Lorenzo’s great gambit had paid off. Not only had he ended a war that had done so much damage to the republic, but he had done so without compromising Florentines’ sense of honor. For many Florentines not the least of the pleasures of the situation was watching the pope lash out in helpless fury.* Though Sixtus seemed as determined as ever to chastise the wayward people of Florence, he could do little without the armies of Naples. Lorenzo’s personal prestige soared, not only because of the practical results of his mission but because of the spectacular manner in which he had brought it about. From March 1480, when he seemed to pluck the fruits of victory from the jaws of defeat, Lorenzo acquired a reputation for sagacity in all matters diplomatic that would last the remainder of his days and aid him greatly in his efforts to preserve and sustain the peace of Italy.
Andrea del Verrocchio, Bust of Piero de’ Medici, the Unfortunate, c. 1490 (Art Resource)
XVIII. THE SHADOW LIFTS
Sixtus, at last you’re dead: unjust, untrue, you rest now,
you who hated peace so much, in eternal peace.
Sixtus, at last you’re dead: and Rome is happy,
for, when you reigned, so did famine, slaughter and sin.
Sixtus, at last you’re dead, eternal engine of discord,
even against God Himself, now go to dark Hell.
—ANONYMOUS
One must give praise, my fellow Romans, to Innocent
as his progeny in the tired motherland grew in number.
Eight bastards and eight maidens did he father;
Innocent will be called father of his country.
—ANONYMOUS
FERRANTE’S REVERSAL DEPRIVED SIXTUS THE MEANS of defeating Florence on the battlefield, but he still had at his disposal enormous, if less tangible, resources. Florence might well have remained indefinitely beneath the shadow of papal interdict had it not been for a catastrophe that made the recent hostilities shrink to insignificance. In July a fleet carrying over 14,000 Ottoman infantry captured the port of Otranto in the heel of Italy. Twelve thousand inhabitants were put to the sword, the rest sold into slavery. The archbishop who had led the resistance was sawn in two to provide a salutary lesson on the zeal of the followers of the Prophet. “In Rome the alarm was as great as if the enemy had been already encamped before her very walls,” recalled one contemporary. “Terror had taken such hold of all minds that even the Pope meditated flight.”
As Alfonso hurried south to defend his father’s kingdom against the armies of the sultan, the pope suddenly found his voice as the leader of the Christian flock: “If the faithful, especially the Italians, wish to preserve their lands, their houses, their wives, their children, their liberty, and their lives, if they wish to maintain that Faith into which we have been baptized and through which we are regenerated, let them at last trust in our word, let them take up their arms and fight.” Indulgences were granted to all those who would fight the invaders and the pope’s own silver plate was melted down to finance the war effort.
The arrival of the Turks planted terror in the hearts of men from Naples to Milan, but in Florence shock of Muslim armies appearing on Italian soil was mixed with a certain relief since it was clear that under the circumstances the pope could no longer pursue his vendetta against Lorenzo. One Florentine approached sacrilege when he called this deliverance “a great miracle.”*
On November 25 an embassy of distinguished Florentines arrived in Rome to receive absolution on behalf of the people of Florence. Sixtus, dressed in purple robes and seated on a high throne before St. Peter’s Basilica, received the delegation, which included many of Lorenzo’s closest allies, though, significantly, not Lorenzo himself.† Kissing his feet, the ambassadors begged forgiveness for any sins they had committed against his person and his office. After subjecting them to one final tongue-lashing, Sixtus bestowed his blessing and invited them inside to celebrate a Mass of reconciliation.
Thus ended the war between Lorenzo and the pope. After all the blood spilled and treasure squandered, neither could claim a decisive victory. Both of the principals were bruised and battered, but while Lorenzo had suffered a far greater personal loss than his foe, he emerged from the ordeal far stronger than he had been when the assassins struck. The formidable coalition that the pope had put together to challenge Lorenzo was now in disarray, and while the defection of Ferrante was partially offset by a growing understanding with Venice, the strategic balance had tilted once again in favor of Florence. The greatest reversal in their respective fortunes, however, came not in terms of military or economic assets but in the less concrete area of prestige, a precious commodity that, as Lorenzo would show time and again, could be spent when the coffers were otherwise bare.
In the aftermath of the war, Lorenzo’s reputation soared while Sixtus’s suffered a precipitous decline. Particularly after his successful mission to Naples, admiration for Lorenzo in the courts of Europe grew by leaps and bounds. No longer was he the inexperienced politician—the junior partner in any alliance, the banker’s son who could not treat with the great lords as an equal—but a statesman who almost single-handedly led his nation through its darkest moment and emerged triumphant. Nor was this any ordinary diplomatic coup; the manner of this victory was as important as the victory itself. Having staked his fortune and even his life on a throw of the dice, he was able now to claim the lion’s share of the credit. One contemporary chronicler aptly described him as both “Florence’s top man and the leading untitled man in Italy.”
None of this meant that Lorenzo could rest on his laurels. Though his standing both at home and abroad had never been higher, he returned from Naples with a renewed sense of his own vulnerability. He was determined never again to place himself in such a position. His three-month sojourn in Naples revealed the limitations of the system he had put in place a decade earlier: it was overly dependent on him personally, and those same people who seemed incapable of functioning without him were also prone to disloyalty the minute his back was turned. “When I go more than ten miles out of the city,” he complained, “the love and loyalty of friends comes to an end.”
To rectify what he felt were glaring deficiencies, a special committee of 240 prominent citizens was appointed for the purpose of reforming the government. The “reforms” Lorenzo pushed through were a typical bit of Medicean opportunism, taking advantage of a temporary situation in order to make long-term changes that would concentrate power in fewer, more reliable hands. After a week of often acrimonious debate the Balìa passed a series of new laws aimed at increasing the efficiency of the various councils that made up the government. The most significant piece of legislation created a new executive committee known as the Council of the Seventy. This body, handpicked from among the leading members of the regime, was given extraordinary powers. Like the Council of Ten, whose job was to guide the state in time of war, the Seventy largely bypassed the Priors, who now were reduced to little more than figureheads. The Seventy would select from their own members two committees responsible for the day-to-day running of the government—the Otto di Pratica (the Eight), in charge of foreign policy, and the Dodici Procuratori (the Twelve), who would oversee domestic and financial affairs.* Lorenzo’s visibility within the government was enhanced by his appointment to both the Seventy and the Eight. Another significant reform, one that gave to the new council even more power, was that the Seventy replaced the Accoppiatori, who for most of the Medici ascendancy had selected “by hand” those eligible to serve on the Signoria.† This meant in effect that they were a self-replicating elite, not answerable to the wider public and wielding unprecedented power.
Not surprising, the new legislation dismayed many within the traditional governing class who had seen themselves progressively marginalized by the Medici and their associates. Lorenzo tried to soften the blow by limiting membership in the Seventy to those of ancient pedigree, largely excluding the “new men” who had always been central to the Medici’s success. But this could not disguise the
fact that in the new council Lorenzo had created a pliant instrument of his will. One contemporary observed, “the members of the new body…cared for nothing but to keep their own position and assented to everything,” while to Rinuccini the reforms “removed every liberty from the people”—this in spite of the fact that he himself was among those named to the new council. The opposition of men like Rinuccini was to be expected, but even many of Lorenzo’s most loyal supporters believed the new council was a dangerous departure from the republican traditions of the past. Viewed from a wider perspective, it merely accelerated the tendency to centralize power that had been underway ever since Cosimo’s day, but it appeared to contemporaries as a radical innovation. Even the loyal Medicean Benedetto Dei complained, “they refashioned the government in such a way so that it was based on tyranny rather than on the public good…so that it is a shame to see how this state is run.”
The reforms did indeed go far beyond those of 1471. The new council, though it contained the usual dissenting voices and independent thinkers, was dominated by Lorenzo’s men. It was small enough to be easily controlled from the top, but large enough so that no one member was likely to emerge who could challenge the leadership of the head of the Medici household. By making membership in the Seventy permanent, those named to the council—chosen from among citizens who had held high positions within the government under the Medici ascendancy—were freed from outside pressure while at the same time they were totally dependent on Lorenzo himself.* They became, in effect, Lorenzo’s cabinet. With this compact, efficient body in control of the Palazzo della Signoria, willing and able to do his bidding, the machinery of the Florentine bureaucracy was placed at Lorenzo’s disposal. In fact the reforms went a long way toward creating a professional political class of the kind anathema to the ideals of republican self-government. Increased efficiency was purchased at the expense of that ideal of Florentine democracy in which every citizen felt he had a share in his own government.
The first real test of the newly organized government came in the spring of 1482 and once again it was Girolamo Riario who precipitated the crisis. Sixtus was now a frail man approaching seventy and the window of opportunity for establishing the Riario as a great feudal clan was fast closing. Seeking to shore up his fledgling state in the Romagna, Girolamo traveled to Imola with his bride, Caterina Sforza, from whence he surveyed his neighbors with a covetous eye. An opportunity to add to his holdings soon presented itself in the nearby town of Forli, where feuding among the dysfunctional ruling Ordelaffi dynasty made it a relatively simple matter for Riario, in his role as papal vicar, to step in and claim it as a protectorate of the Holy See.*
With Imola and Forli now firmly in his possession, the next logical candidate for inclusion in the Riario portfolio was Faenza, a town that stood directly between the two halves of his domain. Unfortunately for Riario, all this activity had drawn the attention of Milan, which had no desire to see a powerful papal enclave taking shape on its southern borders. It was exactly this scenario that Riario’s marriage to Caterina Sforza was supposed to forestall, but the death of Duke Galeazzo Maria and his replacement by the mistrustful Lodovico meant that the Riario could no longer count on Milan to look benevolently on their territorial expansion. Rebuffed by his wife’s family, Girolamo Riario now turned to the other major power in northern Italy—the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
The moment was auspicious. The Venetians, disappointed with the results of their short-lived alliance with Florence that had embroiled them in a costly war and left them with few tangible benefits, were casting about for new partners. As early as the spring of 1480 rumors were swirling about that the pope, abandoned by King Ferrante, had reconstituted the old league with Venice and Siena. With Riario and the Republic of Venice both harboring unrealized ambitions in northern Italy, it was natural that the two should seek an arrangement. Riario saw the opportunity, and in September of 1481 he set out for Venice. When he arrived, the doge himself came down the palace steps to greet him and the Senate conferred upon their title-hungry guest membership in the nobility of Venice, a rare honor for a foreigner, particularly one of such humble origins. The more important work was completed in secret where a bargain was struck by which the Venetians would help Riario acquire Faenza in return for papal recognition of their claims on the duchy of Ferrara.
Lorenzo was kept informed of these dangerous developments by a spy he had planted in Girolamo Riario’s court, one Matteo Menghi of Forli, who explained that “to satisfy my debt it seemed best to apprise Your Magnificence of those things that are taking place.” This informant was certainly useful when, taking a page from Riario’s own playbook, Lorenzo agreed to support followers of the deposed Ordelaffi in an attempt to assassinate their new master. In the end this plot amounted to little; Riario sniffed it out and Lorenzo was forced to try other means to rid himself of the troublesome count. But by now the rest of Italy was growing alarmed at the signs of Venetian and papal aggression and Lorenzo had no problem putting together an alliance to challenge the revived combination. The axis of Milan, Naples, and Florence was taken out of storage and dusted off to deal with old foes, as various smaller states lined up on either side.
War began in the spring of 1482, with Venetian troops advancing on Ferrara while papal forces mobilized in the south. The situation had changed dramatically since the outbreak of the Pazzi war four years earlier, thanks in no small part to Lorenzo, who had weaned Ferrante from his short-lived alliance with the pope. True, Sixtus had replaced Naples with Venice, but this new arrangement proved far less effective than the earlier one. In part this was a matter of simple geography. While Venice was engaged in the north, papal forces were pinned down by the Neapolitans in the south. In one of the bloodiest clashes of the war, the papal army led by Roberto Malatesta smashed the forces of the duke of Calabria on a rare patch of solid ground in the malarial Pontine Marshes south of Rome known as the Campo Morto (the field of death). But the pope could not harvest the fruits of his victory.* The battlefield, living up to its name, soon claimed the victorious general, who died of dysentery a month later, while the Florentines, taking advantage of the distraction, equipped Niccolò Vitelli with an army for the purpose of seizing Città di Castello.
Ferrante, meanwhile, was busy stirring up the restless Roman nobility, playing on their bitter rivalries to sow chaos in the pope’s own backyard. As followers of the Orsini, the Colonna, and the della Valle clashed in the streets of Rome, Sixtus vented his anger against his nephew, whose selfish policies had placed him in his current predicament. Girolamo Riario was becoming increasingly unpopular with the citizens of Rome, who were suffering under his continued extortions, and their constant complaints were beginning to have an effect on Sixtus. Many war-weary souls across Italy would have agreed with Lodovico Sforza when he remarked bitterly that the latest conflict was begun “for Girolamo’s ambitions, without regard for the men who are thrown to the wolves and the people who are ruined.” A contemporary reported the unhappy scene in the Eternal City: “In the Pope’s antechambers, instead of cassocked priests, armed guards kept watch. Soldiers, equipped for battle, were drawn up before the gates of the Palace. All the Court officials were filled with terror and anguish; the fury of the populace was only restrained by the fear of the soldiers.”
Sixtus had finally had enough. Calling the Venetian alliance stupid and ill-conceived, Sixtus turned to Girolamo’s cousin Giuliano della Rovere to clean up the mess. No less ambitious than Girolamo, Giuliano’s approach to politics could not have been more different. While Riario lurched this way and that in pursuit of every short-term advantage, della Rovere believed that he and his family could prosper only by promoting the long-term interests of the Church. Despite Riario’s threat to drive his cousin from the city and set fire to his house, in December, della Rovere persuaded Sixtus to open negotiations in the northern city of Cremona with the aim of bringing the war to a speedy conclusion.
For Lorenzo this sudden about-fa
ce was a vindication of the resolute stance he had taken. He was determined to go himself to Cremona to make sure that Florentine interests were not neglected, even over the objections of those in the reggimento who reminded him “your presence is very necessary here.” This new proof of the fecklessness of his colleagues only confirmed Lorenzo’s belief that he could leave such an important mission to no one else.
It was at Cremona that Lorenzo cemented his reputation as a diplomat of unparalleled skill, one who combined an understanding of complex issues with an ability to persuade others of the rightness of his approach. “Various were the opinions, diverse the remedies,” wrote Valori, “and the debates were long and ill-tempered. But finally Lorenzo, with great wisdom, laid out the state of affairs in Italy, and spoke with such eloquence and with such seriousness of purpose that all came to share his point of view.” Lorenzo was always most effective in face-to-face meetings, where he could deploy his immense learning and considerable charm and where the force of his personality could disguise what was often a weak position. Lacking a significant standing army of its own, Florence could maintain its status as one of the great powers only through a delicate balance of opposing forces and interests, and in the Italian context, with its patchwork of large and small states held together by a common culture but tattered by ancient rivalries, this balance required constant attention.
In this gathering of powerful and titled men, and with the memory of the disastrous Pazzi war still fresh in his mind, Lorenzo first articulated the principles that were to govern his foreign policy for the rest of his life, principles that earned Florence, in Guicciardini’s phrase, the title the “fulcrum” of Italy. Over the course of the next decade Lorenzo came to embody the principle of a balance of power, the calm center in a world that threatened at any moment to fall into chaos. The fullest explanation of his policy comes in the opening of Guicciardini’s History of Italy, in which the historian paints a portrait of his native land in the last decades of Lorenzo’s life as a realm of peace and prosperity. It is true that Guicciardini imparts to these years, the years of his own childhood, a certain rosy glow not entirely justified by the facts, but this is understandable given the horrors of the intervening period in which foreign armies used the peninsula to settle their dynastic rivalries. “Italy was preserved in this happy state,” he writes
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