Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco must have taken the hint and amended his ways, for his former tutors Ficino and Poliziano – who almost certainly suggested the painting’s subject matter to Botticelli – now both spoke highly of him. The enigmatic hunchbacked Ficino, in a characteristically florid Platonic turn of phrase, wrote of how Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s ‘mind and the radiance of his manners and letters [shine] like the sun among the stars’.6 Poliziano was equally gushing, speaking in a poem of how Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was lacking in ‘neither gravity, nor winning grace of countenance, nor the high honour of a lofty head, nor capacious genius equal to civil affairs, nor a tongue that can minister the ample riches of your mind’.7 Such fulsome flattery may not have been utterly sincere, but it does indicate that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was held in the highest regard by the man who employed these two silver-tongued intellectuals – namely, Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. Indeed, Lorenzo was so impressed by his young cousin that when he was just nineteen he began sending him on diplomatic missions, much as he himself had been sent by his father. As far as this aspect of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s life was concerned, Botticelli’s painting was evidently intended to serve much the same purpose as Piero the Gouty’s earnest letters warning his son about his ‘exuberance’.
The diplomatic tasks entrusted to the young Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco were of some importance, including as they did missions to the pope and Venice. The messages he delivered may have been written by Lorenzo the Magnificent, but under the circumstances Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s presence would have been deemed of considerable significance: he would to all intents and purposes have been regarded as a stand-in for Lorenzo the Magnificent’s firstborn son and heir Piero, who was just thirteen years old. And two years later Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco travelled all the way to France to represent Florence at the coronation of the nine-year-old Charles VIII at Rheims on 30 May 1484 – an event that was to prove of great significance to Italy over the coming years. France was the most powerful nation in Europe, and Lorenzo the Magnificent had long since realised how vital it was that France should be discouraged from taking any active part in the politics of weak and divided Italy.
Despite all this, it is possible with hindsight to recognise that Lorenzo the Magnificent may also have had other, less honourable financial motives for keeping his cousin away from Florence, although these would prove to no avail. On 4 August 1484 Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco finally came of age and claimed the inheritance that had been left to him and his brother Giovanni by his father, money that had been entrusted for safekeeping to Lorenzo the Magnificent. Initially Lorenzo simply refused to pass on this inheritance, but it soon became clear that most – if not all – of it had already been spent. The cash value of this inheritance is difficult to ascertain, though it would certainly have been considerable. Lorenzo the Magnificent is said to have held the money in ‘thirteen leather bags’,8 though precisely how much these contained is disputed. He certainly dipped into them during the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy, when the city was threatened by war and he made his celebrated dash to Naples. According to de Roover, the meticulous expert on Medici financial affairs:
Between May and September, 1478, Lorenzo de’ Medici, being in desperate straits, at different times took a total of 53,643 florins in coin which belonged to Giovanni and Lorenzo, the minor sons of Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, whose guardian he was.9
Others suggest that a further 20,000 florins were removed later. However, the two brothers claimed that together they were owed 105,880 florins, including interest, and applied to the city authorities for legal arbitration on this matter. That Lorenzo the Magnificent’s power in Florence was far from absolute is reflected in the verdict that the legal arbitrators handed down some two years later in 1486 – doubtless after much profound discussion and much covert pressure from the Medici faction. The verdict went against Lorenzo, but by this time the sum that he owed had been whittled down to 61,400 florins. His justification for this reduced sum was that his cousins, being shareholders in the Medici bank, were liable for at least some of the money needed to shore up the bank so that it could manage the large debts that it had recently been forced to absorb. These had been incurred when the London branch had been forced to close down, and when the assets of the Rome branch had been seized by Sixtus IV after the failure of the Pazzi conspiracy (when the pope had also reneged on his large overdraft at the Medici bank).
In the event, Lorenzo the Magnificent simply did not have 61,400 florins with which to pay off his cousins, and instead was forced to hand over to them the Medici villa at Cafaggiolo, and further much-treasured ancestral land, property and farms in the Mugello valley, across the mountains to the north of Florence, the original homeland of the Medici. This judgement provoked considerable acrimony between the two branches of the Medici family.
Despite Lorenzo the Magnificent’s apparent lack of liquid funds, he continued to live as lavishly as ever. His celebrated circle of poets, philosophers and artists continued to be maintained (and entertained) at the Palazzo Medici, exquisite items were added to his famed collection of jewels, and the populace of Florence went on being placated with extravagant entertainments and festivals. Much of this must certainly have come from public funds, though as mentioned earlier the details of the city’s financial transactions for this period were all later destroyed by the Medici family. What we do know is that Lorenzo by now had complete control of the financial affairs of the city, and of its exchequer, which had been placed in the hands of his close friend and associate Antonio Miniati, a man who incurred much hatred throughout the city. Finance was one of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s chief weapons against wealthy citizens who sought to oppose him. The amount of tax to be paid by each citizen was assessed by a panel of taxation officers, who took account of registered property, a reckoning of possessions, as well as declared income. Inevitably any such estimate was open to abuse, and enemies of the Medici were liable to be bankrupted by swingeing taxes, or forced into exile to avoid losing all their wealth.
As Lorenzo the Magnificent pleaded near-bankruptcy, he did not have to pay tax during these later years of his reign. In reality, by this stage his financial affairs had become so identified with those of the city that there was a considerable ‘overlap’ between the two. And although Lorenzo certainly benefited from this state of affairs, it is also undeniable that the citizens of Florence benefited from his stewardship of the city. Lorenzo, through his leadership and sheer force of personality, gave much to Florence. Its citizens may not have been entirely free, but the independence of Florence itself resulted largely from Lorenzo’s astute statesmanship. The assessment of the city some years later by the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini, who lived through these times, holds largely true for the coming years:
The city was in perfect peace, the citizens who made up the administration were united and the government was so powerful that none dared speak against it. The people were entertained daily with all manner of festivals, spectacles and novelties. The city had abundant supplies of all its needs, whilst its trades and commercial activities brought great prosperity. Men of intellect and talent were able to engage in literature, the arts and the sciences, which were all encouraged, such that their efforts were not only recognised but also well rewarded. While the city remained peaceful at home, it was held in the highest esteem abroad because she had a government and a leader of the highest authority, because her territory was expanded, and because she had the full support of pope Innocent VIII,fn2 as well as being allied with Naples and Milan, by which means she maintained the balance of power in Italy.10
Such a picture may appear somewhat idyllic in the light of the preceding descriptions – of the Ferrara war and poverty in the Florentine slums – but it had more than an element of truth. These were years of some prosperity for Florence, whose overseas trade had once again spread to the limits of Europe, and beyond. As we have seen, several decades previously Cosimo de’ Medici’s Florent
ine galleys had plied the sea route through the Straits of Gibraltar across the Bay of Biscay to Bruges and London, carrying the dyed cloth for which the city was famous, as well as alum and oriental spices. These spices had been shipped from the eastern Mediterranean; and despite stiff competition from Venice and Genoa, Medici agents had penetrated Egypt as well as other trading centres throughout the Levant. But with the Medici bank in decline, such opportunities were now being exploited by other Florentine merchants and banking families. Not least amongst these, in the coming years, would be Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother Giovanni, who would establish a number of successful international trading enterprises.
The divergence between the two branches of the Medici family was now evident to all. Yet for the time being, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother would eschew any direct competition or conflict with their cousin. Lorenzo the Magnificent and his side of the family would be concerned with political power, while Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his family would pursue commercial wealth. The di Pierfrancesco brothers were soon establishing ventures in Spain and then Flanders, and such was the success of their enterprises that for a brief time the brothers left Florence altogether and took up residence in Bruges. Here they branched into the lucrative oriental spice market, a move quickly followed by other Florentine merchants. Indeed, such was Florence’s commercial penetration of the East during these years that word of the city spread along the Silk Road as far afield as China, where it was assumed that Florence, with all its wealth and culture, was the capital of Europe. Nearer to home, in 1487 the Sultan of Egypt sent an ambassador to Florence, who brought with him greetings from various rulers, as well as an assembled menagerie of rare and exotic animals. The people of Florence were accustomed to the sight of lions: these were the city’s mascots, kept in a cage behind the Palazzo della Signoria on a street still known as Via dei Leoni. On the other hand, they were filled with genuine wonder at the sight of the tall, long-limbed animal they called cameleopardo, on account of it having the head of a camel and the spotted furry coat of a leopard. This was the giraffe that would end up in the grounds of Lorenzo’s country villa at Poggio a Caiano, which now became his favourite country residence after the loss of Cafaggiolo to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.
There may have been a rift between the two branches of the Medici family, but Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his brother continued to occupy their town residence attached to the Palazzo Medici on the Via Larga, and they also continued to mix with members of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s intellectual circle. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco continued to commission work from artists attached to the Palazzo Medici, especially ‘Lorenzo’s artist’, Botticelli. A direct consequence of this was one of Botticelli’s most magnificent and most mysterious works – namely his Primavera (Spring).fn3 This painting suggests, as much as any other of the period, the happy state of the Renaissance city as described earlier by Guicciardini. The painting depicts a group of delicate classical figures in the shade of a woodland clearing. The golden apples hanging from the high branches of the trees identify this as the Garden of the Hesperides, the blessed isle inhabited by nymphs at the western edge of the world. The central figure is Venus, whose apparent pregnancy may symbolise fecundity. To the left of her the Three Graces, symbolising Joy, Beauty and Creativity, dance in their diaphanous robes whilst above their heads blindfolded Cupid is pulling back his bow, about to pierce one of them with his arrow – of love, or lust. To the left of them stands Mercury, the messenger of the gods with his phallic sword at his waist, while to the right of Venus stands Flora, the goddess of spring, her blonde hair crowned with flowers, resplendent in her flowered dress, in the act of scattering flowers that blend into the flowers amongst the grass at her feet.
Primavera has prompted all manner of interpretation through the centuries. Some have identified it as a scene from classical myth; others have read it as an ingenious political allegory; while many contemporaries hinted at personal identifications (Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco as Mercury, his wife Semiramide as the apparently pregnant Venus). At the same time, it is undoubtedly infused by the philosophy of Ficino, with the figures as embodiments of Platonic ideas; paradoxically, it is also characterised by the realistic humanism of Poliziano’s poetry. Unlike so much of the painting that had preceded it, Primavera depicts an unmistakably secular, even pagan scene. Here is a touching humanity completely devoid of religious overtones, in no evident Christian setting.
In the event, Botticelli seems to have intended no precise allegory or ‘meaning’ in his Primavera, seeing it more as a starting point: an object of aesthetic contemplation and philosophical reflection. Its very mystery may be seen as the mystery of what was happening to human consciousness (and self-consciousness) at this point of profound and subtle transformation in our evolution. These are the elements of our burgeoning humanity: inspired by the philosophical and poetical suggestions of Lorenzo de Medici’s trusted intellectual circle and realised by Botticelli.
Of the figures within the Florentine cultural community, Ficino was enjoying an unprecedented ascendancy. His expert knowledge of Plato had now begun to attract widespread attention. No less a figure than Pico della Mirandola had already opened a correspondence with him. Pico’s quest to understand the early religious ideas that had inspired Christianity had extended beyond Judaism to include the ideas of the Ancient Greek philosophers. Scholasticism, the official philosophic backing of medieval Christianity, may have been deeply imbued with many of the ideas of Aristotle, but Pico now sought to discover Christianity’s links with Platonic idealism. In pursuit of this quest Pico arrived in Florence in 1484, expressly in order to study under Ficino, who quickly introduced him to the intellectual circle at the Palazzo Medici. Here he was rapturously received. According to Poliziano:
He was a man, or rather a hero, on whom nature had lavished all the endowments both of body and mind … Of a perspicacious mind, a wonderful memory, indefatigable in study … Intimately conversant with every department of philosophy, improved and invigorated by the knowledge of various languages, and of every honourable science.11
For his part, Pico was similarly impressed by Lorenzo the Magnificent. He would go on to dedicate his Apology to Lorenzo, and upon reading Lorenzo’s poetry he judged it superior to that of Dante – its humanism more reflective of the age than Dante’s religious subjects.fn4
Ficino was deeply grateful that such a distinguished scholar as Pico della Mirandola should champion his Platonism in the face of the vehement criticism it was receiving from some orthodox Aristotelians. A number of these theologians had even gone so far as to suggest that Ficino’s ideas were heresy, though this was largely on account of his dabbling in certain hermetic ideas that he had found in later Platonic texts. Despite Ficino’s adherence to Plato’s philosophy, he remained deeply religious, and he would regard Pico della Mirandola’s ability to convince devout humanist adherents of classical philosophy that they belonged in the Christian fold with such admiration that he called him a ‘fisher of men’.12
However, this great and enthusiastic meeting of minds at the Palazzo Medici was based upon a profound misunderstanding. Pico della Mirandola, with his elegant manners and deep philosophical learning, may have appeared as the embodiment of the new humanism, but this was a misreading of his intellectual stance. Although Pico was willing to embrace Platonism, this did not mean that he rejected orthodox scholastic Aristotelianism. On the contrary, the aim of his philosophical quest was inclusive – he wished to discover true religion as it manifested itself in all these different sources. This becomes clear in a letter that he wrote as early as 1485 to the Venetian scholar Ermolao Barbaro, in which he explained that when he travelled to Florence to study with Ficino he went ‘not as a deserter’13 from Aristotle, ‘but as a spy’. In fact, the Latin word he used for ‘spy’ was explorator, whose English connotations come closer to conveying what he actually meant. Pico della Mirandola certainly had no hostile
intent in coming to study with Ficino, though the possibility of deception remains. The fact is that the Medici court accepted him as a fellow humanist. This would seem to indicate either a secrecy that was alien to Pico’s flamboyant nature, or that he was simply content to go along with Lorenzo the Magnificent, Poliziano, Ficino and the others in their erroneous assumption, because this better enabled him to understand their thinking. For there can be no doubt that, certainly at this stage, the assumption made by Lorenzo and his circle was erroneous. This can be seen from the other company that Pico kept during his residence in Florence. Besides becoming a favourite of the liberal intellectual circle at the Palazzo Medici, it is known that Pico also renewed his contact with Savonarola. Regarding his visits to the austere cell at the monastery of San Marco, the twenty-one-year-old Pico would later write of how he spent his time ‘piously philosophising’14 with the earnest thirty-two-year-old monk. The worldly philosopher and the ascetic theologian – in so many ways such opposites – indubitably continued to have one thing in common: the exceptional depth of their theological knowledge.
Death in Florence: the Medici, Savonarola and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City Page 9