Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici

Giovanni took up residence in Rome in 1500, where he lived a lavish lifestyle, surrounded by friends and relatives, including his cousin Guilio, illegitimate son of the Guiliano who had been murdered by the Pazzi, and his youngest brother, also named Guiliano.  According to Christopher Hibbert, in "The House of the Medici," Giovanni played the role of the generous host to the extent that he was frequently in debt.  The days of the great Medici Bank, established by Giovanni's great-great-grandfather were over.  Church benefices and later, the sale of indulgences, would fund the lives of the Medici cardinals and popes.

In 1503 a new pope was elected:  Cardinal Guilano della Rovere became Julius II.  Known as the "Warrior Pope" for expanding the Papal States by warfare, he was also known for his ambitious building projects and his patronage of the arts.  Julius II commissioned the destruction and reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica, and also later commissioned the decoration by Michelangelo of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The cardinals, including Giovanni, accompanied Julius II in battle, aided by the Spanish, and as it happened, Giovanni was taken prisoner near Bologna by the French in 1512, but later escaped and made his way to Mantua.  There a plot was in the works to bring the Medici back to power in Florence, which had been suffering a lack of leadership after the exile of the Medici.   The Spanish Army then marched on into Tuscany, where the engagement that was later called "The Sack of Prato" convinced the Florentines to lay down arms.   The Medici Family was now back in power in Florence!!

The Legacy of Lorenzo and Clarice

Why not have it all?  Control of both Church and State!  Although this may have been their plan, control of both Church and State at the same time would prove difficult for the Medici Family.

After Lorenzo's death, the head of the family was Piero, the eldest son.  Unfortunately, he was not the diplomat his father was.  In brief, he allowed the French king to march his army through Florence in 1494, after which the Florentines exiled the Medici.

The hopes of the family were then pinned on the future of Giovanni 1475-1521), second son of Lorenzo and Clarice.  From an early age, he had been destined for the Church.  He was tonsured at age seven or eight and made a cardinal at the age of 13.  He was not allowed to wear the robes until three years later, but as his father lay dying in Florence in 1492 he was already being welcomed in Rome (see Lives of the Early Medici, as told by their correspondence, translated by Janet Ross).

After being exiled from Florence, because there was a price on his head, Giovanni traveled in Germany, the Netherlands and France, returning to Rome in 1500, where he was welcomed by the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI.

The fresco above, Ghirlandaio's "Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule," in the Sassetti Chapel of Santa Trinita in Florence, is widely believed to be portraits of the young children of Lorenzo and Clarice.  According to "The Medici, the Golden Age of Collecting," by Massimo Winspeare, proceeding up the staircase is the children's tutor, Agnolo Poliziano, with Guilio (son of the murdered Guiliano, see post of 9/23/12) followed by Piero and Giovanni.  Bringing up the rear are the poet Luigi Pulci and the canon Matteo Franco.  Hint:  there are two future Medici popes in this fresco!

And then Lorenzo died . . .

. . . at his villa at Careggi on April 9, 1492.  He was 43 years old, and had been suffering from the same disease that had affected many other members of the family, gout.  He had taken the last sacrament already, but according to some accounts, called for Fr. Savanarola, who had repeatedly preached against the power and might of the Medici, to hear his confession.

     Of course, we will never know if Lorenzo actually confessed to the sin of misappropriating state and trust funds, specifically the Monte di Doti, but the evidence seems to indicate that near the end of his life, Lorenzo did line his own pockets through a scheme of reducing the interest paid (see Alfred von Raumont's account in Lorenzo De' Medici:  the Magnificent, Volume 2).

     Lorenzo's "dark side" is symbolized for me by the above image, the reverse of the Desco da Porto (birth tray, see blog entry of 2/14/12), which was once resplendent in silver decoration that has now oxidized, and which is embellished with Piero de' Medici's emblem, a diamond ring, three feathers, and a banderole inscribed with the motto "Semper" or "Always."  The birth tray was hanging on the wall of Lorenzo's bedroom at Careggi, and was included in the inventory done at his death.  These inventories, while done at the time for tax purposes, have served history well in that we have  documentation from the time and place.

Another Orsini Marries into the Medici Family, 1488

Lorenzo di Medici and Clarice Orsini had ten children, including their oldest son, Piero de Lorenzo de Medici, called "the Unfortunate," because of the events he allowed to unfold after his father's death.

But that is skipping ahead of the date, 1488, when Piero married Alfonsina Orsini, who was 16 at the time, and the daughter of Roberto Orsini, Conte Tagliacozzo, and Catherine San Severino.   While Piero may be called "the Unfortunate," it was a fortunate  marriage for the Medici family (and the city of Florence) because decades later  Alfonsina would serve as Regent.

The portrait above, by Botticelli, is currently in the inventory of the Palazzo Pitti.  To my knowledge it has not been on display in recent years.  But just as there is renewed interest in Anna Luisa de Medici (and that's skipping centuries ahead) currently, perhaps there will come a time when some curator decides to do an exhibition on the Medici wives.

Lorenzo's Last Mistress

Francesco Guicciardini said that when he was forty Lorenzo who 'was licentious and very amorous,' fell desperately in love with Bartolommea dei Nasi, the wife of Donato Benci, and spent night after night with her at her country villa, returning to Florence just before dawn.  "Although she was not shapely, she was courteous and well-mannered."

Guicciardini further comments, "It is absurd to consider so important a man, with his reputation and judiciousness should, at the age of forty, be so taken with a woman who was not beautiful and already advanced in years."  Bartolommea was thirty at the time.

While the above portrait is not Bartolommea (it's Portrait of a Woman Inspired by Lucretia, by Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1553), I'd like to think that she might have looked something like this, beautiful in spite of her size and years.  

"Guicciardini gave credence to the report that the fatal illness of Lorenzo was brought on by the exposure to which Lorenzo subjected himself in following up his love intrigue with Bartolommea de' Nasi, the wife of Donato Benci, a lady who was neither young nor beautiful but of much distinction in manner and intelligence.  In order to save the reputation of the lady, who lived near her villa in the country during the winter months, Lorenzo, then a widower, visited her regularly after nightfall and returned to Florence in the morning.  He was accompanied on these occasions by a portion of that body-guard, with some of whom he was always surrounded after the conspiracy of the Pazzi.  Two of them having complained of their hard service, the lady contrived o get them sent away in disgrace on distant embassies.  'A mad thing'..., says Guicciardini, 'was it, if we consider that a man of such greatness, reputation, and prudence---of forty years of age---should e so captivated by a lady, not beautiful and full of years, as to be brought to do things which would have misbecome any boy.'"  (Smith, 1876, p. 134)

And then Clarice died . . .

. . . of tuberculosis, at the age of only 34, on July 30, 1488.  Her grieving husband Lorenzo wrote the following to Pope Innocent VIII:

Sanctissime ac Beatissime Pater post Pedum oscula Beatorum Vestrorum

Too often am I obliged to trouble and worry Your Beatitude with accidents sent by fortune and divine interposition, which as they are not to be resisted must be borne with patience.  But the death of Clarice, which has just occurred, my most dear and beloved wife, has been and is so prejudicial, so great a loss, and such a grief to me for many reasons, that it has exhausted my patience and my power of enduring anguish, and the persecution of fortune, which I did not think would have made me suffer thus.  The deprivation of such habitual and such sweet company has filled my cup and has made me so miserable that I can find no peace.  Nought is left but to pray God that He may give me peace, and I have faith that in His infinite love He will alleviate my sorrow and not overwhelm me with so many disasters as I have endured during these last year.  I humbly beg your Beatitude with all my heart to pray for me as I know how efficacious are such prayers.  I commend myself and place myself at Your Holy Feet.----Filetta, July 31, 1488.  Your devoted servant, Laurentius de Medicis.

I've posted a view of the interior of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Medici family church.  There's no mention that I can find of whether or not Clarice is buried in either the Old Sacristry or the New Sacristry, but I would like to think that at least there was a service for her in this beautiful church, designed by Brunelleschi.

Maddelena, Lorenzo's favorite daughter

"Historians believe Maddalena de’ Medici, born in Florence on 25 July 1473, was Lorenzo il Magnifico’s favourite daughter. Her marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, the son of Pope Innocent VIII, was a vitally important development for this noble Florentine house. Lorenzo’s prestige grew and, furthermore, he was able to better cultivate his relations with the Pope. This marriage also paved the way for his second son, Giovanni, who was to assume the papal office as Leo X. Maddalena received this work, a small exquisitely adorned and bound book of prayers − now a part of the Rothschild   collection at Waddesdon Manor in England − as a wedding gift. (see post of Aug 24, 2013)  Of the codices commissioned for his daughters, this work was the finest and most richly adorned. The original binding went missing hundreds of years ago. Franco Cosimo Panini Editore therefore conducted in-depth historical and philological research to do the impossible: painstakingly reconstruct the binding as it was, down to the very last detail! An extraordinary tribute to Maddalena de’ Medici has thus been revived." (from http://www.oremedici.it/en/the-manuscript/

Lorenzo had these Books of Hours made . . .

. . . for his three daughters as wedding gifts.  'The first of these works - commissioned about 1485, and now to be found in Monaco - he gave to Lucrezia, who married Jacopo Salviati.  The second, now at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana library, was for Luisa, the betrothed of Giovanni di Pierfanncesco de' Medici (she died before the day of the wedding).  The third was a wedding gift for Maddalena, the bride of Count Franceschetto Cybo, the illegitimate son of Pope Innocent VIII.  These three Offizioli (or breviaries) are a touching tribute from a loving father - one of the most powerful men of the period of the Renaissance - to his three very young daughters."(from  http://www.oremedici.it/en/the-manuscript).

In the meanwhile, Sandro Botticelli . . .

. . . was painting the "Primavera," which today hangs in the Uffizi.  The patronage and meaning of the painting are shrouded in mystery and speculation.  It most likely was commissioned by one of the Medici, perhaps Lorenzo himself, or by his cousin, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici.  Whatever its origin and history, by 1499 it was included in an inventory of the possessions of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.

     There are many fascinating aspects to the painting, including that there are around 500 different plant species, of which 130 have been specifically named, according to Gloria Fossi, in her 1998 book.

     The painting has been in the Uffizi since 1919, except during WWII when it was removed to a castle about ten miles south of Florence, to protect it from war time bombing.

     The painting has darkened considerably just since I have been going to visit it.  In 2002, when I first saw it,  the colors were quite brilliant.  Sadly, these days I skip the Botticelli rooms altogether, as it breaks my heart to see how dark and dingy so many of the paintings have become.  According to my research, the last time this painting was restored was 1982.  Unfortunately, it needs to be done again.  The next time I am in the office of Amici deli Uffizi (to buy my museum pass), I will ask if there are any plans.

The Pazzi Conspiracy: A Tour through Florence

Now, with a nod to Cheryl Tucker, whose concept for this walk was first published In Florence, Sights and Landmarks:

Let us begin at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi (see post of Sun, Jan 29, 2012), at the corner of Via Cavour and Via de' Gori. The conspirators had originally set their sights on this palace to carry out their attack on the two Medici brothers, but as Guiliano was not in attendance, the site was changed to the duomo, one long block away, down Via de Martelli:

We'll walk around the north side of the cathedral, taking note of the fact that Lorenzo hid in the North Sacristry until it was safe to get back to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (see post of Feb 3, 2012 for more info on the duomo).  We'll proceed to the street facing the east side of the cathedral,  the Via del Proconsolo, and we'll turn south, going about a block to the corner where Borgo degli Albizi meets Via del Corso.  This is the Canto dei Pazzi (see post of Nov 25, 2012), where the Pazzi and their compatriots would have run from the melee that ensued after the murder of Guilano and the attempt on the life of Lorenzo.

Looking up we can see the Pazzi coat of arms (see post of Sep 28, 2012), and on the ground level we can take note of the entrance to the Palazzo Pazzi Quaratesi.  If we had been here Sep 21 & 22, 2012 and if we had purchased a 15 euro "wine card," as part of the Wine town 2012 festivities, we would have been able to enter (see <www.winetown.it> for details).  Since we missed that opportunity, we'll continue south along Proconsolo another long block or so until we see the Bargello.

Today the Bargello is the National Sculpture Museum, but in the time of the Medici it was a prison, and it was in this place that many of the low-level conspirators were hanged.  There will be more on the Bargello, one of my favorite museums, in a later post.   From here we cross the tiny Piazzi di San Firenze, turning right at Via di Gondi, which is also the most northeast corner of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Walking around to the front of the Palazzo, we see the windows at the top which served as a continuous gallows during those three days after the attempted coup.  The bodies of the major conspirators--Francisco de' Pazzi and the Archbishop of Pisa among them--were each left dangling by a noose above the crowd below (see post of Oct 20, 2012).  In all, about a hundred people were killed in three days.

I don't know about you, but one of the things that impresses me most about Florence is its permanence. Living in Southern California as I do most of the year, I have become accustomed to public, commercial, and private buildings being continuously torn down and replaced.  It gives me great reassurance to walk around Florence and see that the major landmarks are still there, as they were three, four, five hundred years ago.

Canto dei Pazzi

Another reminder of the Pazzi family that we can still see today is the Palazzo Pazzi Quaratesi, or the Pazzi Quarter (neighborhood).  Today, when we walk north up Via del Proconsolo and turn left at Borgo degli Albizi to go to the Duomo, we look up and see "Canto die Pazzi," which means the Pazzi corner.  There we find the main Palazzo Pazzi, which was rebuilt 1462-72 for Jacapo de' Pazzi.  When the Pazzi were executed or exhaled, this property was seized by Lorenzo.  We next hear of it when it becomes a wedding present . . .

Also in the neighborhood is the three-story Palazzo Pazzi-Ammannati, which today houses Florence's small museum of natural history and is also the site of temporary exhibitions.

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The Pazzi Chapel

Of course, the Pazzi should not only be remembered for their bad deeds, their participation in the Pazzi Conspiracy, but also for their good deeds.  The Pazzi Chapel, designed by Brunelleschi, who also designed and completed the dome over the cathedral, is located in the Santa Croce complex.  One passes through the chapel when leaving the church before going to the museum.  Construction was begun in 1442, in the iconic style of Brunelleschi, and is made of pietra serena and white plaster, and is unrelieved by color.

So, while the Medici and their friends were temporarily successful in stripping the Pazzi of their possessions, their properties, their florins (and therefore their dowries--there's another story), in the long run, the Pazzi name continues still today to be visible in Florence. 

Clarice and the Children after the Conspiracy

Above, we see a portion of a fresco by Ghirlandaio in the Sassetti Chapel of Santa Trinita, Florence.  Poliziano is seen here with his pupils, Lorenzo's sons and nephew.

In 1478 , after the Pazzi conspiracy, when the Pope was stirring up war against the Medici he hated, Lorenzo sent his wife and children to Pistoia, where they were the guests of the Panciaticchi, for safety.  With them went Angelo Poliziano as tutor to Piero the eldest boy, then about six years of age.  The stiff, proud Roman, Madonna Clarice, had never know how to gain her husband’s love, and did not get on well with his brilliant, sarcastic, rather Bohemian friends.  She particularly disliked Poliziano’s growing influence over Piero, and at the end of the year there was an open rupture, when she dismissed him with scant courtesy.  One pities them both.  Clarice, already far gone in consumption, was irritable and anxious about her husband, whose attitude towars the Holy See she, with her education, could not approve;  while Poliziano, used to the brilliant talk in the Medici palace, where he measured his wit with Luigi Pulci, Matteo Franco, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, etc., and Lorenzo himself, was bored to death and always longing to be back in Florence.

from Lives of the early Medici as told in their correspondence, as a point of information, most likely by Janet Ross, who translated and edited the letters, which were published in 1910.

Bianca de' Medici Pazzi

The painting, Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat, today in the Uffizi, is said to portray the family of Piero de' Medici, de facto lord of Florence from 1464.  His wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni as Mary, Lorenzo as the young man with the ink-pot, flanked by his brother Guilano de' Medici who is holding a book.  Behind the two boys is Maria, while the two older sisters are holding the crown in the background, Bianca on the left and Nannina on the right.   The newborn would be the daughter of Lorenzo, Lucrezia de' Medici.  One would think that the one dressed in white would be the one called "Bianca," which translates "white," and while I don't know if there is any truth to the story that it is the Medici family portrayed hereit makes a pretty story. 

More on Bianca:  Because she had married Guglielmo Pazzi in 1458, he was allowed exile as his punishment for being a member of the family creating the conspiracy.  Bianca and Guglielmo had a large family, at least 14 children who lived to adulthood.  In a letter Bianca wrote to her mother Lucrezia in 1479, after the conspiracy, she is again pregnant.

And the Plot Thickens . . .

Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, shown above as he appears in his portrait in the Uffizi, is now known to be the major orchestrator of the Pazzi Conspiracy.  Long thought to be a friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, Montefeltro was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place.

More than five hundred years after the attack in the Duomo on the Medici brothers, a Renaissance scholar, Marcello Simonetta found concrete evidence of Montefeltro's prominent role in the plot.  Working in a private archive in Italy, he stumbled on a coded letter written by Frederico to Pope Sixtus IV.  Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence.

Marcello Simonetta's book, The Montelfeltro Conspiracy, was published in 2008, and is a fascinating read on the complex politics of Renaissance Italy.  On the Random House web-site, there is a You-tube  entry with great photos:  http://www.randomhouse.com/quizzes/index.cgi?Montefeltro.

Pope Sixtus IV, one of the conspirators . . .

 . . . in the Pazzi conspiracy, whose posthumous portrait by Titian appears above, is better known for building the Sistine Chapel.  This pope, who was born in Liguria in modest circumstances as Francisco della Rovere, was an ambitious man who used nepotism to the advantage of his family.  Six of the many cardinals he created were his nephews.  Pope Sixtus IV wanted to expand the Papal States to the north by purchasing the lordship of Imola, a stronghold on the border between the Papal States and Tuscany.

     Fearing the Pope's ambitious expansion, Lorenzo refused to provide the financing, at which point the Pazzi, a rival banking family in Florence, stepped in.  As a reward, Sixtus IV granted the Pazzi a monopoly at the alum mines at Tolfa--alum being an essential mordant in dyeing in the textile trade that was central to the Florentine economy -- and he assigned to the Pazzi bank lucrative rights to manage Papal revenues.

     I think this portrait might be at the Pitti Palace Museum in Florence, but I have not been able to verify that.

     

The Pazzi Conspiracy

"It's one of the most dramatic stories in 15th century Florence.  In 1478, the Pazzi, a well-established Florentine banking family, with support from Pope Sixtus IV, the King of Naples, and the Archbishop of Pisa, and others, hatched a plot so daring as to almost appear ridiculous:  to kill Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici in order to take control of Florence.  On Sunday, April 26, during High Mass in the Duomo, assassins, armed with knives, attacked the two brothers.  Francesco de' Pazzzi and Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli stabbed Giuliano nineteen times, killing him.  Two armed priests went for Lorenzo, but Lorenzo fled with only a wound and locked himself in the north sacristy."  (from Florence Sights and Landmarks, by Cheryl Tucker.

The Pazzi coat of arms is pictured above.  I haven't been able to find any information about the significance of what appears to be two dolphins.  I'll be looking for clues in Medieval History, as the Pazzi (means "crazy men"?) were an old family who allegedly participated in the First Crusade.

This Handsome Young Man . . .

 . . . is Giuliano de Medici, brother to Lorenzo.  This portrait, by Botticelli, hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and was most likely done posthumously, as Giuliano was murdered in the Duomo in Florence, on Sunday, April 26, 1478 in the Pazzi Conspiracy (more later on that).

     At the time of his death, Giuliano was no longer enamored of Simonetta Vespucci, as she herself had died exactly two years earlier, on April 26, 1476.  Giuliano had taken as his lover Fioretta Gorini, the daughter of a tradesman.  Fortunately for the Medici family, Giuliano had taken some of his friends into his confidence, and after his death, it was revealed to Lorenzo that Giuliano had had a love affair which was to result in the birth of a boy on May 26, 1478.   Lorenzo reportedly sought out Fioretta, and "without much difficulty, persuaded her to let him have the rearing of the child."  (per David Loth, in Lorenzo the Magnificent)

     The child was named Giulio, and was raised along side the other children of Lorenzo and Clarice.  Giulio was later to become Pope Clement VII.
   

Is this Simonetta Vespucci?

This detail is one of the "three graces" in Botticelli's "Primavera," which hangs in the Uffizi in Florence.  But who is she?  And is she the same model, or inspiration, for the central figure in Botticelli's "Birth of Venus,"  which also hangs in the Uffizi?

For centuries, people have speculated on this matter.  A pretty story is that she is Simonetta Cattaneo de Candia Vespucci (1453-1476), a young noblewoman, perhaps from Liguria, who married a distant cousin of Amerigo Vespucci when she was 15 or 16.  She met Marco, her husband-to-be, in Genoa, but they were married at the Medici Palazzo in Florence because of Marco's connections to the Medici family.

Soon all of Florence was in love with Simonetta.  She was feted at a Joust held in Piazza Santa Croce in 1475, where Lorenzo's brother, Giuliano, carried a banner painted by Botticelli on which was created a likeness of her.

Unfortunately, she died the very next year.  Her image continued to be recreated by Botticelli for many years to come.  And he asked to be buried at her feet in the Church of Ognissanti when he died some 34 years later.

More on the Medici Villas

Here, in a drawing by an unknown artist, is the Medici Villa in Fiesole, the hilltown above Firenze.  This hilltop dwelling, commissioned by Giovanni, Cosimo il Vecchio's second son, with its view over the city, is the very first example of a Renaissance villa: that is to say it follows the Albertian criteria for rendering a country dwelling a "villa suburbana".  Once believed to have been designed by the architect Michelozzo, current attribution is given to Alberti.

Unlike the other Medici in the countryside, which are the centers of agricultural operations, this villa has around it only a very beautiful garden.  Visitors to the garden are allowed, in groups, with advance reservations by fax:  (+39) 055 2398994.   

This villa, and 13 other Medici villas, has been nominated for inclusion in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  More information, and a way to sign the petition is here:

http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/intoscana2/export/TurismoRTen/sito-TurismoRTen/Contenuti/Elementi-interesse/Siti-storici/visualizza_asset.html_334468815.html