JUST FOUR YEARS after his return from exile, Cosimo secured the Florentine Republic’s greatest international triumph. In 1439 the city became host to the great Ecumenical Council, which had been called to settle the differences between the Catholic Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople (also known as Byzantium, now Istanbul).
The split between the Roman and the Byzantine churches dated back to the late Roman era, when the Christianised Empire had split into two. The Greek Eastern Church had maintained a strict orthodoxy, insisting that there should be no deviation from the original doctrines of Christianity, whilst the Roman Western Church had to a certain extent evolved through the centuries – as a result, neither church regarded the other as practising true Christianity.
This division was further exacerbated in 1204 when the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople on their way to the Holy Land. Amidst scenes of licentious mayhem, the crusaders raped and pillaged their way through the city, setting a drunken prostitute on the emperor’s throne in the cathedral of Santa Sophia. After such a débâcle, any prospect of unification between Rome and Constantinople seemed remote, but two centuries later the Muslim army of the Ottomans had conquered most of Turkey and now threatened Constantinople itself. The Byzantine emperor John VIII Paleologus appealed to the pope for help ‘in the name of Christ’. Pope Eugenius IV responded by suggesting that the leaders of the two churches should meet to resolve their doctrinal differences, and the Byzantine emperor agreed, setting sail with a 700-strong delegation, including twenty-three bishops, for a meeting at the northern Italian city of Ferrara.
The Byzantine delegation arrived at Ferrara in January 1438. At the time, the city was freezing in the cold wind from the Alps, and the civic authorities found it all but impossible to house the large Roman delegation as well as the unexpectedly massive delegation from Constantinople. Pope Eugenius IV was essentially a monastic character, with little financial expertise, which had left him heavily in debt. Now as host he found himself expected to pay for the Byzantine emperor and his seemingly limitless entourage, which even included a menagerie of exotic pet animals. Initially Eugenius IV borrowed 10,000 florins from the Medici Bank, but this soon proved hopelessly inadequate and he was forced to borrow another 10,000 florins – yet even this was not enough. Without consulting his Medici bankers, the pope then managed to raise a further large loan, but only after he had been induced to pledge his entire medieval fortress at Assisi as security.
Cosimo de’ Medici followed these proceedings closely from Florence; but when an outbreak of plague was reported in Ferrara, he decided it was time to act and despatched his brother Lorenzo with a message for the pope. This suggested that the great Ecumenical Council should be moved to the healthier climate of Florence, and to facilitate this move the city of Florence would be willing to pay 1,500 florins a month to help cover the expenses of the Ecumenical Council, for however long it chose to stay in session. Eugenius IV was well aware of Cosimo’s motives behind this offer, for it was evident that moving the Council to Florence would bring him immense prestige in the city, while it would also cause a huge boom in trade, which would considerably benefit the local traders, to say nothing of the resident banks. But the pope had little choice, for the plague was liable to increase in virulence with the coming of hot weather, so the Council set out for Florence.
On this occasion, Cosimo decided to dispense with his characteristic caution and ensured that he was elected gonfaloniere, so that he could personally greet the delegations of the pope and the emperor as leader of the city. On the day the delegations were due to arrive, the streets were decked out with flags, the processional route was lined with liveried heralds bearing trumpets, and huge crowds gathered all along the way, packing the balconies and windows, even clambering onto the rooftops. But when the Byzantine emperor and his long, trailing cortège at last entered the city, they were greeted by a sudden downpour, accompanied by fierce gusts of wind. Such was the force of the rain that the crowds soon ran for cover, the balconies emptied and the onlookers scrambled from the rooftops, leaving the bedraggled imperial procession to make its way through the torrent in the deserted streets. It was quickly led from the flag-decked processional route down a side-street to a nearby palazzo, where it sheltered in bedraggled disarray.
Despite this inauspicious start, the great Ecumenical Council soon got under way, and the contemporary Florentine book-dealer Vespasiano recorded in his vivid Memoirso: ‘On a sober day the Pope with all the court of Rome, the Emperor of the Greeks and all the bishops and prelates assembled in Santa Maria del Fiore, where had been made a goodly arrangement for placing and seating the prelates of each church.’ Amidst the vast echoing interior of the cathedral, beneath Brunelleschi’s magnificent dome, the opening discussions began. In no time, the delegates were locked in debate on matters of crucial doctrinal importance. Should the bread used in the celebration of Mass be leaven (Catholic) or unleaven (Orthodox)? When the souls of the dead journeyed to their final destination in Heaven or Hell, did they first have to pass through Purgatory (Catholic) or not (Orthodox)? But the most divisive point of all concerned the Holy Trinity of ‘the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’: was the Holy Ghost generated by the Father and the Son (Catholic) or just by the Father (Orthodox)? Voices were raised and passions flared over the vexed matter of whether or not to accept the word Filioque (‘and the Son’).
Yet the main effect of the Council was felt outside the corridors and debating hall, in the streets themselves, where the citizens of Florence, and especially its artists, were presented with a hitherto unseen spectacle. Daily walking the streets of their city they saw all manner of bearded, exotically dressed prelates clad in opulent silk robes. Eyewitness acounts marvelled at the Greek archbishops who were dressed from head to toe in black robes, their heads topped with black stovepipe hats, over which were draped black veils, whilst from their shoulders hung brightly coloured cloaks with white-and-purple vertical stripes. According to Vespasiano, the delegates included ‘certain Armenians, Jacobites [a heretical Monophysite sect from Macedonia], and Ethiopians were sent by Prester John [the legendary Christian ruler in the East]’. There were certainly Ukrainians and Russians with Tartar servants, and other entourages included Moorish, Berber and black African attendants. Apparently at least one delegation had pet monkeys, while others had brought along exotically plumed singing birds in cages, as well as some tamed cheetahs – and all these would later begin appearing in paintings by Florentine artists. The visitors even had their effect on Florentine cooking, when it was noticed that the Byzantine emperor liked his eggs done in a particular way – cracked into a heated pan, stirred with a few herbs and spices, then turned onto his plate. In this way, Florentine cuisine discovered scrambled eggs.
During the summer evenings, when dinner had been taken and the theological wrangling set aside, private gatherings of scholars would take place in the palazzi where the Eastern delegates lodged. Of particular interest were those hosted by Archbishop Bessarion, a renowned theologian and philosopher who came from Trebizon on the Black Sea. Another leading light of these gatherings was Gemisthos Plethon, whose knowledge of Plato was unrivalled; Cosimo and his humanist friends listened in awe as Plethon expounded on Plato’s theory of ideas. Human beings were like chained prisoners sitting in a dark cave facing the wall, and the world they saw consisted of mere shadows playing over the cave wall. Yet in order to achieve enlightenment and understand the truth they must turn away from this world of shadows and face the true reality of ideas that existed in the light outside the cave.
This was not how Cosimo lived: on the contrary, he had always been a very worldly man, paying meticulous attention to his banking ledgers, and constantly scheming to ensure that his political intentions were fulfilled. Yet something in Plato’s idealism struck a chord in his personality, perhaps satisfying some profound unfulfilled spiritual need within him – possibly a remnant of that youthful enthusiasm for antiquity which he had been forced to abandon by his father. It was these gatherings of Byzantine philosophers that inspired Cosimo to commission Ficino’s translation of the works of Plato into Latin, so that he could read them for himself. At the same time Cosimo began dreaming of founding a school much like that established by Plato in Athens more than 1,800 years previously. He would create a Platonic Academy in Florence, where the philosopher’s ideas could be discussed and disseminated amongst like-minded intellectuals: these would be the torch-bearers of the new learning.
After four long, hot summer months of wrangling, the Ecumenical Council eventually agreed on a theological formula allowing the two churches to form a united Christendom – the schism that had lasted for six centuries was finally over. The pope would be recognised as the overall head of the Church, and the Byzantines agreed to a compromise over the crucial question of the Holy Ghost. (This was only brought about because the Byzantines remained unsure of their own precise doctrinal position on this matter, mainly because the relevant codices had somehow been left behind in Constantinople.)
The final meeting of the Council was held on 6 July 1439, and here the documents sealing the two churches in a united Christendom were ceremoniously signed. According to Vespasiano: ‘All Florence was there to witness this noble function.’ On one side sat the pope and his delegation, ‘on the other side was a chair covered with a silken cloth on which sat the Emperor, clad in a rich robe of damask brocade and a cap in the Greek fashion, on the top of which was a magnificent jewel. He was a very handsome man with a beard of the Greek cut.’ First in Latin, and then in Greek, the proclamation was read out: ‘Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult, for the wall which divided the Western and Eastern Churches has fallen. Peace and concord have returned.’ The Roman cardinals and the Greek archbishops clasped each other in fond embraces, before kneeling at the foot of the pope’s throne.
After this, the Emperor John VIII Paleologus sailed back to Constantinople, to await the troops promised by the pope for the city’s defence against the Turks. But when he arrived, and the terms of the agreement he had signed became public knowledge, the population rose up in anger against it and there were extensive riots. The people of Constantinople wanted nothing to do with the new agreement, which was anathema to their faith. As a result, the concord fell apart and the fate of Constantinople became inevitable: just over a decade later, in 1453, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror and his vast Ottoman army arrived outside the walls and laid siege to the city. Eventually the great ramparts were breached and the Ottoman troops poured into Constantinople. During the three days of massacre that followed, the head of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Paleologus was severed from his body with a scimitar and placed on a column amidst jeering crowds in the Hippodrome.
In fact, by this stage Constantinople had been reduced to a shadow of its former glorious self Fearing the worst, much of the population had already fled, and amongst these were many scholars and philosophers who made their way to a new life in Italy. Archbishop Bessarion had been persuaded to remain behind in Italy after the Ecumenical Council, and the pope had made him a cardinal; now Italy became a refuge for Greek scholars, causing a craze for all things Greek. Soon upper-class children were being taught Ancient Greek, and the ability to converse in Greek was considered the height of intellectual fashion. In time, some in Florence began describing what was happening as a rinascimento (renaissance, or rebirth) of ancient learning.
The word rinascimento, as we understand it, first appeared in the writings of the sixteenth-century Florentine artist and biographer Vasari, though his context suggests that it had already been in growing use for some years. Not until the early nineteenth century would the word arrive in France, spreading to Britain and Germany in the mid-nineteenth century, as writers gained a historical understanding of what had taken place, and began to conceptualise this as a particular age.
This renaissance of knowledge in fifteenth-century Italy, and Florence in particular, was given further impetus by the many rare Greek manuscripts that were brought west by the scholars fleeing Constantinople. These covered all manner of subjects, including topics that remained unknown or forgotten in the West, ranging from philosophy to mathematics, from alchemy to astrology. All these subjects would undergo a revival: the coming age would see a flowering of both the rational and the irrational, of both sense and nonsense. After the long abstinence of the Middle Ages, the hunger for knowledge would be omnivorous.
This influx of manuscripts enabled Cosimo de’ Medici to add still further to his great library, which at its height was said to have included more than 10,000 manuscripts of Ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew texts. For once, he was not following in his father Giovanni di Bicci’s footsteps: his father had owned just three books, all of them devoted to medieval theology. In his retirement Giovanni had discovered the pleasure of commissioning public works – this was how a wealthy citizen of Florence was traditionally expected to honour his city; it was almost considered a civic duty. Cosimo would now begin following his father’s example, but on a scale that none could have imagined.