COSIMO DE’ MEDICI had ultimately survived his long moment of truth. Things could have gone either way, yet by a mixture of astute calculation and luck he had succeeded in saving his life and business. But it seemed he had also failed, for he had been defeated by his old enemies in the oligarchy and had been evicted from his power base in Florence. Yet this apparent defeat would ultimately prove to be a pivotal victory for the Medici.
Florence was left in the hands of the Albizzi and their supporters amongst the oligarchy of old families, but from now on whoever ruled the city would be unable to rely on Medici money to bale out the exchequer. Rinaldo degli Albizzi was forced to muddle on as best he could, attempting to control a city that remained as divided as ever. The Medici supporters continued to plot, and Rinaldo was driven to coerce the ruling Signoria into increasingly despotic measures, with individual Medici supporters being banished for ten years on a regular basis.
In exile, Cosimo obtained permission to leave Padua and join his brother Lorenzo in Venice, from where he paid close attention to the events in Florence, but at the same time he took good care to distance himself from any moves made on his behalf. The Venetian authorities allowed him and his family to take up residence in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, on the small island opposite the entrance to the Grand Canal, where Pope Eugenius IV had once been a monk. In recognition of the pope’s effort to rescue him, Cosimo decided to build a new library for the monastery, and commissioned a design from his favoured architect Michelozzo.
A measure of the loyalty of Cosimo’s artists to their patron can be seen from their behaviour when he was banished from Florence. Michelozzo and Donatello at once called a halt to the construction of the new Palazzo Medici – Donatello left for Rome to study the ancient sculptures that were now beginning to be unearthed amongst the ruins, and Michelozzo followed Cosimo into exile. Both these artists were Florentines and could easily have remained in the city, where they were very much a part of the flourishing humanist revival. At this stage, the influence of this revival was only just beginning to spread elsewhere and had not permeated into art and architecture. In following Cosimo into exile they not only isolated themselves from their home city and their humanist friends, but also from the circle of wealthy patrons amongst the oligarchy families who would have guaranteed them work and recognition amongst their own people.
By April 1434, just six months after Cosimo’s banishment, popular feeling against the Albizzi was beginning to gather strength, to such an extent that even the banking families amongst the oligarchy were waiting to see which way things would turn out. Cosimo was pleased to hear that no one could be persuaded to furnish the empty city exchequer ‘with so much as a pistachio nut’. During the summer war flared against Milan, and a Florentine army was defeated by Milanese mercenaries at the frequently disputed small city state of Imola. Despite all Albizzi attempts at rigging the next elections, Medici supporters were voted into all eight seats on the Signoria, and a Medici sympathiser was even selected as gonfaloniere. Rinaldo degli Albizzi was all for preventing the Signoria from taking office, but this would have been a drastic step, making a mockery of Florence’s entire political system. Although the system was easily corrupted, in a covert manner, the citizens of Florence remained proud of it: their republican form of government, even with its pretence of a very limited democratic process, was what raised Florence above the tyrannies and political squalor of their neighbours. According to Machiavelli, even some of the ruling families thought that Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s proposed action was ‘too violent, and likely to be attended with great evil’. In an attempt to calm the situation, Rinaldo was approached by the man who had succeded Niccolò da Uzzano as the city’s elder statesman, Palla Strozzi, an extremely rich and cultured man of great persuasive powers. Strozzi advised caution, and Rinaldo reluctantly acquiesced, but on one condition: the Signoria should make no attempt to overturn Cosimo de’ Medici’s sentence of exile and invite him to return. The Signoria agreed to this, and took office; but a month later, when Rinaldo was briefly called from the city on business, the Signoria sent word to Venice, asking Cosimo if he was willing to return.
The moment Rinaldo arrived back in the city a few days later, he was summoned to the Palazzo della Signoria. Mindful of what had happened to Cosimo de’ Medici when he had obeyed such a call, Rinaldo ignored the Signoria and rode at once to the Palazzo Albizzi, where he put into action what had evidently been a prearranged plan in case of such an eventuality. He ordered his bodyguard of 500 armed men to take up strategic positions and occupy the church of San Pier Scheraggio (on the site now occupied by the Uffizi), which overlooked the Piazza della Signoria in front of the palazzo. At the same time, the gatekeeper of the Palazzo della Signoria was quietly offered as many gold ducats as his helmet could hold if he left the door unlocked; Rinaldo’s plan was to storm the palazzo, overthrow the Signoria and occupy the seat of power.
But the Signoria had made their own preparations, and sent the palace guards out into the Piazza della Signoria to confront Rinaldo’s men. Rinaldo realised that the guards could easily be overcome, but that this would involve serious bloodshed – for the moment there was a tense standoff as the armed men faced each other across the piazza. Hearing about the prospect of Florentine blood being shed by Florentines, several of the oligarchy families became hesitant about supporting Rinaldo. Palla Strozzi, who had promised his 500-strong bodyguard in support of Rinaldo, turned up for a meeting with him in the nearby Piazza Sant’Apollinaire accompanied by just two personal bodyguards. Rinaldo and Strozzi had a short altercation, and Strozzi rode off, vowing to take no further part in the revolt. But Rinaldo was still confident of sufficient backing to overcome the Signoria, which was now under a state of siege in the palazzo.
Then the Signoria played its trump card. At the time, Pope Eugenius IV happened to be in Florence, residing at the monastery of Santa Maria Novella on the western side of the city. Eugenius IV had quarrelled with the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, and in the course of this conflict Milanese troops had marched on Rome. Thereupon the Roman populace had risen up against the pope, threatening his life, and Eugenius IV had been forced to flee through the streets in disguise, eventually making his way to Florence, where the authorities had housed him and his entourage of loyal cardinals in the extensive monastery of Santa Maria Novella. The Signoria now sent a message to Eugenius IV, appealing to him to arbitrate in the dispute that threatened to engulf the city. The pope, who had no wish to flee another city in turmoil, readily agreed and despatched Cardinal Vitelleschi, ‘Rinaldo’s most intimate friend’, with an invitation to a meeting. (An indication of the divided loyalties which added a characteristic complexity to these manoeuvrings is given by the fact that Cosimo also referred to Cardinal Vitelleschi as ‘very much my friend’; the pope too would have fallen into this category, despite the fact that he had chosen to take refuge amongst Cosimo’s enemies.)
It took some time for Cardinal Vitelleschi to persuade Rinaldo, but he eventually agreed to meet Eugenius IV. By now it was late afternoon, and Rinaldo’s men had been joined by several armed bands from the other oligarchy families. Rinaldo rode throught the streets to Santa Maria Novella at the head of his noisy swollen army. According to an eyewitness, his forces now consisted of so many men that ‘the last of them had not left the piazza when the first reached the monastery’ – a distance of more than quarter of a mile. Rinaldo went in to see the pope, while his increasingly rowdy troops camped in the piazza outside. Night was coming on, it was dinner time and they started to pass round the wine.
When Rinaldo encountered the pope, he found the pontiff in a state of extreme distress over the turmoil that was engulfing the city, though according to one report ‘the infinite tears of the Pope issued from the same source as those of the crocodile’. Finally Eugenius IV prevailed upon Rinaldo to call off his revolt, while promising that he would ensure the Signoria took no retaliatory steps against Rinaldo and the oligarchy families. On his word as pope, there would be no banishments, no confiscations of property, not even any fines.
Rinaldo finally emerged in the early hours to find that most of his troops had dispersed and had gone home for the night. Indeed, there were so few troops remaining, and such was their drunken state, that Rinaldo thought it best to stay overnight with the pope, rather than risk travelling through the dark streets without proper protection.
By now the revolt was as good as over. The Signoria had sent word to the mountains, summoning a brigade of mercenaries in Florentine pay, and they entered the city under cover of darkness. Next day the vacca was tolled, summoning all enfranchised citizens to the Piazza della Signoria, which was made safe by the mercenary troops. The Signoria emerged from the palazzo, accompanied by the ever-reassuring figure of Cardinal Vitelleschi, and the assembled citizens were asked by the Signoria if they wished for a Balía. This request was confirmed by an overwhelming shout of ‘Si!’; a Balía of 350 citizens was selected and immediately voted for an official overturning of the Medici banishments.
The moment this news reached Cosimo, he set off from Venice, accompanied by the good wishes of the Venetian Republic, which were publicly manifested in an escort of 300 Venetian soldiers leading him to the border. News of Cosimo’s crossing into Florentine territory two days later was greeted with national rejoicing, and his progress to Florence quickly became a triumphal procession, with crowds lining the roadside to cheer him. What was happening? This was not precisely clear – either to Cosimo or to anyone else. As so often happens in spontaneous popular manifestations of feeling, events had taken on an unforeseen momentum of their own. Yet there was no doubting that something crucial was taking place, for in the words of Machiavelli: ‘Seldom has a citizen returning from a great victory been greeted by such a concourse of people, and with such demonstrations of affection, as was Cosimo on his return from exile.’
On 5 October Cosimo reached his villa at Careggi just outside Florence, where he and his entourage paused for a meal. By now so many people were thronging the streets of Florence, eagerly anticipating his return, that the Signoria sent word to Careggi begging Cosimo not to enter the city that afternoon, for fear of a disturbance. It is not clear precisely what nature of disturbance the Signoria feared – might the celebrations have turned into a vindictive settling of scores by the triumphant Medici supporters, or was the city perhaps still sufficiently divided to leave Cosimo in danger of assassination as he made his way through the crowded streets? Either way, Cosimo complied with the Signoria’s request and postponed his departure for the city until after dark, when he was accompanied only by his brother Lorenzo and a high-ranking city official. Cosimo was let in quietly through a side-gate in the city walls east of the Bargello, and led through the streets to the Palazzo della Signoria, where he was put up for the night in one of the rooms normally occupied by a member of the Signoria.
First thing next morning Cosimo paid a courtesy visit to the pope, to thank him for his support, reaffirm his friendship and perhaps as a public demonstration that he had friends in high places. By now word had spread of Cosimo’s arrival in Florence, and by the time he made his way home to the Palazzo Bardi, the crowds lining the streets cheered him ‘in such a manner that one would imagine him to be their prince’.
In fact, there are several reports of Cosimo’s return from exile, and these differ considerably, in the main through a process of selection. The pro-Medici Machiavelli stresses the great public welcome; others choose to focus on the fact that ‘he crept back to the city very quietly’. It would seem probable that all these events took place, but there can be no doubt that Cosimo was returning to take control of the city.
Out of defeat had come victory: without Cosimo being banished, it is unlikely that the opportunity would have arisen for him to be acclaimed in such a fashion, and although no one said so in as many words, there could be no doubting that he was being welcomed back as a national saviour. He had now been publicly acknowledged as the ruler of Florence – both by its citizens and by the international powers who had previously, but ineffectually, tried to come to his rescue. The city was his for the taking – Florence appeared to be ready to accept a permanent and public ruler, but caution led him to hesitate. Now was the time he chose to remember his father’s deathbed advice – ‘avoid being conspicuous’ – as well as the tradition of Florentine republicanism (and attendant self-delusion). Cosimo preferred the old ways, and subterfuge suited his character, as well as that of his city; he would rule, but he would not be seen to rule. It would be business as usual – only more so!
Yet a significant change had taken place. Although Cosimo would continue to maintain a scrupulously unpretentious demeanour, and encourage the political machinery of the city to go through the motions, there could be no doubting who now held the reins of power. Delegations from foreign powers would approach him personally, going immediately to his palazzo; likewise citizens wanting offical assurances would seek an audience with him, and there was even a special hour of the day set aside for this. It was probably around this time that Cosimo began receiving, and accepting, invitations from leading citizens to become godfather to their firstborn male heir. Such a method of ensuring loyalty appealed to him; it was not ostentatious, but it was binding.
The power of the oligarchy families was quickly broken by the Signoria, certainly at Cosimo’s urging. Despite the pope’s promises, Rinaldo and the leading members of the Albizzi faction were all banished from the city, which caused Rinaldo to have bitter parting words for Eugenius IV: ‘I blame myself for having thought that you, who were expelled from your own city, could preserve me in mine.’ The other families suffered similar harsh treatment, and even the seventy-year-old Palla Strozzi, who had done so much to make the Medici return possible, was sentenced to ten years in exile – effectively banishment for life. Strozzi’s intellectual pursuits had often brought him into contact with Cosimo, and they had something of a friendship, but when Cosimo was asked to intervene, the coolness of his pleading on Strozzi’s behalf spoke volumes. The Signoria understood, and Strozzi’s banishment remained in place. Cosimo had recognised that the wealth and influence of the elder statesman would inevitably become a focus for hostility to Medici rule, and this was not the time for a tolerated opposition. After years of trouble and unrest, Cosimo wished to establish a period of firm government, bringing peace and prosperity to Florence; and this he proceeded to do, though once again this was effected with characteristic discretion. As one of his humanist friends remarked: ‘whenever he wished to achieve something, he saw to it, in order to escape envy as much as possible, that the initiative appeared to come from others and not from him’.
Cosimo went to great pains to appear as nothing more than a citizen of the republic: a powerful one, but a citizen nonetheless, and one who was bound to respect the law just like any other citizen. He would set a public example by being far and away the highest taxpayer in the city, though in fact the income he declared for tax purposes was always considerably lower than his actual income; his public balance sheets were invariably padded with hugely inflated, or even fictitious, debts and no one was willing to question his accounting methods. On the other hand, his covert control over the tax-assessing and tax-gathering apparatus was complete, and the Medici party machinery made sure that this remained so. Anyone who proved troublesome could easily be ruined by a vindictive catasto, overestimating their taxable property and possessions, and this soon became Cosimo’s favoured method of eliminating any opposition. Wealthy opponents were simply bankrupted, or assessed so ruinously that they were forced into voluntary exile, whereupon the trusted Medici party bosses snapped up the abandoned estates at bargain prices and distributed them amongst the faithful. The pax Medici came at a price.
Yet there were also a number of long-overdue reforms, introducing a certain measure of increased democracy into the arcane Florentine political system. The popolo minuto were rewarded for their loyalty, and regularly each year another hundred or so deserving members of this class would be given the right to vote in the elections for the Signoria – and thus at least theoretically become elegible for public office themselves.
In foreign affairs too, Cosimo used his considerable diplomatic powers to promote stability, as far as was possible in the treacherous and volatile world of Italian politics. The main power in northern Italy remained Milan, which was ruled by the formidable Filippo Maria Visconti, the Duke of Milan, who was constantly seeking to expand into Florentine territory. To make matters worse, the exiled Albizzi were now urging Milan to invade Florence and re-install them as friendly rulers. For the time being Florence managed to resist Milan only by maintaining an uneasy alliance with Venice and the ever-unstable Papal States.
In 1436, just two years after his return, Cosimo took a drastic step which was to have a lasting effect upon the city’s foreign policy: he invited to Florence the powerful condottiere Francesco Sforza. This thirty-four-year-old military leader was the bastard son of a farmer from the Romagna, who had himself become a condottiere, taking on the name Sforza (meaning ‘force’). Francesco had succeeded to his father’s command, quickly gaining the respect of his tough mercenary troops and a reputation as the finest military leader in Italy. He had risen to such eminence through his skill on the battlefield and his ability to inspire the loyalty of his mercenary troops. Sforza had strong links with Milan, and even had ambitions to marry the Duke of Milan’s illegitimate daughter, in the hope of succeeding to Filippo Maria Visconti’s dukedom. Sforza was well aware of his growing political power, and had already begun to create a private kingdom of his own in the Romagna, taking over territory that officially belonged to the Papal States. By inviting Sforza to Florence, Cosimo thus risked antagonising both the Duke of Milan and the pope, yet he calculated that the gamble was worth it. Cosimo had learned from his father that in order to succeed it was sometimes necessary to ally one’s fortunes with such powerful but unreliable characters – having had dealings with Baldassare Cossa, he knew the measure of such men, but he also understood that handling them required immense diplomatic skill.
Francesco Sforza was a figure of commanding physical presence, who had little time for social graces; he had broad, somewhat coarse features, but beneath his brusque, antagonistic manner lay a certain boyish charm. The middle-aged sophisticated Cosimo seems to have read the younger man at once: Sforza wanted to be liked, to be appreciated for himself, rather than for his fearsome military reputation. Cosimo charmed Sforza, treating him as if he were one of his brilliant young humanist protégés. This at first perplexed Sforza, who had never received such understanding and courteous treatment, but he was soon smitten with Cosimo. This is no exaggeration, for when Sforza returned from Florence to the Romagna he began writing regularly to Cosimo in his mixed Italian dialect, addressing him as ‘Magnifice tanquam Pater carissime’ (‘Magnificent and dearest almost father’). Cosimo had won a powerful and dangerous friend.
Cosimo de’ Medici was now at the height of his powers, entering upon the period that earned him his place in history. From now on he would become more than an extremely skilful banker, more than a canny and manipulative ruler, more even than a generous and discerning patron. Such people have little cause to be remembered much beyond their time, but Cosimo would transcend himself, emerging as the richest man of his age, the founder of a dynasty, the man who encouraged the first flowering of the Renaissance. Yet who was this man who would indissolubly link the Medici name with one of the turning points of Western culture?
There are several contemporary portraits, most of which seem to flatter a somewhat nondescript appearance, though there are hints that beneath the veneer of social skill, Cosimo inherited elements of his father’s awkward, driven temperament. Once again the most revealing portrait was painted posthumously: this is by Jacopo da Pontormo and was painted more than half a century after Cosimo’s death (see colour plates). Here there is little attempt to flatter, or to deceive; it seems to be a balanced but shrewd psychological study, a final summing up of a remarkable man. Its clear-eyed depiction has a distinct air of verisimilitude, and may well have drawn on some more realistic contemporary sketches that have not survived. Cosimo poses dressed in a plain but well-cut fur-lined scarlet gown, with his sallow-skinned, hollow-cheeked face turned away from the painter, revealing the prominent Medici nose and a large fleshy ear. But what is striking, and is even hinted at in some of the flattering contemporary portraits, is Cosimo’s posture, which is slightly twisted, and looks more than a little uncomfortable.
In later life Cosimo would suffer from gout and arthritis, yet Pontormo’s portrait seems to suggest something more than his later physical ailments, implying something deeply uneasy in his character. Most interesting of all are the hands, which are inelegantly grasped, one in the other, but at the same time emphatic; they draw attention to themselves by their very inability to achieve composure. This is not an aristocrat at ease with himself, his dynasty and his inherited surroundings – this is the son of a man who emerged from the people, a man secretly aware of his own fallibility, his ordinary humanity. Cosimo de’ Medici may have inherited his father’s driven nature, and he may have achieved much through ambition, but he was lucky too, and he understood his fortunate humanity as his greatest blessing. Such was the man who would do so much to promote the new humanism that was coming to life in Florence, and play such a leading role in the Renaissance to which it gave birth.