Episode 23: The Calm Before The Storm

Transcript

On July 19, 1476, Pierfrancesco passed away. He was the renegade Medici that his contemporaries described as a “bit of a backwoodsman” and who never showed much real interest in business, politics, or art, although his contemporaries did compliment him on his good manners. With his death, family history repeated. Just as happened when his own father, Cosimo’s brother Lorenzo, died, Pierfrancesco’s two sons were left sitting on a fortune and shares in the Medici bank, but too young legally to be independent. So Lorenzo took in Pierfrancesco’s sons, 14-year-old Lorenzo and 9-year-old Giovanni, and had them raised along his own children, just like how Cosimo had Pierfrancesco raised in his own household. And yes, I know, it’s so inconvenient that Pierfrancesco also named his son Lorenzo.

No doubt Lorenzo was acting in a way that would have been expected of any patriarch of a family. But he also eventually showed he had his ulterior motive, namely his designs on his cousins’ wealth. Having clients all across Tuscany and helping fund artists and academic institutions is expensive. Also the Medici bank under Lorenzo’s watch was frankly struggling. But we’ll cover both of these things in later episodes. For now, though, it’s enough to admit that Lorenzo did not repay the debts he owed to the boys’ father and instead forcibly “borrowed” money from the boys’ accounts. Also he badly managed the properties and business assets Pierfrancesco’s sons inherited, to the point that the two boys demonstrably lost a fair amount of profits and would find once they grew up and could manage their own affairs that they owed the government of Florence a hefty chunk of unpaid taxes.

The historian Mary Hollingsworth, who is admittedly a little uncharitable in some of her interpretations of the Medici family’s actions, outright accuses Lorenzo of acting out of greed. Perhaps, or maybe he was driven more by desperation as the Medici bank floundered. Even so, I do wonder if his decisions were colored by resentment against Pierfrancesco, who was at best a faulty link in the family chain. However, the only certainty is that Lorenzo constantly needed money, and unfortunately his helpless cousins had lots of it.

In the meantime, the man who would become Lorenzo’s nemesis was about to come into his own. This man’s name was Francesco della Rovere. Honestly, he couldn’t have been any more different from the cultured, athletic merchant-prince that Lorenzo presented himself as. Francesco was a heavy-set, toothless man. Born the son of a fisherman living in a poor coastal village in the Republic of Genoa, Francesco used the church as his ladder to climb out of poverty. He was even elected pope on August 9, 1471, perhaps as an antidote to his predecessor, Innocent VIII, who was a Venetian nobleman whose papal lifestyle was so lavish it helped put the Holy See into debt.

Francesco chose the name Sixtus IV. But even his surname, della Rovere, was just an affectation he picked. Originally he bore the name “de Savona”, which just designated that he was from a place near the town of Savona. Once he reached the upper echelons of the church, though, he and his family took the name “della Rovere”, with Rovere meaning “oak tree” in French. It was an appropriately lofty sounding name for an up-and-coming dynasty.

And to go with the name, Sixtus meant to make his family Italian nobility, with lands and power that would last after he was dead. Sixtus was far from the first pope to engage in nepotism, and in fact in other things Sixtus IV had a good reputation for genuine piety and humility. However, his determination to use the power of the papacy to prop up his relations was shocking, even to his contemporaries and to modern historians. Still, you have to look at it from Sixtus’ perspective. He was a poor boy who struck it big, but surrounded by predatory courtiers and hangers-on who would gladly send his loved ones packing back to their fishing village or worse the minute he died. And, of course, in the papal court which was just as dangerous as any royal court, his family were the only ones who could be trusted to fully support him. The Pope and his family were both dependent on each other, and strengthening his family would in turn strengthen his reign.

At first, Sixtus viewed Lorenzo as a friend, perhaps even an ally. When Sixtus IV ascended to the papacy, Lorenzo led a diplomatic mission from Florence to the new pope personally. The Pope in turn welcomed him warmly, even referring to him like a son. Things started to go wrong soon, however. Lorenzo personally asked the Pope to consider making his brother Giuliano a cardinal. Even though Giuliano showed little inclination toward a career in a church, Lorenzo was apparently already looking at ways outside the bank to extend the family’s influence. And perhaps, as Giuliano feared, it was a way for Lorenzo to get his ambitious little brother out of the way. Either way, Sixtus gave the two open cardinal spots to his nephews, Giuliano della Rovere and Pietro Riario. He even also granted Cardinal Pietro the position of Archbishop of Florence, a key post that Lorenzo would have preferred to give to one of his clients. A pragmatist as always, Lorenzo let it slide. But this would not be the last time that Sixtus’ nepotism would slam into Lorenzo’s plans like a train into a cardboard box on the track.

The Pope quickly made another of his nephews, Leonardo della Rovere, the prefect of Rome and married him to an illegitimate daughter of King Ferrante of Naples, who was starting to feel out a possible alliance with the papacy. Next, Pope Sixtus looked toward northern Italy to further enrich his relatives, specifically the region of the Romagna which bordered Florentine territory from the east. Ostensibly under papal control, the Romagna was effectively ruled by local nobles, whose titles and territories could be snatched up and given to the Pope’s family members easily enough. Sixtus then gave his nephew Girolamo Bosco d’Alessandria, a village in the northern Romagna, which brought with it the title of count. Girolamo’s brother, the new Cardinal Pietro, personally negotiated a marriage between Girolamo and Duke Galeazzo Sforza’s daughter Caterina. Overnight, the della Roveres and Riarios had joined the ranks of Italy’s blue bloods.

Soon enough, an opportunity soon arose that would eventually give both the Pope and Lorenzo a massive headache. The city of Imola, also in the Romagna, was ruled by its own signore, Taddeo Manfredi, but he was hugely unpopular and genuinely afraid he would be killed by an assassin or in a revolt. So he agreed to sell control of the city to the Duke of Milan in exchange for a quieter, safer territory.  Both Pope Sixtus and Lorenzo had a stake in Imola, which was a strategically valuable city that lied right on one of the key trade routes through northern Italy and was right on the border between papal and Florentine territory.

Tapping into his personal relationship with the Duke of Milan, Lorenzo personally negotiated a treaty between the signoria of Florence and the duke that would allow Florence to buy Imola from Milan. However, Sixtus had already learned about the impending sale of Imola and decided he wanted to take advantage in order to give his beloved nephew an upgrade from a hamlet to an important city. When he heard about the Duke of Milan and Florence’s agreement, the Pope flew into a rage. He wrote to the Duke, trumpheting, “Oh my son! Listen to your father’s counsel. Depart not from the Church, for it is written, ‘Whoever separates from thee must perish.” To his own cardinals and courtiers, the Pope ranted that Lorenzo by daring try to buy Imola was being ungrateful, that he had approached Lorenzo like a loving father only for Lorenzo to shove him away. Without context, you might think the Pope was railing against heretics, instead of just getting mad over a property deal. It was, though, enough to literally strike the fear of God in the duke of Milan. Afraid of excommunication or worse, the duke reneged on his deal with the signoria of Florence and instead offered the city to Count Girolamo Riario for less of a price. Apparently in a deliberate effort to pour salt over the wound, Sixtus turned to the Medici bank and requested they loan Cardinal Pietro the funds, which he could then give to his brother Count Girolamo in order to buy the city. News of this leaked out to the public of Florence, who went into an uproar. This put Lorenzo right between the proverbial rock and a hard place: either cross the Pope or enrage his people. Lorenzo picked the former option and ordered the bank manager in Rome to deny Cardinal Pietro the loan. His decision was encouraged by the Duke of Milan, who hoped the deal would fall through and he could actually keep Imola without enraging the Pope. However, someone else stepped up and authorized the loan, allowing Count Girolamo to acquire Imola. And that person was none other than one of the Medici’s major banking competitors: Jacopo de’ Pazzi.

It’s worth pausing a minute and talking about the Pazzi, who would play a starring role in the tragedy to come. The family took its name from its ancestor Pazzo, a knight who joined the First Crusade and won renown as the first crusader to climb over the walls of Jerusalem. As a reward, he was given flints chiseled off the altar of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which he donated as a relic to the Church of San Apostoli in his native Florence. Another member of the family served as a soldier in the French army and won so much distinction he was granted a shield by no one other than the king of France himself. Under the Ordinances of Justice, the Pazzi were among the noble families kicked out of politics. Although they were even among Florence’s aristocracy notorious for their pride, by 1342 the family adapted by formally renouncing their noble status and started a banking business. To that end, Cosimo de’ Medici had arranged to have his granddaughter and Lorenzo’s favorite sister Bianca betrothed to Jacopo’s nephew Giuglielmo de’ Pazzi. The families were linked, even to the point where Lorenzo and Giuglielmo were close friends in childhood. Now, as an adult, Lorenzo saw the Pazzi family as a potential threat that had to be contained. He pulled the strings to make sure the Pazzi usually were only chosen for political offices that were prestigious but had little real political power. Now, with the Imola deal, the Pazzi had a chance to punch back and there was practically nothing Lorenzo could do about it.

Even then, things might have cooled down eventually, but Sixtus couldn’t help but keep picking at the Romagna. As part of an aggressive military campaign to put the petty nobles of the Romagna on a tighter leash, papal forces menaced Citta di Castello, whose name in English literally means “Castle Town.” Like Imola, the Citta de Castello bordered Florentine territory. Even more importantly, its signore Niccolo Vitelli was a personal friend of Lorenzo’s and had signed an alliance with the signoria of Florence. So Florentine forces went to the Citta di Castello’s defense. When the Pope angrily fired off a missive to Lorenzo, he claimed, and probably truthfully, that he couldn’t have stopped the signoria from voting to respect their alliance with Niccolo Vitelli. However, it seems like many rulers around Italy believed Lorenzo had more authority over Florence than he actually did, and Sixtus was no exception. He did not hesitate to escalate matters by vetoing all of the papacy’s business arrangements with the Medici bank, a relationship that had almost continuously lasted since the days of Lorenzo’s great-grandfather Giovanni di Bicci.

The last straw came after the sudden death of Cardinal Pietro in 1474. The death of his beloved nephew, whom he hoped would one day follow his footsteps into the papacy, so shook Sixtus that there were fears that he went insane. However, Sixtus eventually got himself together and moved to put one of his supporters into the empty seat of Archbishop of Florence. Sixtus’ candidate was Francesco Salviati, who just so happened to be a relative of the Pazzi through his aunt. However, according to ancient agreements, the signoria of Florence had a say in who would be their archbishop. With Lorenzo’s prompting, they instead accepted Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Rinaldo Orsini, as archbishop. Sixtus then slotted Francesco Salviati into the recently vacant position of archbishop of Pisa, which was a post in Florence’s sphere of influence but which the signoria of Florence had no say over. We don’t know for sure how much Lorenzo had to do with what happened next. Whatever Lorenzo’s opinion on the matter, the signoria voted to bar Salviati from ever setting foot into his new diocese by force if necessary. Again, in Sixtus’ mind it was one man, and not a bunch of elected officials, who was responsible for the continued slights on him and his family. This time, Sixtus thundered that Lorenzo was a “usurping tyrant” and a “depraved and malignant spirit.”

This was the state of things when Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza wrote Lorenzo a mysterious letter, earnestly urging Lorenzo to “keep himself safe and his eyes on what is happening.” If such a warning disturbed Lorenzo, he gave no sign in his correspondence with the duke. Instead, in his response, he dismissed such warnings as delusions from “a group of malcontents with little standing in the community.” Not long after this exchange, on December 26, 1476, three young men approached Duke Galeazzo Maria on his way to Mass and made as if they were about to hand him a petition. Instead, they all pulled out daggers and stabbed him. Duke Galeazzo was paranoid enough to always wear a breastplate under his clothes whenever he went out in public, but this day of all days he forgot. His killers were all noblemen, who were educated in the humanist tradition and had romantic views of ancient Rome. They just wanted to follow in the footsteps of the assassins of Julius Caesar and restore the republic, but, also like Caesar’s assassins, they had no plan as to what to do once their target was dead. This is something they must have realized when they ran through the streets of Milan shouting “Liberty! Liberty!” and instead the people shouted back, “The duke! The duke!”

After the assassination, Lorenzo wrote to Duke Galeazzo’s widow, Bona of Savoy. He promised his support “as long as he had life in his body, and if that failed, he would leave instructions in his will for his sons to do the same.” Lorenzo had every reason to be concerned. The Sforza regime survived the assassination, but Duke Galeazzo Maria’s heir was a seven-year-old boy, Gian Galeazzo. He lost another long-time ally, King Ferrante of Naples. When Florence had to stay neutral in war involving Naples in order to avoid alienating another friend of Lorenzo who ruled a nearby city, King Ferrante left the Florentine camp, finally breaking the old triple alliance.

Lorenzo de’ Medici was vulnerable, and Pope Sixtus IV saw a chance to rid himself of a man he viewed as not only an obstacle, but a relentless enemy. The stage was set for what the historian Brad S. Thompson called “one of the more bizarre and grizzly episodes in European history.”