Most disturbing to Lorenzo, this act of rebellion was abetted by members of his own government. According to Sacramoro, the treacherous behavior of the Volterrans was encouraged by certain “malcontents who do not wish to be governed by [Lorenzo],” and who “tolerate and perhaps even secretly favor those things that create difficulties.” Among those who secretly wished to embarrass Lorenzo was Antonio Ridolfi, a man who had been among Lorenzo’s staunchest allies in the crisis over the triple alliance. A contemporary poem celebrating the life of Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino, contains a passage that reveals the dangerous synergy between the Volterran rebels and malcontents within Florence:
De Medici Lorenzo, his spirit
troubled unless Volterra were repaid for her iniquity,
since, if many pursued this war, it served him more than others,
having in this undertaking many enemies in his own land,
and because in the new government there was kindled
much envy against him, as always happens
among those in a state of lesser stature.
It is certain that to him exile and many other troubles
were being planned, and the ruin of his fortune, which, as you know,
in that city, or in others was the greatest of our time
Adding to this catalogue of woes was the fact, soon uncovered, that Dietisalvi Neroni and Jacopo and Neri Acciaiuoli had once again jumped into the fray and were proposing a secret pact with the Volterrans to bring about “the destruction of the house of Medici.” Nor could the irrepressible Bartolomeo Colleoni be kept on the sidelines; in April, Sacramoro learned that the condottiere was preparing to cross the mountains once again in yet another attempt to topple Lorenzo’s government.
The story of the war of Volterra is usually framed as a cautionary tale about an impetuous young politician in over his head, resisting the counsel of older and wiser men in a desperate desire to prove his mettle. Tommaso Soderini in particular is credited for giving a sage speech in the months leading up to the war in which he quoted the old Tuscan proverb, “Better a lean peace than a fat victory.” But the details tell a somewhat different tale, one in which Lorenzo appears rather less hotheaded than is usually presumed and in which he had the backing of many of those older men whose counsel he is supposed to have rejected.
By April the Florentine government had responded to Inghirami’s murder and the treachery of the Volterran government by appointing its own extraordinary committee, the Ten of War, on which Lorenzo was assigned a prominent place. But even now he hoped to avoid all-out confrontation. Sacramoro reported to Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in March that Lorenzo hoped that by exploiting the rivalries that usually beset the Volterran regime he might yet achieve his goals without war. In the meantime, backed by the rest of the Ten of War, he prepared for the worst.
The Volterrans, though overmatched, hoped that the mutual jealousies among the leading powers of Italy would persuade at least some of them to leap to her aid. To encourage them they hastily dispatched emissaries to all the major courts, including Milan, Naples, and Rome, pleading their case and inviting them to intercede on their behalf. Lorenzo had reason to be concerned: Colleoni, as we have seen, was itching to renew his Tuscan adventures and behind him stood the wealth and power of the Venetian empire; the pope, the newly elected Sixtus IV, might also be tempted to discomfit the Florentines, whose expansion always came at the expense of the Papal States. Most worrisome to Lorenzo was the stance of King Ferrante, who had revived his dreams of a peninsula-wide empire. He had just disembarked 1,500 of his own men in the Tuscan coastal city of Piombino, who could as easily be employed against Florentine interests as on her behalf. Even Duke Sforza, Lorenzo’s most reliable ally, equivocated. According to the secret correspondence of Sacramoro, Milan had decided to let Lorenzo twist in the wind for a while. (The duke was worried that if Lorenzo grew too powerful in Florence he would lose his dependence on the court of Milan.)
War was officially declared by the Ten on April 26, 1472, and 100,000 ducats raised to hire and equip an army. Lorenzo scored a great coup when he persuaded Federico da Montefeltro, the most distinguished condottiere of the day, to spearhead the assault.
Facing Federico’s well-equipped troops, five thousand foot soldiers and five hundred cavalry, the Volterrans, disappointed in their efforts to create an anti-Florentine coalition, could muster barely one thousand men. Only Siena, governed, according the Florentine diarist Benedetto Dei, “by a crowd of mad adventurers,” came to her aid. The other major powers, including the pope, Naples, and, tardily, Milan, decided to back Florence, now in a commanding position and capable of punishing those who had deserted her in her hour of need.
Realizing the precariousness of their position, the priors of Volterra sent an emissary to plead for mercy with the government of Florence. He was met by Tommaso Soderini, who told the ambassador that the crisis was the fault of the Volterrans, who were “not observing their agreements, because of which the people of Florence were constrained to defend their honor and dignity.” He threatened that unless the city were given up freely to Florentine troops they would impose their will “so as to conform to their obligations and to preserve honor.”
Federico’s army, strengthened by troops from Milan, the Papal States, and Naples, was encamped before the walls of Volterra by late April, having met little or no resistance on its approach to the city. Throughout the course of the twenty-five-day siege soldiers hurled insults back and forth across the walls of the city. During the night cries could be heard rising from around the twinkling campfires that encircled the town: “Marzocho, Marzocho!” for the Florentine lion,* and “Palle! Palle!” for the Medici. Cries also went out from the camps of the troops of the duke, the king, and the pope, a constant reminder to the besieged townspeople of the formidable coalition arrayed against them. Inside the city the troops were demoralized and restive. Ill-fed and ill-paid, they were almost as much a threat to the people as the armies on the plains below. The inevitable outcome was clear to even the most patriotic Volterran. On June 4, the government of Florence invited the Volterrans to offer their city “freely” into the hands of Federico’s army in return for guarantees that life and property would be protected. The offer was immediately accepted and on June 17, 1472, the gates of Volterra were opened to the victorious army.
Had the crisis ended there Lorenzo would have achieved an unadulterated triumph. In reasserting his authority in Volterra with a minimum of bloodshed he had boosted his popularity at home and his prestige abroad. But once the hounds of war are unleashed they are difficult to call back. The disaster was sparked when one of the priors, upon returning from the palazzo, was accosted by a soldier from Federico’s army. What had begun as a peaceful occupation quickly turned violent as the mercenaries who were supposed to be defending Volterra—but who had gone without pay and with little food and who now saw little prospect of profit from their long ordeal—started shouting “Sack it! Sack it!” Rampaging through the city streets they were quickly joined by allied forces. So sudden and violent was this outburst that Federico was caught completely off guard. Apparently this bibliophile general was so enraptured by a rare polyglot Bible he had discovered that the sack went on for hours before it was called to his attention.
By the time Federico had captured and hanged the ringleaders, much of the city lay in ruins and many citizens lay dead in the streets. Upon hearing of the calamity, Lorenzo himself lamented that the victory was much diminished by “the cruelty of the sack.” A kinsman of the murdered Inghirami begged for Lorenzo’s help, noting that the violent rampage made no distinctions between rebels and loyalists. “You have seen the afflicted and faithful friends and servants of Your Magnificence,” he wrote to Lorenzo in March of 1473, “naked, despoiled of all their goods, robbed without mercy, for everything was taken during the sack of the city; and I doubt not that Your Magnificence with your kindly nature was moved to great compassion. Your arrival and seeing wit
h your own eyes has been the sole hope of this people and has consoled and comforted them greatly.” And indeed, after touring the ruined city, Lorenzo was sufficiently moved that he pledged 2,000 florins of his own money toward its rebuilding.
But despite his evident distress, the war had been completely justified from his point of view and the sack merely an unfortunate consequence of the Volterrans’ own intransigence. Nor, at least in the short run, did the sack greatly tarnish Lorenzo’s reputation at home. Florentines appreciated firm leadership, particularly when it came to asserting their dominion over weaker neighbors. No one was more bellicose than a Florentine when victories were cheaply won, nor as quick to turn upon his leaders when things turned sour.* When Federico returned to Florence, the victorious general was awarded a banner, two basins, two silver ewers, 180 lire, and a silver helmet, as well as honorary citizenship, by a public apparently well satisfied with his services.
The most enduring legacy of the war was the huge fortress Lorenzo ordered built on the site of the ruined bishop’s palace. It still dominates the Volterran skyline, a permanent reminder of the gamble her leaders took and lost. If the Volterrans for centuries afterward blamed Lorenzo for their miseries, there is no doubt that in Florence his popularity increased. The victory, coming as it did on the heels of his successful reforms—which placed unprecedented powers in the hands of a single man—provided ample proof that the youth at the helm had grown into a vigorous and decisive leader. But there were some—including Lorenzo himself—concerned with the long-term consequences of the war and its violent aftermath. Machiavelli, writing with the value of hindsight, records the following encounter on the streets of Florence, which took place shortly after the war:
The news of the victory was received with very great joy by the Florentines, and because it had been altogether Lorenzo’s campaign, he rose to very great reputation from it. When one of Messer Tommaso Soderini’s most intimate friends reproached him for his advice, saying to him: “What say you now that Volterra has been acquired?” To which Messer Tommaso replied, “To me it appears lost; for if you had received it by accord, you would have had advantage and security from it; but since you have to hold it by force, in adverse times it will bring you weakness and trouble and in peaceful times, loss and expense.”
Like most of the speeches Machiavelli puts into his protagonists’ mouths, this one is intended not so much as a literal record of what was said but as a foreshadowing of future events. What Machiavelli knew, and what many Florentines probably suspected even at the time, was that the seeds of war, so hopefully planted that spring, might well bear bitter fruit a few years hence.
Giusto Utens, Medici Villa at Trebbio (Art Resource)
XI. DOMESTIC TRANQUILLITY
And you, well-born Laurel, under whose shelter
happy Florence rests in peace…
—ANGELO POLIZIANO, “THE JOUST OF GIULIANO,” IV
“There is nothing new here, except that in the neighborhood of Pisa, where the illustrious Lorenzo is hawking with King Ferrante’s men, two of the ten falcons sent by His Majesty, and those the best, are lost. Your excellence must not wonder that I speak of such things, for I only follow the example of others. Idleness has so gained the upper hand in Italy that, if nothing new happens, we shall have more to say about the slaughter of fowls and dogs than about armies and deeds of war. For the rest, I am of the opinion that those who have to govern Italy in peace will not reap less fame than those who kept her at war. For the object of war is, after all, peace, and the only consideration is that it should be a permanent peace.”
—THE AMBASSADOR OF FERRARA TO ERCOLE D’ESTE
IN THE SHORT TERM THE VICTORY OVER VOLTERRA helped Lorenzo cement his position as the leader of the reggimento. Florentines liked nothing better than to put their uppity neighbors in their place, as long as this could be accomplished with a minimum of Florentine blood and treasure. Dino Compagni described his native city as “proud and combative, and rich with unlawful profits, distrusted and feared for its greatness by the nearby cities, rather than loved.” And while Compagni was probably more reflective than most, his fellow citizens would have agreed that there was nothing like good old-fashioned terror to suppress any thoughts of rebellion.
Crowned with the victor’s laurels, Lorenzo’s popularity forced potential rivals underground and persuaded the ambitious that their best hope for advancement was to hitch their wagon to the rising star of Florentine politics. It was around this time that Lorenzo first came to be named in documents as “the first citizen of the republic,” while the Milanese ambassador noted that he was “thinking to achieve more than even Cosimo and Piero had ever done, so far as I understand him.”
But despite his success in the political arena, Lorenzo remained ambivalent about his role as a statesman. Politics took time away not only from more pleasurable pursuits but from areas of life he could ill afford to neglect. For both Cosimo and Piero, political power had been a natural outgrowth of their business activities. Wealth was the key to power in Florence and, conversely, political power was wielded largely in order to protect one’s fortune. Giovanni Rucellai, whose son Bernardo was married to Lorenzo’s sister Nannina, wrote in a revealing passage of his memoirs, “and it seems to me very helpful to remember that in our city of Florence one doesn’t hold on to one’s riches with little difficulty but with very great difficulty. And this because of the many wars of the commune, which requires them to make great expenditures which cause them to demand from her citizens much by way of taxation and frequent loans…. I have found no other way to defend myself than not to make any enemies, because a single enemy can do more harm than four friends can do good; thus, to be on good terms with one’s relatives and in-laws and neighbors and the rest of the citizens of your gonfalone.”
Lorenzo was candid about his own motives for accepting the role of first citizen, for, as he explained in his memoirs, “it is ill living in Florence for the rich unless they rule the state.” The cost of public service could prove ruinous. Looking back over his father’s and grandfather’s account books, Lorenzo was astonished to learn that they had expended over 650,000 florins on charitable donations, building projects, and in taxes. It was money well spent, since it contributed to the family’s popularity in the city, but such expenditures could be sustained only as long as the bank upon which the family fortune was built continued to thrive.
The health of the bank, however, was something Lorenzo found difficult to maintain, since the more deeply he delved into politics the less time he had to attend to the minutiae of the family business. Though Lorenzo has long been criticized for his poor management, the bank’s declining fortunes during the years he was at the helm were not entirely his fault. Each local branch—in Rome, Bruges, Venice, London, Lyons, Geneva, Florence, and Naples—was a separate enterprise under the control of a manager whose honesty and ability were essential to success but difficult to judge from the central office in the Via Larga. Communication was slow and incomplete, and Lorenzo was too preoccupied to micromanage his scattered enterprises. In 1470, Lorenzo complained to Tommaso Portinari, manager of the Medici bank in the commercial center of Bruges:
If I have been later in responding [to your letter] as you or I would have liked, you must excuse me since the continual business in the Palazzo [della Signoria] leaves me no time to attend to my own affairs, as is probably required. I find myself at this time with heavy burdens, both public and private, upon my shoulders, and yet I hope through God’s grace and the help of my friends that soon they will lighten and to be able to arrange things properly, seeing as I have the spirit and the desire to strive to increase the dignity of our house, a subject on which, I find, all citizens are agreed and well disposed.
His concerns turned out to be well founded. Left largely to his own devices, Portinari would eventually cost the bank huge losses through his ill-conceived loans.*
Part of the problem was that, unlike his grandfather, Lorenzo was reluct
ant to fire those who had proved themselves inept or dishonest. His patience with subordinates was due both to a misplaced sense of loyalty and simple inattentiveness. While the Lyons branch was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in the 1480s, Lorenzo dragged his feet for years before calling to account its manager, his brother-in-law Lionetto Rossi, a delay that shook public confidence in the firm. The sureness of touch and ability to judge character in political matters seemed to desert Lorenzo when it came to business. One on one his ability to bully, cajole, or simply to charm a potential opponent into seeing things his way was a powerful weapon, but he had far less success when forced to operate at a distance as he was compelled to do in managing his far-flung business empire. Junior partners in the various branches, knowing his reluctance to pore through the details of the secret account books, took advantage of him, running up huge debts that they concealed in an avalanche of spurious numbers.
Lorenzo was in many ways less modern in his economic views than his forebears; while Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo, and even Piero had understood that wealth could be created by manipulating numbers on a piece of paper, Lorenzo possessed an old-fashioned prejudice in favor of tangible wealth in the form of real estate. After four generations of prosperity the Medici under Lorenzo were slowly transforming themselves from merchants to landed gentry. Even as his profit margins sank and his debts rose, he continued to purchase additional properties throughout Tuscany. And having become one of the greatest landholders in Italy, he devoted increasing amounts of time to managing his estates. In fact he much preferred the science of agronomy and animal husbandry to the abstract world of accounting. He could size up the quality of a racehorse in an instant—a talent more typical of a feudal knight than an urban merchant—but even hours spent poring over an account book yielded little useful information. He had a depth of feeling for the natural world, conveyed in the vivid descriptions of fields and forests that cause his poems to pulse with life, but little understanding of market conditions. He was rarely bold in seizing a business opportunity and, even more critical, was slow to cut his losses in adverse conditions. In short, the most famous banker in Europe was not much of a businessman.
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