A similar pattern was repeated in his relations with his parents. Piero was a dutiful father, but any expressions of affection were tempered by his belief that it was his role to prepare his son for the difficult position he would inherit. “Be old beyond your years,” was the constant refrain in his letters to Lorenzo. In other words, Piero was a typical Florentine father, dispensing stern advice more readily than emotional support.
Piero’s affectionate nature becomes apparent only in his letters to his wife, and then often only indirectly. At first their correspondence is marked by a formality dictated by the absolute authority of a husband over his wife. In the first letter we have from Lucrezia (written in 1446), the twenty-one-year-old bride addresses her husband as “My Lord and Master,” but after years of marriage their correspondence takes on a tone of mutual respect and deep affection. In 1463, when Giuliano was taken seriously ill while visiting Pisa, Lucrezia hurried to her son’s side. Piero, who had remained behind to attend to his work, was evidently distracted with worry. “I write to you several letters on the same day so that,” she informed him, “in case one goes astray, you will have another giving you news of Giuliano…. I want you to know every little change, so that you may understand better what [the physician] Maestro Mariotto writes, and that you may decide, not according to my opinion, but according to what you yourself think best…. He is not as cheerful in the day time as I should like, because he is exhausted by the fever…. Do not get depressed, however, for Giuliano is strong.” When Lucrezia herself fell ill, Piero was equally solicitous. “Have faith and obey the doctors,” he urged her, “and do not budge one jot from their orders, and bear and suffer everything, if not for yourself and for us, for the love of God who is helping you.”
Piero’s devotion to his wife was not misplaced. Not only was she the ideal Florentine housewife, but she was an important political asset, a woman whose kindness and tact more than made up for her husband’s shortcomings. Lucrezia’s social skills were crucial to maintaining the loyalty of the literally thousands of clients whose support was necessary to maintain the Medici in power. Many petitioners applied directly to Lucrezia rather than dealing with her more forbidding husband. Her correspondents include both the great and the humble. At one extreme is the queen of Bosnia, exiled by the advancing Ottoman Turks, who writes to Lucrezia to implore her to expedite a loan from the Roman branch of the Medici bank; at the other is a letter in which she is asked to intercede on behalf of a humble weaver condemned to death for committing bigamy. (Lucrezia will play a similar role on behalf of Lorenzo, who, while more gregarious than his father, was often simply overwhelmed by the number of demands made on his time.)
Piero relied increasingly on Lucrezia’s judgment, sending her on important missions when he was unable to travel and depending on her vivid descriptions of people and places. In addition to being the wife of Florence’s leading citizen, she was an important literary patroness and a fine poet in her own right, and participated as much as the limited possibilities available to her permitted in the great artistic and intellectual movements of the day. Lorenzo’s tutor, the erudite Gentile Becchi, penned the following tribute to the mistress of the house: “You are well read, your bureau full of books, you have understood how to comment on the epistles of Saint Paul, you have, throughout your life kept company with men of honor.” Despite her traditional views on religion, Lucrezia saw nothing incompatible between the new trends in literature, with their almost pagan appetite for the pleasures and flavors of the world, and Christian values.* Her retellings of sacred stories, written for her grandchildren, contain vivid descriptions that owe much to her own life at the palace on the Via Larga. In her “Story of Queen Esther,” the feast King Ahasuerus gives for his bride, where “[e]verywhere you could hear instruments playing of every kind,” while singers serenaded the guests “with sweet melodies and skillful harmonies,” as they supped on “infinite dishes…savoring their aromas,” recalls similar descriptions of Nannina’s or Lorenzo’s own wedding feasts.
Impatient with the limited role assigned to her, Lucrezia turned even her physical ailments into opportunities. Like most of the other members of the family, Lucrezia was often in poor health, suffering repeated attacks of fever and eczema (a condition that also plagued Lorenzo) for which she sought some relief by frequenting mineral baths. One of these spas, in Bagno a Morba in the Apennine foothills, she purchased and turned into a thriving business.
Such was Piero’s confidence in his wife’s good sense that in 1467 he sent her to Rome to consult with the papal curia. It was a remarkably public role for a woman, so contrary to custom that, according to the sour Jacopo Acciaiuoli, it “reduced Florence to the lowest level of repute.” That she was equally helpful to her son is revealed in a letter addressed to Lorenzo from Francesco da Castiglione, one of the canons of San Lorenzo, consoling him on the occasion of his mother’s death:
What part of the state did the wisdom of Lucrezia not see, take care of, or confirm!…Sometimes [your mother’s] actions, from the political point of view, were more prudent than yours, for you attended only to the great things and forgot the less…. She knew how to manage the most important affairs with wise counsel, and to succor the citizens in time of calamity.
Reading between the lines one can sense that Lucrezia softened Lorenzo’s harsh edges, soothing the feelings of those who had been brushed aside or ignored by her imperious son.
Benozzo Gozzoli, Adoration of the Magi (detail of Lorenzo at center), Medici Palace, 1459 (Art Resource)
III. MASTER OF CEREMONY
He for many reasons has great power
Since his family can do much,
Son of Piero and grandson of Cosimo.
—ANONYMOUS ABOUT LORENZO, APRIL 1459
HUNDREDS OF TORCHES BLAZED FROM SCONCES LINING the Via Larga, their flames shimmering on the fine white sand that had been layered over the paving stones, muffling the sharp clatter of hooves. As the sun sank behind the hills the benches along the palaces began to fill with people. Every window was crowded with men and women craning their necks to get a better view. Bright banners were draped over somber facades of rough stone: the red lily of the Florentine Republic, the gold crescents of the Piccolomini of Siena (now with the added keys and crown showing the elevation to the papal throne of one of their own, Aeneas Silvius, as Pius II), the greyhound stretched beneath a pine tree representing the Sforza of Milan, and, above all, the golden shield emblazoned with the red balls of the Medici.
The torchlight cavalcade and ceremonial clash of arms was to be the crowning event of what had already been a memorable day. The city’s guest list on April 29, 1459, included not only Pope Pius II, surrounded by an entourage of scarlet-robed cardinals, but also the lords of Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. Most important politically for Florence was the gracious attendance of the fifteen-year-old Galeazzo Maria Sforza, count of Pavia and eldest son of the duke of Milan. Hoping to project a mood of confidence and to astonish their visitors with an unparalleled display of wealth and refinement, the Signoria had arranged a variety of entertainments. The festivities had begun that morning with a joust at the Piazza Santa Croce, featuring the sons of Florence’s best families decked out in full ceremonial armor. This had been followed by a ball at the New Market with “[s]ixty young Florentine gentlemen, who were expert dancers, richly adorned with pearls and jewels, and many pretty maidens and girls.” For those who preferred stronger stuff, the priors had arranged what promised to be a gory spectacle in the Piazza della Signoria. Here a wooden stockade had been erected and filled with horses, cows, a wild boar, and two young buffalo. As the crowd roared, two lions—symbolizing the martial valor of the Florentine people—were set loose in what was supposed to be a sanguinary spectacle worthy of the Roman Colosseum. Disappointment soon followed as the lions, frightened by the shouting multitude, wandered about in a daze. “The preparations had been great, and the expenses large,” grumbled one eyewitness, “but the pleasure given was s
mall.” Pope Pius, on whose behalf the show had been staged, was even less impressed. “They spent very little on entertaining the Pope,” he complained, “nor did they lay out much on lavish spectacles, though they brought lions into the piazza to fight with horses and other animals and arranged tournaments in which more wine was drunk than blood spilled.”
For the Medici family it was important that the evening’s events compensate for the afternoon’s embarrassment. Not only was the setting, in the heart of the Golden Lion, meant to call attention to the family whose palace would form the backdrop to the nighttime parade, but the star of the whole affair was to be the ten-year-old Medici heir.
It began with the steady rumble of drums and blare of flutes and trumpets from the Piazza San Marco. Thirty musicians soon wheeled into view. Close on their heels were the bannermen, who raised the personal standard of Lorenzo de’ Medici depicting a golden falcon caught in a net. Next, riding in formation, came an advance guard, richly dressed and mounted, consisting of twelve youths from the best families—including the sons of Puccio Pucci and Averardo Portinari (both families involved in running the Medici bank), two members of the Pazzi clan, and Lorenzo Neroni, son of Dietisalvi. Each of these brave young knights, dressed in matching uniforms of the lord they served, was attended by an army of pages and servants, again in matching livery bearing the red balls of the Medici crest.*
“Palle! Palle!” A roar of approval from the crowd announced the arrival of Lorenzo himself, sumptuously attired and mounted proudly atop a snow-white charger. Behind him came the final treat, an elaborately decorated carriage symbolizing—in the best tradition of courtly chivalry—the Triumph of Love.
As the column made its way south along the Via Larga, each adolescent boy preened like a fashion model on a runway. “Every warrior wears a helmet surrounded by a headdress in the form of a garland, beautifully decorated with silver, and with golden feathers rising from it, shining like a star,” wrote one bedazzled spectator. They proceeded as far as the baptistery before reversing course and coming to a halt beneath the walls of the Medici palace. Here the assembled dignitaries were treated to a thrilling spectacle as the young men, their armor gleaming in the torchlight, demonstrated their equestrian skill, charging with gold-tipped lances like fierce warriors. At least for this one night, these sons of bankers and merchants were transformed into daring knights who, judging by the splendor of their outfits if not their martial prowess, seemed fit to take their place alongside Charlemagne, Roland, and their brave companions. As always, the Medici had spared no expense, outfitting the entire entourage in the costliest garments and providing the riders with the finest mounts. There was no doubt among the assembled crowd to whom this night belonged: “He for many reasons has great power,” wrote one eyewitness,
Since his family can do much,
Son of Piero and grandson of Cosimo.
Thus these genteel youths made him signore [lord]….
Whence he wanted to show everyone
That they were all subject to one signore.
Now that genuine youth moves
Upon a horse marvelously ornate,
Everyone watches what he does….
His dress surpasses easily that of
All those of whom we’ve spoken,
And well he shows that he is signore.
There is something faintly ridiculous about these merchants’ sons dressing up as chivalrous knights, but beneath the empty pomp more important business was being transacted. On the most obvious level, those who belonged to Lorenzo’s brigade and who wore the livery of his family were declaring their fealty as surely as any knight kneeling before his king. Lorenzo, holding high the baton of the signore, accepted their declaration of loyalty with a calm sense of superiority as befitted a feudal lord.
Indeed, the festivities of April 1459 capped a decade-long public relations campaign that had begun with Lorenzo’s baptism on the Feast of the Epiphany. From the moment of Lorenzo’s birth the Medici were engaged in a continual and delicate process of seduction in which the young boy was presented to the people as both the paragon of the virtuous citizen, a Florentine born and bred of a respectable merchant family, and as a charismatic leader, destined to hold the fate of a nation in his hands. Finding precisely the right balance between the two was difficult, since, as Francesco Guicciardini noted, “In Florence the citizens love equality by nature, and yield unwillingly when they should acknowledge anyone as their superior.” To a people steeped in republican traditions, jealous of rank and ready to cut down to size anyone who sought to raise himself too high above his fellow citizens, Lorenzo was something new. He was, to use an anachronistic term, a celebrity, a child star paraded about the city in fine clothes and the center of attention on many public occasions.
Lorenzo was precocious and self-assured from an early age and Cosimo and Piero realized that the boy would be an asset in the general struggle for power and prestige. At the age of five he was dressed up in the latest French fashions and bundled off to the gates of the city to greet the visiting Duke of Anjou “surrounded,” we are told, “by a crowd of children and adults.” Lisping formal greetings more suited to an adult’s mouth, Lorenzo charmed everyone.
Demands to play the part of the young signore were constant; not even illness could excuse him from the obligation to promote his family’s interests. Recuperating from a bout of eczema at the mineral springs at Macerato in 1455, the six-year-old was elected “Lord of the Baths,” a half-humorous title that seemed mostly to involve presiding over parties and picnics in which, sniffed Piero, there were “some gentlemen and more than enough of the other sort.” Even in such casual moments Lorenzo learned to play his part as a leader of men.
As Lorenzo matured and began to think for himself he tended to look upon such occasions with an increasingly jaundiced eye. Unlike his father he was naturally sociable, but the hypocrisy and scheming he encountered every day tended to encourage in him a cynical view of men and their motives. He often declared that he wished nothing better than to escape the stench and corruption of the city and lose himself in a simple rustic retreat. “I do not know of riches or honors sweeter than this life of yours—one free of all political intrigue,” declared Lorenzo to the country swain in his philosophical poem “The Supreme Good.” “Among you happy shepherds and you cowherds no hatred reigns or wicked treachery and in these pastures no ambition grows.” Later in life when he was unhappy in love or dispirited by the backstabbing of Florentine politics, Lorenzo would flee to “some solitary and shaded place or the comfort of a green meadow…where I could take my ease close by the clear and flowing water or in the shade of a small green tree.” In the fields, meadows, and forests of his beloved Tuscany he found an inner peace he could never know in the city.
By the age of eleven Lorenzo was hounded by office-seekers who viewed him as a likely source of patronage. Those who wished to get ahead in Florence knew he had the ear of the most influential men in the city. He was pestered with letters from Medici clients and could hardly leave his house without being mobbed by the petitioners, who crowded around the gates to the palace. Medici power, like that of a Chicago ward boss, rested on an ability to deliver the goods, even for the most humble petitioner. Lorenzo’s first extant letter, written in November of 1460, is a plea for special consideration on behalf of one Chalumato of Arezzo, whom he describes as “my most dear friend.” In his second, written in September of 1461, he attempts to put in a good word with his father on behalf of ser Griso, “who wishes to be named notary of the Signoria.” For someone in Lorenzo’s position, “dear friends” sprouted like mushrooms in the rain.
Travel was one way to escape the constant harrassment he experienced in his native land. Restless by nature, Lorenzo eagerly sought opportunities to escape and Piero often obliged by employing his son as an itinerant goodwill ambassador. Out on the road, surrounded by congenial companions, Lorenzo enjoyed a rare degree of freedom. In July of 1463, Piero arranged for Lorenzo a
trip to Pistoia, an important client of Florence’s in western Tuscany. There, Lorenzo and his companions were received by the local bishop and presented to the people, all of whom, he recorded in a letter to his father, greeted them very warmly. Never one to allow business to get in the way of pleasure, he then begged his father to allow him a side trip to Lucca and Pisa “to look after our affairs there,” but also, he admitted, to try his hand at trout fishing. One can sense that Piero was none too keen on this detour since Lorenzo tried to bribe him by offering him a share of the catch, though in the end, he confessed, “it rained so heavily that few were caught.”
Most of these journeys were carefully planned by Piero, but sticking to an itinerary was difficult for someone like Lorenzo, who was always on the lookout for new sensations and experiences. But delays were not always his fault. “You have arrived at Milan later than I thought,” Piero complained to his son on one occasion, “and perhaps than you did wish, on account of the delay caused by the honors paid you by the Duke at Ferrara.” Poor weather or an outbreak of plague could create long detours, and even in the best of circumstances Lorenzo and his friends were obliged to make frequent stops. Along the way to paying a courtesy call on a provincial bishop or Signoria the band would be forced to pause in every hilltop village where the populace would insist they sit down to a dinner of pickled meats, boiled fowl, roast pigeon, and other rustic delicacies, all washed down with ample quantities of sweet trebbiano wine, to name but one menu. “Yesterday after leaving Florence we came as far as San Miniato, singing all the way,” wrote the poet Angelo Poliziano of one such journey, “and occasionally talking of holy things so as not to forget Lent. At Lastra we drank zappolino, which tasted much better than I had been told. Lorenzo is brilliant and makes the whole company gay.”
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