The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance by Paul Strathern

Author:Paul Strathern [Strathern, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus
Published: 2016-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

17

The Bonfire of the Vanities

PIERO DE’ MEDICI, now known as Piero the Unfortunate, has been harshly judged by history; and his weakness of character is said to have been responsible for his failure as a leader. He is compared with his three Medici predecessors, who had ruled Florence for the previous sixty years, and is found wanting in both political acumen and personal judgement. This is unfair, for it discounts the good fortune that befell Cosimo Pater Patriae, Piero the Gouty and Lorenzo the Magnificent at opportune moments during their reigns, together with the resounding bad fortune that plagued Piero the Unfortunate. He may have had little of the exceptional character possessed in their different ways by Cosimo and Lorenzo, but this alone did not lead to his downfall. As if bad luck were not enough, Piero was also faced with two further major setbacks. The Medici Bank could provide him with no money to win over the people, or sufficient funds to oil the neglected Medici party machine; and most crucially, the political situation in Italy had become hopelessly destabilised by the intervention of Charles VIII. Given the nature of fifteenth-century Italian politics, the preceding period of stability had been the lucky exception; it was a miracle that it had lasted as long as it did. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that Lorenzo the Magnificent’s much-vaunted diplomacy was in fact little more than a holding operation, for this peace was precarious at the best of times; allowing for even the most skilled diplomacy, it could not have withstood the intervention of France, which was in many ways a disaster waiting to happen. As for the situation in Florence itself – for better or worse, its citizens appear to have tired of Medici rule. The republican pride of the Florentines, a collusive collective myth for so long, now stirred into reality, provoked by the economic downturn and the provocative rantings of Savonarola.

The Medici had now been cut off from their power base in the city and forced into exile; but unlike Cosimo’s exile sixty-one years previously, this had not been, anticipated. No preparations had been made, and this exile showed little sign of being brief. As soon as Piero and his brother Cardinal Giovanni fled the city, the Medici party machine simply disintegrated, and the former leading family was soon openly held in contempt amongst all levels of society. Evidence of the extent of this is seen in the fact that when Giovanni and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici returned to the city from the French camp, they even went so far as to change their family name expediently and ingratiatingly from Medici to Popolano (‘Men of the People’). All Medici emblems featuring the shield and palle were removed from their palazzi; and the palazzi of two men who had served as ministers under the Medici were burned to the ground. The Palazzo Medici on the Via Larga was soon penetrated by looters, but before it could be set on fire it was occupied by the city militia, despatched by the Signoria.

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