He however informed her government significantly that the French king would not be always in Italy. In 1508, Louis XII advanced again into Italy to prosecute his war with Spain for the possession of Naples, but the campaign turned out adversely for the French. This would undoubtedly have brought Caesar Borgia again upon Florence, but just at this juncture, Pope Alexander VI suddenly died, Caesar Borgia being at the same time taken dangerously ill. Caesar Borgia after some time recovered, but only to find all his power broken through the death of the Pope. The various states which he had usurped had once reverted to their original rulers, and Caesar Borgia was eventually arrested by the commander of the Spanish forces in southern Italy, Gon salvo, and sent as a prisoner to Spain, where four years later he was killed while fighting for the king of Navarre. In December 1508, the French army in southern Italy sustained a crushing defeat at a battle which took place on the river Gariliano. It managed to retreat in great disorder to Gaeta, but was therefore forced to capitulate and to agree to return to France. This brought the three years' war in southern Italy between France and Spain to an end, and Naples and Sicily were annexed by Ferdinand of Spain to the Spanish crown and placed in charge of a viceroy. It was in the above battle that Pietro the Unfortunate lost his life, whereby his next brother, Cardinal Giovanni, became head of the Medici family. Pope Alexander VI was succeeded by Pius III, but he died one month later, and was succeeded by Julius II, Giuliano della Rovere, the celebrated fighting pope, the destroyer of the old St. Peter's, the founder of the new St. Peter's, and the friend and antagonist of Michelangelo. A strong character with many good points, he was fonder of war than of anything else, and was perpetually in the field commanding his forces in person. Italy had now become the battlefield on which France, Spain, and Germany fought perpetually for supremacy, and this strong fiery old man seized with avidity the opportunity this state of things gave him to indulge his predilection for war. Footnote. His portrait by Raphael hangs in the Uffizi Gallery and is thoroughly characteristic. There is a replica of it also in the Pitti Gallery and another in the National Gallery London. End of footnote. From 1503 to 1507, Julius II was chiefly occupied in subduing in succession the various states of Romania, and forming them into the states of the Church, which he now founded, and which dance force remained permanently the temporal dominion of the papacy. In 1508 he turned his arms against Venice, and formed the League of Cambrai, a league entered into by Louis XII the Emperor Maximilian, Ferdinand of Spain, and himself to crush the power of Venice and for partition of her inland dominions. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Medici family were beginning to emerge from the gloom in which for ten years they had been plunged. On Julius II becoming Pope in 1503, and Giovanni, a man who's good-natured in peaceable disposition, had always been contrasted with that of his elder brother, becoming in the same year the head of the family, many who had before looked on the Medici with disfavor, became ready to help them, including Pope Julius himself. Nor was the same effect unfelt even in Florence. It was Pietro and his wife who were so specially obnoxious to the Florentines, not the Medici family as a whole. And as time went on, and the effects of the misrule in Florence became more and more intolerable, the number of the citizens who secretly desired the return of this family, now that it was represented by two such characters as Giovanni and his brother Giuliano, grew constantly greater, though non-dare to acknowledge this desire, owing to the law which made it death to urge the return of the Medici. Giovanni's behavior and manner of life in Rome was such as to encourage these sentiments. He showed no disposition to interfere in the affairs of the Florentines, though under the incapable rule of Pietro Suderini, they continued in their chronic state of discord and anarchy. He lived plainly, having in fact but little means for ostentation, and often finding it hard to keep out of debt, never desponding, always cheerful, animated, and agreeable in his manners to all, and taking great interest in all matters connected with art and literature, though he had little money himself to spend upon such things. By this course of conduct, and by the qualities of his character which made friends where Pietro only made enemies, Giovanni gradually retrieved the downfall of his family, creating a feeling in their favor both outside and inside Florence which led a few years later to their being reinstalled in power there. The whole family, including Pietro's widow Alfonzina, with their two children, Lorenzo and Clarice, were now living in Rome, and in the year 1508 Alfonzina managed to arrange at Rome a marriage between Clarice, now fifteen, and Filippo Strozzi, the head of the most wealthy and important Florentine family next to the Medici. For thus daring to marry the daughter of a declared rebel and outlaw, Filippo Strozzi was summoned before the Signoria of Florence heavily fined and banished for three years. But the sentence was a half-hearted one, as we find him back in Florence in little more than a year afterwards. In 1509, as the result of the League of Cambrai, there took place the decisive battle of Agnadello, in which Venice received from the Allies a crushing blow from which she never recovered. Her power had been steadily declining since 1453 and was by this defeat completely broken, and as a consequence she lost Verona, Pagioa, Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Piacenza, and became no longer of importance in European politics. In the same year Florence, after a long siege, recovered Pisa which had been lost to her for fifteen years. In this year Henry the Seventh of England died, and was succeeded by his son Henry the Eighth, then Eighteen. The latter in the same year married Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and younger sister of Joanna of Spain. In 1510 Julius II changed sides and allied himself with Spain and Venice against the French, endeavouring to expel the latter from Italy. This brought him into collision with Ferrara in Florence. He first led a successful attack against Mirandola, and then advanced against Ferrara, but was defeated. Meanwhile, Louis XII retorted by proposing a council to depose the Pope, and demanded from his ally Florence that she should allow it to assemble at Pisa. Florence was placed in a dilemma. If she consented, she dreaded the Pope's enmity. If she refused, she would offend Louis XII and lose the protection of the French alliance. Soderini's government was quite incapable of dealing with such a problem, and by vacillation and endeavours to trim between the two opponents contrived to offend both. Florence agreed to the assembly of the council at Pisa, but refused to permit a French force to enter Pisa to protect the council, and did not send Louis XII the troops she had promised. Julius II now determined to put an end to the inefficient government in Florence and to reinstate the Medici, and only waited until he should first have driven the French out of Italy, as by means of the Spanish alliance he hoped soon to do. In the meantime, he appointed Giovanni his representative with the force of papal and Spanish troops which was then besieging Bologna.