Читать книгу The Life and Legacy of Lorenzo de' Medici - Alfred von Reumont - Страница 12

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While these things were going on at home, the exigencies of war for many years made serious demands on the State and its resources, and more than once the contest was carried into the territory of the Republic. To the dangers which arose from the fact that two ambitious and warlike princes governed the north and south of Italy, was added the unfavourable circumstance, that a Pope sat in St. Peter’s chair who was constantly drawn into the din of war, less, perhaps, from his own restlessness, than from the hopeless confusion in the States of the Church. The principal scene of the war was Romagna, a country which, by its distracted condition, by the number of its petty lords, and the violent character of its inhabitants—still more by its geographical position and the vicinity of powerful States—seemed destined to be the general battle-field.

The hereditary enmity of Filippo Maria Visconti was aggravated by the hatred of the Florentine exiles, who, despairing of a return to their country on peaceful terms, stirred up the Duke of Milan to strife with her, under the usual pretext that it was not a war against their country, but against a faction. The want of success which attended the troops of Visconti in the territory of Lucca, under Niccolò Piccinino, was an enticement for Cosimo de’ Medici to strive to obtain possession of this town, as he did six years later, but with no greater success than before. The war, begun in the Lucchese territory, was continued in the Romagna, where Florence and Venice, with the aid of Pope Eugenius IV., resisted Visconti. The Milanese army did indeed once again cross the Apennines, but only to suffer a decisive defeat, on June 29, 1440, at Anghiari, between Arezzo and the valley of the Tiber. This defeat led to peace in the following year, and enlarged the Florentine territory by the mountain region of the Casentino, where the supremacy of the counts Guidi, allied with Milan, who, since the days of imperial power in Italy, had had dominion here, came to an end. Scarcely was the Milanese war at an end than Florence, like Venice, was drawn into the contest with Naples which Renè of Anjou was carrying on against King Alfonso of Aragon; both representatives of the dualism which the fall of the Hohenstaufen had bequeathed to South Italy. The Sienese country, the territory of Volterra and the Pisan Maremma, were the scenes of a struggle which might have been dangerous to the Republic, if the king had not been detained by besieging smaller places—though he was not unskilled in war; he suffered moreover from the malaria of the plains, and wasting the years 1447 and 1448 in inglorious and fruitless undertakings, was obliged for a while to lay down his arms without concluding peace, with the intention of taking them up again under more favourable circumstances. The opportunity was not long delayed.

In the midst of the feud between Florence and the Aragonese, Filippo Maria Visconti died, the last of a race which, more than any other, had represented the arbitrariness and cruelty of mediæval tyranny. He had appointed Alfonso of Aragon his heir, with a view perhaps that the weapons which he had wielded all his life long without stirring from the walls of his castle, might not rest even after his death. But the dukedom of Milan was in danger of dissolution. The capital, with Como, Novara, and Alessandria, cried out for a republic; Lodi and Piacenza threw themselves into the arms of Venice, which, engaged in ceaseless strife with Visconti, was just now pressing him hard. Duke Charles of Orleans, Filippo Maria’s nephew, prepared to support the rights of inheritance by force of arms; while the Duke of Savoy turned his eyes towards the rich Lombardy which his successors never again lost sight of. But there was another competitor—not a prince, but more able and skilled in arms than all the princes of the time: Francesco Sforza, the son of a valiant and successful condottiere, who had risen from the ranks of the peasantry. He had been at the age of twenty-three leader of the victorious mercenary troops of his father, who gave his name to a famous school of warriors. He had served Florence and Venice in war against the Visconti and Alfonso of Aragon; striven for and against Pope Eugenius IV. in Romagna and the frontiers; and in the midst of rapid changes of fortune and party, preserved relations with Florence which proved more lasting than those of the condottieri generally were. Now attracted by Filippo Maria, again repelled by suspicion even after the latter had bestowed on him the hand of his natural daughter, Bianca Maria, he was about to come to his assistance, when the victorious Venetians had already crossed the Adda. The duke died, and the new republic, threatened by so many foes, chose him to be their general. Three years later he became Duke of Milan. Francesco Sforza possessed himself of the supreme power by treachery and force of arms, but he saved for half a century the independence of a State which, after 170 years of tyranny, was no longer capable of life as a commonwealth, and furthered its prosperity, while he powerfully contributed to the formation of a political system which, however great its weakness, was the most reasonable under existing circumstances.

Without the aid of Florence and Cosimo de’ Medici, he would not have attained his ends. Cosimo had recognised his ability in the war with Visconti, and made a close alliance with him. In order to retain him in his service, when Filippo Maria offered him as a bait the hand of his daughter, Cosimo had gone in 1438 to Venice, in order to obtain more favourable conditions for him from the Republic, friendly to himself, in which, however, he failed. During the distress of Sforza on the frontiers, he had supported him as much as he could. His son Piero was present at Sforza’s marriage. Now it was necessary to choose between Sforza and Venice, for there was only one alternative; either the condottiere would make himself Duke of Milan, or the Republic of San Marco would extend its rule over all Lombardy. In Florence several voices declared in favour of the old ally on the Adriatic, who, however she might seek her own advantage with unscrupulous zeal, had yet ever been faithful at critical moments. Cosimo de’ Medici gave the casting-vote in Sforza’s favour. Perhaps it was hard to think of his old personal connections and obligations, but political expediency gained the day. Without Florentine money, Sforza would never have been able to maintain the double contest—on the one side against Milan, which he blockaded and starved out; and on the other against the Venetians, who sought to relieve it, and whom he repulsed. And when, on March 25, 1450, he made his entry into the city which proclaimed him ruler, he was obliged to maintain himself with Florentine money till he had established his position and re-organised the State. A Florentine embassy went to congratulate him—Piero de’ Medici, Neri Capponi, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni. The Venetians were exceedingly irritated, as was natural. They judged rightly that the Sforza owed his success essentially to the favour of their former friends. Their indignation became fiercer when Florence entered into negociations (June 29) with King Alfonso, with whom they were still at war. Common animosity to Florence and Sforza drew Venice and the king nearer to one another, and at the end of 1451 an alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded against them, which Siena, Savoy, and Montferrat joined. It was at first directed against the Duke of Milan; the Florentines had the choice of joining it, for form’s sake. But when they replied that, as peace prevailed in Italy, new alliances were not necessary, the Venetians banished all the Florentine merchants from their territories, refused a hearing to Otto Niccolini, who was entrusted with an embassy, and persuaded the king to adopt like measures. On May 16, 1452, the Republic and, four weeks later, King Alfonso declared war, which the Emperor Frederick III., then in Italy, and Pope Nicholas V., successor to Eugenius IV. since 1447, in vain endeavoured to prevent.

The Venetians began the war in Lombardy, the Neapolitans in the valley of the Chiana. Ferrante, Duke of Calabria, the king’s son, commanded the latter; Sigismundo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, the Florentines, who sent only foreign mercenaries to the field this time. The persistency with which the democracy had borne down the ancient nobility, who were trained to bear arms, had, in conjunction with the preponderance of the industrial and mercantile interests, completely annihilated the former warlike skill of the people, and though the Republic, in reliance on her pecuniary power, tried to hold her ground by means of mercenaries, she was far from being able to compete with States like Venice, Naples, and Milan, who, partly in consequence of their political form, attained greater unity in the conduct of war, and also had more men at their command, from their greater territorial power. The Florentines achieved some brilliant successes, but most of their campaigns were unfortunate, and the ability of individual citizens employed as military commissaries could not outweigh the disadvantages which sprung from general strategic incapacity and the want of unity in the commanders. The tactics of the condottieri were on the decline throughout Italy, while the art of fortification and besieging was still in its infancy. The fertile though unhealthy plain which stretches on both sides of the sluggish Chiana, between Arezzo, Cortona, and Montepulciano, was desolated by the enemy, who, however, lay for thirty-six days before the little castle of Fojano, which was only defended by 200 people. They had to retire from Castellina, another weakly-fortified place between Siena and Florence, without having effected anything, and only owed to the cowardice of the commander of Bada, in the Maremma, the capture of this unimportant fortress, before which a fleet of twenty galleys and other vessels cruised. So low had Italian strategy fallen, that they were only able to reduce even slightly defended places by hunger, while even the more practised generals feared to venture a battle, and the principal method of war was unsparing devastation of the land. The Florentines, destitute of good soldiers, sought to give another turn to affairs by inviting once more into Italy Alfonso’s old rival, René, and then his son, John of Anjou, who also bore the title of Duke of Calabria, as his father retained that of King of Naples. They thus sought to relieve the Duke of Milan, and free themselves from the incursions of the Neapolitans, who once advanced to within six miles of the town, and did great damage. In the summer of 1453 their enemies were driven back upon the Sienese territory. But a foreign event contributed more than all to terminate this miserable war, and put an end to the petty squabbling of the Italian powers.

On May 29, 1453, Mohammed II. stormed Constantinople. The West was threatened, more especially Venice, which had such great and wealthy possessions in the Levant, and Naples. This time the excellent Pope Nicholas V. did not exert himself in vain. On April 9, 1454, Venice concluded a tolerably favourable peace with Francesco Sforza at Lodi, in which King Alfonso, Florence, Savoy, Montferrat, Mantua, and Siena, were to be included. The king, who had made considerable preparations for war, did not ratify the compact till January 26 of the following year. The States of Northern and Central Italy then joined in an alliance, and a succession of peaceful years followed, which were only momentarily interrupted in the case of Florence by the freebooting expedition of Jacopo Piccinino, a son of the Niccolò who was conquered at Anghiari. Dismissed from the Venetian service, he attacked the Sienese territory in 1455, on his own account, but was defeated and compelled to set sail for Naples from Orbetello. In the confusion which broke out in Naples after king Alfonso’s death neither Florence nor Venice was involved. The ancient Florentine friendship with the house of Anjou had to yield to other influences. At the same time, when the Turks conquered the Morea, and thus approached nearer and nearer to the coasts of Italy, the Angevin party in the kingdom attempted a new rising against Ferrante of Aragon, who in 1460 suffered a defeat from Duke John, which would have driven him from the throne had his opponents been more united and more powerful. Assistance from Milan and from Rome, where Pius II. now occupied the Holy See, after the short reign (not quite three years) of Calixtus III., combined with his own energy and skill, facilitated the King’s restoration to power; and not long after, he saw the Anjou expelled from the kingdom by the decisive victory at Troia, and the insurrectionary barons, among whom were several of his near relations, given into his power. Thus Florence, like Venice, which had then little time to think of anything except danger from the Turks, was appealed to for assistance by Ferrante on the ground of the alliance concluded in consequence of the peace of Lodi; but Florence refused, from a consideration of the late King’s double dealing in the affair of Piccinino.

In the midst of the civil disputes and confusion above described, of repeated foreign troubles, and an immense exertion of material power to secure her political position, Florence in the times of Cosimo de’ Medici was still the harbour of refuge for all Italy, and, in consequence of an event important in the history of the world, the haven of Christendom. The ever-memorable movement in the intellectual world will be mentioned later; the occurrence which forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history must be considered here.

Pope Eugenius IV. had, as we have seen, to battle at once with a double opposition, which, different in origin as in significance, united for a time, and clouded a considerable part of his reign of sixteen years. The attempt to restrain within reasonable limits the Colonna, the relations of his predecessors, who had been immoderately favoured and had grown insolent, excited agitation in Rome, and kindled a strife which extended through the greater part of the States of the Church. The course pursued by the council at Basle, opened not much more than four months after the elevation of Eugenius, necessarily led to irreconcilable dissension with the pontificate, because the new assembly, instead of considering the altered position of affairs since the termination of the great schism, and confining itself firmly and with wise moderation to what was truly edifying and necessary (as exemplified, for instance, in the new Frankish-Germanic countries), raised its pretensions so high, that if they had prevailed, the Papacy would have become a cipher. The simultaneous occurrence of the ecclesiastical contest at Basle with the ambitious plans of Filippo Maria Visconti, had filled Romagna and the frontiers, the patrimony—nay, even the Campagna—with the din of war; and on June 4, 1434, the Pope was obliged to take flight from Rome. As early as the end of January affairs had assumed such an aspect in the States of the Church, especially in Bologna, that Florence deemed it necessary to arm, foreseeing that the Pope would be forced to leave Rome, and Rinaldo degli Albizzi had then expressed his opinion that it would be advantageous and honourable for the State if Eugenius IV. should choose Florence as his residence.[89] Received honourably in the city, where he had already found support in his feud with the Colonna, and residing in the convent of Sta. Maria Novella, he was witness of the revolution which brought Cosimo de’ Medici to the helm of affairs, and he remained at Florence till April 1436, when he repaired to Bologna. As the controversy with the fathers assembled at Basle became hotter every year, and he himself was cited before their tribunal, he transferred the council to Ferrara on October 1, in the following year.

While, early in 1438, the fathers at Basle were pronouncing the suspension of the Pope, the latter opened, in the capital of the house of Este, a council, at which appeared shortly afterwards the Greek Emperor, John Palæologus, in whom the distress of his crumbling empire had aroused the hope of securing the assistance of the West by a union with the Church. A pestilence which broke out in Ferrara caused the removal of the synod to Florence, where in January 1439 it began its sittings, and on July 6 proclaimed the reunion of the two churches,[90] six weeks after the deposition of Eugenius IV. had been decreed by the council at Basle, which had degenerated into a conciliabulum, and which a few months later elected Duke Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, a powerless anti-Pope, under the name of Felix V. The bronze doors of the church of St. Peter’s in the Vatican, the work of two Florentine artists, though not the best specimen of the Florentine sculpture of that age, commemorate these events in the reliefs. The reconciliation between East and West could not be of long duration; the schism, a double one, as it was a question of doctrine as well as supremacy, and was deeply rooted in the feelings of the people, broke out again immediately afterwards. But for Florence, where also a reconciliation of the Armenians with the Church of Rome took place, the council formed an epoch in the world’s history.

Eugenius IV. resided for four years in the city, while powerful regents, entrusted with full power, governed Rome. First, the cardinal-patriarch Giovanni Vitelleschi, for a time Archbishop of Florence, and involved in the catastrophe of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, as Luca Pitti was, six years later, in that which ended in his violent death; then Cardinal Ludovico Scarampi, likewise Archbishop of Florence at a time when this see needed a more worthy pastor than these prelates, wearing coat-of-mail and sword. It was precisely during these years that the Pope was more involved than suited his pastoral dignity in that endless confusion in the Romagna and the frontiers which occupied the last years of Filippo Maria Visconti, nor did his Holiness hold himself quite aloof from a share in Florentine party divisions. It would have been better for him if he had appeared there less as a temporal prince than as Pope. On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, with which the year began, according to Florentine custom, he consecrated Sta. Maria del Fiore, where the solemn proclamation of union in the Church followed: two occurrences recorded on the large marble tablets which are to be seen on each side of the entrance to the new sacristy. After the consecration, the Gonfaloniere, Giuliano Davanzati, received the honour of knighthood. The church of Sta. Croce was consecrated in 1442, in the presence of the Pope, by Cardinal Bessarion, Archbishop of Nicæa, one of the few Greeks who remained in communion with the Latin church. Another memorial of this Pope is the Collegium Eugenianum, founded in the year 1435, an institution for young priests, which now occupies the former locality of the Florentine university in the street named after it, Via dello Studio, where the antique modest building speaks of former days.

The contest for the Neapolitan throne almost produced a serious rupture between Eugenius IV. and Florence. The Pope had once recognised the claims of René of Anjou, and granted him the investiture which Cosimo de’ Medici received February 23, 1435.[91] He afterwards inclined to the side of his opponent, who, after the conquest of the capital, forced René to evacuate the kingdom. In the summer of 1442 the latter had come to Florence, with the hope of regaining the Pope’s favour, and also of inducing the Republic to give active support to Francesco Sforza, who, as we have seen, had fought on his side, but was now hard pressed in Romagna and on the frontiers. The King, without a kingdom, was honourably received by the Gonfaloniere, Giovanni Falconi; one of the houses of the Bardi was assigned to him as residence, and twenty-five gold florins a day granted him for his maintenance. But Eugenius IV. was not to be won over, and the Florentines seem also to have despaired of any favourable result, after Sforza’s contest had cost, and continued to cost, them such heavy sums. When René saw that he was wasting his time, he embarked at Leghorn in a Genoese ship, which brought him back to Provence.

At last, March 7, 1443, the Pope quitted Florence. The mistrust felt towards him on account of his supposed understanding with the exiles, had declared itself so openly, that advice was sent from Venice rather to hinder his departure than to let him go with anger and evil intentions in his heart. Leonardo Aretino, the chancellor, and other judicious citizens spoke against it. Venice herself, he said, would take care not to act so in a similar case. He was right, for the Pope was a power not to be despised. Vespasiano da Bisticci describes the impression which he made on the people.[92] When Eugenius, surrounded by the cardinals, stood on the scaffolding erected at the entrance to the cloisters of Sta. Maria Novella, to dispense his blessing, not a sound was to be heard in the Piazza, which with the adjoining streets was filled with people, and as he pronounced the ‘Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini,’ sobs and cries of ‘Misericordia’ were heard on every side. At such moments he really appeared to be the Deity, whose vicegerent he was. The way in which Eugenius IV. departed from the city which had afforded him hospitality so many years, is a strange picture of the confused state of things. ‘During the whole night before the day on which the Pope took his departure,’ relates Vespasian again,[93] ‘there had been a contention as to whether he should be allowed to go or not. After all the influential citizens had come to an agreement, they commissioned Messer Agnolo (Acciaiuoli) to go to the Pope early in the morning, and to inform him he could go whither he pleased. The Pope and his suite waited for this announcement. When Messer Agnolo entered Sta. Maria Novella, Messer Francesco of Padua (Cardinal Condulmer, nephew of Eugenius) came to meet him outside the Pope’s chamber, and asked if they were prisoners. Messer Agnolo answered that, had they been prisoners, he would not have been charged with the commission, but another citizen who had voted in that sense. When the Pope heard it, he thanked him and the Signoria many times, instantly mounted and rode with his suite to Siena.’

In the Augustinian convent of Lecceto, before the Fontebrand, a gate of this city, where Eugenius IV. resided several months before returning to Rome, which had become more and more anarchical during his nine years’ absence, he granted the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily to Alfonso, on July 15,[94] and thus began the uninterrupted though often threatened reign of the Aragonese line, which lasted till the oft-revived question of the succession ended in the violent overthrow of the whole political system for which the Medici had laboured in a different way and in another sense.

Sixteen years after the departure of Eugenius, another Pope came to Florence—another man, with other plans and thoughts. On April 25, 1459, Pius II. came hither from Siena on his way to the conference of princes assembled at Mantua to organise a crusade against the Turks. Florence was by no means well inclined towards her Sienese neighbours, and the last Neapolitan war, favoured by Siena, had not exactly improved the feeling. The Sienese priest, raised to the highest dignity of Christendom, and desirous of setting a limit to the threatening progress of Islam, was, however, most honourably received. Several princes and lords had repaired to the city before the Pope, to welcome him. Galeazzo Maria Visconti, son of the Duke of Milan, sixteen years old, appeared with a troop of 350 horse and Cosimo de’ Medici, although ill, could not be induced to neglect the duty of hospitality towards the son of his ally and friend; Sigismondo Malatesta, an Ordelaffi of Forli, a Pio of Carpi, one of the Feltrieri of Urbino, and others rode out with the young Sforza to San Casciano, where, eight miles from the city, the road descends into the valley of the Arno, and where the solemn reception took place. The Gonfaloniere, Agnolo Vettori, led Pius II. to Sta. Maria Novella, the usual residence of the Pope. The lover of learning and art delighted in the many beautiful things which the city, then exceedingly rich, offered to him; business, with the exception of a new election of bishops, does not seem to have been attended to. Cosimo de’ Medici was hindered from being present by indisposition which could not have been feigned.

During the ten days’ visit of the Pope there died on May 2, Archbishop Antoninus, who was already called a saint, before Pope Adrian VI. canonised him. Sound common sense, great goodness of heart, piety, and well-directed benevolence, which founded several institutions still standing, reformatory zeal and firmness in defending the rights of the Church, had made him, who was also learned in science, appear the model of an excellent pastor to the people during the fourteen years which he dedicated to the office of archbishop, in a time full of suffering and sudden revolutions of fortune. Such a model he has remained to the present day, when his writings have been collected, and a beautiful marble statue has been erected to his memory among those of distinguished Florentines. The pageantry of the days immediately preceding and following his decease suited but ill with the loss of a man so honourable and excellent, which was heavily felt by all the people. Splendid games and festivals were arranged for the princes of Milan and the other lords. To a tourney succeeded a festival on the New Market Place, where the most beautiful women were assembled; then a hunting-party on the Piazza before Sta. Croce, where, besides the usual forest animals, a lion and a giraffe were exhibited. A triumphal procession took place in the evening. A silver table-service, weighing 125 pounds, was presented to the youthful Sforza. It was a custom to entertain princely personages at the cost of the Commune.

On November 10, 1461, Charlotte of Lusignan, consort of Prince Louis of Savoy, arrived at Florence[95] on her way to Rome, whither she was going to entreat the aid of Pius II. against her illegitimate step-brother Jacob. The latter had possessed himself of the supremacy over Cyprus, belonging to her of right, and held her husband besieged in Nicosia. The Signoria, with the Gonfaloniere, Alessandro Machiavelli, at their head, went to meet her, and conducted her under a canopy to the house of Cambiozzo de’ Medici, in the Borgo San Lorenzo, which was prepared for her reception. During her seven days’ visit she went up to the basilica of San Miniato, which towers above the city, to visit the grave of the cardinal of Portugal, brother of Juan of Coimbra, her first husband, who had died here in 1459, on an embassy from Pius II. Pope Pius has described in his memoirs the last of the Lusignans, who in the summer of 1487, after more than a quarter of a century spent in exile, found in St. Peter’s church in the Vatican that rest which had been denied to her in this life.