At the height of his political power, Cosimo de’ Medici is being overwhelmed with illness and personal tragedy. Who will succeed him to his invisible, nameless throne? His son Piero, who unfortunately is a middle-aged man so sick no one thinks he will live for much longer.
Transcript
As far as we know, it was smooth sailing for Cosimo after the general assembly of 1458. The old lists of enfranchised lists that had been put together under the Albizzi were burned. Through Cosimo’s new council, the Cento, not only were hundreds of citizens disenfranchised but new lists of citizens were drawn up to be placed in the electoral bags. And although the republic still operated the same way it had since the Ordinances of Justice were enacted, few if any important decisions were made without Cosimo’s input. In his memoirs Pope Pius II observed that after the general assembly “Cosimo was refused nothing. He was regarded as the arbiter of war and peace, the regulator of law; not so much a citizen as the master of his city. Political councils were held at his house; the magistrates he nominated were elected; he was king in all but name and state.”
Still, the new regime did have to tighten the screws here and there, just to be safe. The closest thing Florence had to a police force, the Otto di Guardia, was voted the power to investigate and try the crime of conspiracy, which came to mean conspiring against or just verbally threatening the Medici family. Theoretically the citizens of Florence still had the right to express their opinions, but opinions that had the whiff of treason were risky. One of the critics of the Medici regime that went a step too far was Girolamo Machiavelli, Machavelli’s father’s cousin. Girolamo was exiled from Florence and, presumably because he tried to incite rebellion among the towns under Florence’s control, he was arrested, brought back to the city, and executed. But Cosimo always kept himself a few degrees away from any potentially unpopular decisions, with his chief lieutenants like Luca Pitti gladly playing the role of the bad guy whenever necessary.
Cosimo appreciated that appearances counted for everything. While the Medici did everything they could to rig the electoral lots and silence their most dangerous critics, they also played up the language of liberty. The biggest of these gestures was a small yet profound name change. Once the members of the Signoria were called the priors of the guilds. Now they would henceforth be called the priors of liberty. This was a pretty bold – and very hollow – declaration that even with Cosimo pulling all the levers behind the curtain the citizens of Florence never enjoyed as much liberty as they did now. It was also a resoundingly clear message that the guilds, once the heart and soul of Florence’s republic, were now little more than a relic.
Yet, even at the height of his political power, Cosimo’s personal life reached its lowest point. His life became proof that, no matter how much influence and wealth a person gets, they still experience the same hardships most people who reach old age do. Plagued by ill health, not long after his coup he retired from all political offices although he kept exercising actual power from the comfort of his palatial home. The cause of his constant illness was gout. More rare today than it used to be, gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis that inflicts the foot, primarily the big toe, with pain and swelling. In severe cases, gout can even lead to kidney failure. The same disease tormented not only Cosimo, but both his sons as well. According to one visitor to the Palazzo Medici, he found Cosimo “sitting in his room with his two sons, all three afflicted with gout; he only a little, and Piero his elder son was not suffering at the time, but they were all seated as if they were unable to move from that position, nor could they ride and had to be carried everywhere.” Even when he just had to move around his house, Cosimo had to be carried around in a sedan chair by his servants. Whenever the servants jostled the chair against a doorpost, it usually hurt Cosimo badly. One time, when it seemed like the servants were about to accidentally hit the chair against a door frame, he cried out instinctively. The servants told him nothing happened. Cosimo joked with his usual wry sense of humor, “If anything had happened, no amount of crying out would have made any difference.”
Still, though, on April 29, 1459, he made one more grand appearance as the de facto lord of Florence. When Pius II visited Florence, Cosimo welcomed the Pope with full-on Medici hospitality. There was a joust at Santa Croce in front of an audience that paid tickets for the events followed by a ball. In the Piazzi della Signoria they brought in bulls, cows, buffaloes, horses, and wild boars. 12 lions were also brought in to hunt the prey, because this was not an era known for animal rights, but the lions were apparently so tame, they instead took one look at the other animals and fled. Still, the audience was delighted instead of disappointed when a man put himself in a giant wooden hamster ball and chased after the animals. I was going to make a joke about how easily people were entertained back then, but, honestly, I’d probably enjoy seeing a guy roll around in a giant wooden ball too.
On May 1, the last day of the festivities, Cosimo hosted a festival on the Via Larga outside his palace. A group of young men put on a choreographed horse-riding show, standing on their stirrups. The grand finale was a parade led by Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo, who was at the time ten years old. Once the parade reached the Pope and his entourage, they were cordially invited the participants to dinner in the Palazzo Medici. One of the VIP in attendance, Francesco Sforza’s son and the heir to the Duchy of Milan, Galeazzo (Gah-lee-ahzo) Maria Sforza, told his father it was “the most beautiful house I have ever seen.” Piero’s wife Lucrezia sang and played instruments while their daughter Bianca played the organ and sang French chansons, secular songs with lyrics. When it was time to bid the Pope farewell, Cosimo tried to kneel and kiss his foot, but was too crippled with gout to do fully get on his knees. According to Pius II himself, Cosimo “laughed and said, ‘Two Florentines named Papa and Lupo returning from the country met in the Piazza and offered each other their hands and a kiss. But they were both very fat and there was such corporosity (if I may use that word) on both sides that they could only touch their stomachs. Gout now denies me what corpulence refused them.”
The celebration itself would prove to be Cosimo’s own bittersweet farewell to Florence. A few years later, Cosimo would be dealt a fatal psychological blow that also completely upended his plans for the family. His younger son Giovanni was the one Cosimo had been entrusting with more and more responsibility over Florence’s domestic politics, since he shared his father’s charisma and human touch. However, Giovanni’s health had long been deteriorating, thanks in no small part, the sources suggest, because of his love of rich, fatty food. In any case, even with his bad health no one predicted that Giovanni would so suddenly die, either from a heart attack or kidney failure on September 23, 1463 at only the age of 42. His only brother Piero was actually in even worse shape from gout than his brother was. There’s no indication that Cosimo preferred Giovanni over Piero just because of personal like or dislike. However, Cosimo did clearly feel that Piero, despite the fact that he was the future head of the family, was better qualified to manage the bank than lead Florence. He was so desperate, in fact, that Cosimo entrusted certain important political responsibilities to his grandson, Piero’s oldest son, Lorenzo, even though Lorenzo was only fifteen years old. No doubt Cosimo correctly perceived some promise in his grandson, despite how young he was. But it would have been extremely unseemly, if not unthinkable, that Lorenzo be given the spot of head of the Medici family while his father was still alive, no matter how sick Piero was or how bad he was at politicking. So instead Cosimo urged Piero to put his trust in one of Cosimo’s lieutenants, Diotisalvi Neroni, a successful and beloved Florentine statesman who had been one of Cosimo’s most valuable allies since the time of his exile. In fact, at least according to Machiavelli, Cosimo “recommended Piero to be wholly guided by” Neroni “both with regard to the government of the city and the management of his fortune.” This would prove to be a rare and potentially deadly error in judgment by Cosimo, but we’ll put a pin in Neroni for now.
The death of his beloved son Giovanni coming so soon after the death of Giovanni’s young son Cosimino and the growing sickness of his other son cast a shadow over Cosimo’s moods. He apparently retained his dry sense of humor, but his mind was constantly fixed on death and the futility of human life. At one point he looked at the Palazzo Medici and remarked, “Too great a house for so small a family.” Also he was known to say that his accomplishments in life had, in the end, amounted to nothing. To a letter from Pope Pius II letter consoling him for his life and suggesting that he try to keep his sorrow in check with old-fashioned reason, Cosimo wrote:
“I have always thought it expedient and praiseworthy to control (for I could not quench) my grief; but now, most blessed Father, to act contrary to your advice would seem to me positively sinful. I therefore strive to the best of my power, and so far as my weak spirit will permit, to bear this great calamity with calmness. To me it appeared a calamity; but God alone knows what is truly a misfortune, and we, as you write so wisely and devoutly, are ignorant of it. Yet I never thought it was not well with my son Giovanni, for I remembered that he had gone forth, not from life, but into life from death. For this, which we call life, is death, and the true life is that which is everlasting…Yet we know not for what to pray. I trust that God in the abundance of His mercy will pity us that are left behind ; for the Lord is gentle and full of mercy. But for my own life, I count it happy, because the Supreme Pontiff’, the Vicar of Christ, has been thoughtful on its account. I will indeed take care of it ; but not for the reasons which you, in your more than human kindness, have put forward. For what is my power now worth? What worth has it ever had?”
Modern historians think during this time Cosimo was slowly dying from kidney or liver disease, brought on by gout. Fully aware of his impending death, Cosimo turned to the Platonic philosophy he had tried to cultivate. I should probably clarify that there is no evidence that Cosimo was any less conventionally devout than the people of his time. Still, though, Cosimo sought comfort not only in Christianity, but in Plato’s meditations on life and what comes next. In one letter, Cosimo wrote to his translator Marsilio Facino: “Yesterday I came to the villa of Careggi, not to cultivate my fields but my soul. Come to us, Marsilio, as soon as possible. Bring with you our Plato’s book. This, I suppose, you have already translated from the Greek language into Latin as you promised. I desire nothing so much as to know the best road to happiness.” Cosimo would also ask Marsilio to translate a treatise on death by the Greek philosopher Xenocrates, a book scholars today call Axiochus. The actual identity of the author of Axiochus may not have been Xenocrates and is still debated, but the important thing is that Axiochus is about Socrates coming to meet a man on his deathbed. The man seeks from Socrates any reassurance that would help him cope with his own overwhelming fear of death
By the summer of 1464 Cosimo decided to stay indefinitely at the Medici’s country villa at Careggi. We can’t say for sure, but it seems like he had decided to die there. While they were making preparations for the move, Contessina asked Cosimo why he was being quiet all of a sudden. He remarked he was busy planning the relocation and added, “I have to move on from this life to another, don’t you think that I have much to think about?” After visiting his father at Careggi, Piero wrote sadly to his sons Lorenzo and Giuliano, “It appears to me that he is gradually sinking, and he thinks so himself.” In his last days, Cosimo received the usual death rites and requested a simple tomb and funeral. Then he passed away on August 1, 1464 and was buried in a funeral that was not even as extravagant as the funerals of members of Florence’s great families. Still, the Signoria voted that his gravestone should carry the motto, “pater patriae”, an old Roman honorific meaning “father of the nation.” With Cosimo dead, Piero stepped into his father’s murky role as leader of Florence. At first, despite the dangers, the transition was seamless. Piero was even recognized by other heads of states. He received letters of condolence from no one less than Pope Pius II and King Louis XI of France, who even granted the Medici family the right to use the emblem of the lily of France in their banners, where it remains to this day.
So, for the time being, there was no real challenge to Piero stepping into his father’s shoes. But in cold political terms, Cosimo’s death was potentially a massive problem for the future of the Medici family. Cosimo’s role as the de facto leader of the republic was not defined in the Florentine constitution; there wasn’t even a word for what Cosimo was. There had been precedents, of course. Florentine patriarchs had always passed on their clients and their roles in political factions to their sons, like with Meso Albizzi and his son Rinaldo. But there wasn’t a precedent for how much power Cosimo had, much less letting all that power pass on to a son. It was one thing to be a king or, more specifically, a member of the Capetian dynasty that ruled France. The Capetians had been the kings of France since 987, so they had that role for practically forever. The sacred crown of France and longevity gave them an aura of legitimacy that protected them so well they could probably afford not just a mediocre king, but even maybe a few outright bad ones in succession. However, the Medici had neither an ancient and venerated title or the magic of political legitimacy. The task of keeping the Medici firmly in power was now entirely in the hands of Piero de’ Medici, who just so happened to be a sickly, 46-year-old man everyone thought could die any day now. But, at least, luckily he had his father’s lieutenants, who were all established, prominent politicians from powerful, elite Florentine families.
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