Death in Florence: the Medici, Savonarola and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City

by Paul Strathern

  Lorenzo was loved by fortune and by God in the highest degree, and as a result all his enterprises came to a successful conclusion … His way of life, his prudence and his fortune were known and admired by princes far beyond the borders of Italy.5

  This last was no exaggeration. Machiavelli names the Sultan of Turkey and the King of Hungary as Lorenzo’s friends, and in the grounds of Lorenzo’s villa of Poggio a Caiano he kept a pet giraffe ‘so gentle it [would] take an apple from a child’s hand’,6 which had been sent as a gift by the Sultan of Babylon. But as Machiavelli makes plain, Lorenzo was no saint: ‘His great virtues may not have been flawed by serious vices, but he did however involve himself in the affairs of Venus to an astonishing degree, as well as delighting in facetious gossip, pungent wit and childish games more than was fitting for a man of his position.’7 Yet such apparently frivolous traits may well have contributed to his charm and aided his more serious endeavours, as Machiavelli understood: ‘His reputation for prudence grew with every year, for he was winning and eloquent in discussion, of sympathetic wisdom when it came to resolving issues, as well as being quick of impulse when action was necessary.’ Thus was the man who had guided Italy through such treacherous political waters that Innocent VIII would famously refer to him as ‘the needle of the Italian compass’.8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  At first glance, Girolamo Savonarola presented an unprepossessing figure: ‘the little friar’,9 as he often called himself with deceptive humility. He was indeed short, and thin, intense in manner, and spoke with the heavy accent of his native Ferrara, which lay seventy miles north across the Apennine mounta
ins and was regarded as something of a provincial backwater by the Florentines. Savonarola was not given to social graces, and his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo depicts a cowled, plain-faced man with hollow ascetic cheeks, a hooked nose and thick, sensual lips. Apparently there was nothing particularly remarkable about his appearance apart from his eyes, which were said to have glinted with a burning intensity beneath his dark, heavy eyebrows.

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

  In early April 1492, as Lorenzo the Magnificent lay dying in his country villa at Careggi, he unexpectedly sent word to none other than Savonarola, asking the friar to visit him. According to a contemporary report, Lorenzo is said to have justified this request ‘using these very words: “Go for the Father [Savonarola], for I have never found one save him who was an honest friar.”’10

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

  Descriptions of what took place when Savonarola visited the dying Lorenzo’s bedside vary slightly, although one thing is certain – this unlikely visit definitely took place. Another undisputed fact is that Savonarola stood his ground and refused to be swayed by the sight of his dying ruler, behaving towards him with some severity, and even making certain demands of Lorenzo before he gave him his blessing. These demands are said to have been as follows. Initially, Savonarola asked Lorenzo whether he repented of his sins and believed in the one true God – to which Lorenzo replied that he did. Next, Savonarola demanded that if Lorenzo’s soul was to be saved, he would have to renounce his ill-gotten wealth ‘and restore what has wrongfully been taken’. To this, Lorenzo replied, ‘Father, I will do so, or I will cause my heirs to do it if I cannot.’ Finally, Savonarola demanded that Lorenzo should restore to the people of Florence their liberty, which could only be guaranteed by a truly republican government. To this last demand Lorenzo refused to reply, finally turning his face away.11

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

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

  Lightning flies from heaven down12

  To rob us of our laurel crownfn2 …

  Now silence rings us all around,

  Now we are deaf to all thy sound.

  Savonarola felt that his moment of destiny was now approaching.

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

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

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

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

  fn1 ‘Il Magnifico’ was in fact a courtesy title, frequently used to address leaders, heads of important families and even those in charge of successful commercial enterprises. For instance, when the manager of the Medici bank in Rome wrote to the head of the Medici bank in Florence, he would address him as ‘magnifico’. In English, the loose contemporary equivalent would have been ‘my lord’, as often appears in Shakespeare’s plays. However, in the case of Lorenzo the Magnificent the title seems to have taken on a more formal, admirable quality. Many of the citizens of Florence and elsewhere had begun to know him as ‘il Magnifico’ long before his death. In such fashion, this title had become conventionalised in the familiar medieval manner. During this era nicknames assigned on account of personal characteristics often took on a more permanent aspect – much as Lorenzo’s father had been called Piero the Gouty, and earlier kings of France had gone down in history as Louis the
Quarreller or Charles the Mad.

  fn2 Poliziano uses the Latin word laurus, as in the laurel wreath with which poets were crowned in classical times, but this is also intended as a loose pun on Lorenzo.

  ‘The role of individuals is equally important in … wars and revolutions, these are historic periods where normal rules do not apply. When traditional ways of doing things no longer offer useful guidance … and revolutionary leaders have to fall back on instinct and charisma. Boldness, persuasiveness, and personal judgement can make the difference between triumph and disaster.’

  Anatole Kaletsky

  ‘To attribute foreseeable necessity to the catastrophe … would be to give it a meaning it did not have.’

  Golo Mann

  1

  A Prince in All but Name

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

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