CHAPTER II.ALLIANCES AND COUNTER ALLIANCES. PREPARATION FOR THE CONFLICT.Inthe speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set out from Umbria with an equal number of armed men. Lorenzo’s first thought was to cover the passes of the Apennines, thus rendering any attack on that side very difficult for the enemy, as the German freebooters experienced to their misfortune about the middle of the fourteenth century. However, the first news of the events in Florence sufficed to induce the intruders to retreat. But Lorenzo was not at ease. The revelations of Montesecco had fully explained to him Riario’s fierce hatred and the Pope’s dangerous indulgence towards his nephews. It was necessary to prevent future plots, either by reconciling opponents or by rendering them harmless, and to gain friends abroad Lorenzo spared no labour. The city was provisioned, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and a sharp eye was kept on all who passed in and out. A band of armed men whom Giovanni Bentivoglio caused to advance as far as the Mugello, for the protection of Florence, secured theApennine side from a sudden attack. Lorenzo took care to win over those who belonged to families involved in the plot, and who were in continual dread of discovery. He calmed and assured by friendly advances Averardo Salviati, a near relation of the archbishop, who kept hidden from fear.His chief cause of anxiety was Sixtus IV. A cardinal was in the palace of the Signoria deprived of his freedom. An archbishop had been shamefully killed without a trial, and several ecclesiastics had lost their lives.When the news arrived in Rome Donato Acciaiuoli was there as ambassador of the Republic.[239]It was the second time that he had represented his native city under Sixtus IV., and his caution and shrewdness seem to have succeeded in restoring a tolerable feeling between the two neighbours when this new complication arose and threatened a dangerous crisis. Acciaiuoli, to whom Riario’s plans had remained a secret, saw the danger immediately, but he was not prepared for the violence to which the Pope’s nephew resorted. When the latter heard what had happened he flew into a great rage. Exasperated at the ill-success of his enterprise, and the insult done to his family, he urged the Pope and the Sacred College to violent measures. He then hastened, with a company of 300 mercenaries, with halberds on their shoulders, to Acciaiuoli’s lodging, and summoned him to follow him. Donato answered that he was much surprised at a demand which insulted both himself and the Republic he represented, which was contrary to all custom, and the respect befitting foreign ambassadors, so that he could not believe that it had happened with the knowledge of the Pope and the College of Cardinals. He, the count, might go wheresoever he pleased: the Signoria would know how they ought to avenge a slight shown to them in the person of their ambassador. Girolamo Riario in his rage scarcely deigned an answer, so that Acciaiuoli, to guard against worse violence,commissioned his chancellor to bring the ciphers and important papers in safety, and instantly to inform those at home of the occurrence; after which he prepared to leave. Surrounded by armed men, he reached the Vatican, where he demanded an interview with the Pope. Before the Holy Father he complained bitterly of the undignified proceeding, and then turned to Riario: ‘Count,’ he said, ‘I am astonished at the insolent daring with which you came armed to my residence, the residence of the Florentine ambassador, and led me like a criminal through the city to the palace. I declare to you that the insult done me is so great that the Republic will not rest till you have been brought to reason.’ Hereupon he represented to the Pope that His Holiness had done wrong in allowing such a thing, contrary to all custom and the respect due to all foreign ambassadors. Sixtus protested with an oath it had happened without his knowledge, and that he regretted the event, upon which he dismissed Donato to his lodging in the city.The latter was so affected at the insult to himself, the slight cast upon his native city, and the prospect of irremediable evils, that he fell into a dangerous illness, from which he never recovered. He immediately wrote to Florence an account of what had happened, and urged most pressingly that the cardinal should be set at liberty without delay. The Signoria had announced to the Pope that he had been brought to a safe place to protect him from the popular fury, and was now at the disposal of his Holiness. The ambassador confirmed this statement, and urged his government to fulfil it, if they did not intend to plunge him into still greater difficulties. King Ferrante commissioned his ambassador to the Republic to act in a like manner. But in Florence they seem to have listened to other counsels from Rome than these commendable suggestions, and only increased the seriousness of the situation. The execution of Montesecco, and the disturbance made about his revelations, irritated the Pope and Girolamo as much as the imprisonmentof the Cardinal. The demand of the former, that Lorenzo should be banished and complete satisfaction given for all that had taken place, a demand which seems to have been supported by King Ferrante, added fuel to the flames in Florence. It is said that the Pope intended to put Acciaiuoli in the castle of St. Angelo, and the reason it was not done was that the Venetian and Milanese ambassadors declared they would share the fate of their colleagues. Certain it is, that the Florentine feared to leave his house, and as matters grew daily worse he soon begged permission to quit a post in which he could no longer work for the good of his native place. But it was only towards the end of June that he reached Florence, seriously ill.What had been threatened against the ambassador actually happened to the other Florentines in Rome. Many of the merchants and bankers were taken to the Castle and had their property confiscated in order to prevent them leaving the city with it, according to a summons which they had received from home. A migration like that would have excited public attention and brought serious loss to many persons of the Pope’s court, who had deposited considerable sums in their banks. Scarcely, however, had they been shut up when the matter was reconsidered, and the prisoners set at liberty again, on their promising not to leave Rome. Thus four weeks slipped by without either party arriving at a decision, one way or the other, while they naturally irritated each other more and more. On May 24 the bishop of Perugia was sent to Florence to fetch the cardinal and accompany him to Rome, and he delivered a letter addressed to Lorenzo by the Cardinal Camerlengo Guillaume d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, who knew Florence and the Medici well, since Cosimo’s time, and had gone in person to Castle Sant’Angelo to effect the liberation of the prisoners. The letter announced that the Pope and College of Cardinals had determined to proceed to measures against the Republic if the cardinal of San Giorgio (Riario) were not immediately set at liberty, and a commissionconsisting of five cardinals had already been appointed to commence legal proceedings. Lorenzo might thus, in order to avoid anger and injury, use his influence to a conciliatory purpose. The imprisonment and liberation of the Florentine merchants were explained by the circumstance mentioned above, and would, it was said, give the Republic no cause to complain.[240]In Florence they were by no means inclined to push matters to extremes, because the Venetian Signoria, when asked for advice respecting the cardinal, gave it as their opinion, on May 22, that his captivity not only served no purpose, but afforded the enemies of the Republic ground for accusation, and that it would be most rational to announce at Rome that from respect to His Holiness and the Sacred College, they had protected the cardinal from popular fury, and would leave him entire personal freedom.[241]Ample time had been afforded them to convince themselves of the innocence of young Riario. On June 5 he quitted the palace and repaired first to the Servite cloister by S. Annunziata, from whence he addressed to the Pope, on the 10th of the same month, the following letter which may have been dictated to him, but which did not describe the situation of affairs incorrectly. ‘A few days ago I informed your Holiness that perfect freedom over my movements had been granted me. Besides this, I said how much I was obliged to the Government here, and especially to Lorenzo de’ Medici for their great kindness to me. Finally, I begged your Holiness to grant the Florentines some favour in return for the benefits shown me in your name. My hope has, however, been bitterly disappointed on learning that Lorenzo and the Florentine people have been laid under an interdict; and I, unhappy man that I am, expected and wished that good might befall them, whereas the contrary has happened. But I cannot say, Holy Father, how much it grieves me thatmy requests have so little weight with your Holiness, and that I should appear ungrateful towards those to whom I owe so much, and it seems to me not fitting I should leave this city before such a sentence should be reprieved. Were the attachment of this people to the Medici fully known to your Holiness, you would not hate them as you do. As I rejoiced when your Holiness granted me the cardinal’s dignity, just so and even more will I rejoice if I hear that these men, who have deserved so much from us, have received grace for my sake. I shall then believe that I am in favour with your Holiness when this senate, and Lorenzo above all, have a share in your favour. From the cloister of S. Annunziata, June 10, 1478.’[242]On June 12 Riario set out on his journey to Siena. A Sienese chronicler relates that the cardinal reached the city June 13th, and alighted at the house of Messer Tommé, bishop of Pienza, more dead than alive from the terror he had undergone, which was still so bewildering in its effect that he thought he felt the rope round his neck.[243]The scene of which he had been an involuntary spectator, and the danger which he had incurred of being seized by the furious crowd, had made the deepest impression on him. If it is true, as some say, that he never recovered his natural spirits, his whole later life proves at least that his frivolous disposition suffered no change; for forty years he lived in a turmoil of gaiety, splendour, and luxury, occupied with the execution of works of art, and sharing in amusements and intrigues which, towards the end of his worldly career, involved him in a far worse complication than did the conspiracy of the Pazzi.Four days before Riario’s liberation on June 1st, Sixtus IV. had published the bull of excommunication against Lorenzo de’ Medici who, according, to the usual style of such documents, was termed ‘iniquitatis filius et perditionis alumnus.’ His adherents and the members of the government were included. The bull begins with the enumeration of the old differences existing between the Pope and Florence, the protection afforded to Niccolò Vitelli, Carlo Fortebraccio, Deifebo dell’Anguillara, the attacks on the Papal territory in the valley of the Tiber, the hindrance to those journeying to Rome, whether they came to the city by land or by water, and the refusal to allow Francesco Salviati to take possession of his archiepiscopal chair. It then passed on to mention recent events, the murder of the archbishop and other priests, and the imprisonment of the cardinal on account of civil and family feuds, which had arisen because the Medici and their party had seized all power for themselves and had exercised it to the prejudice of others with severity and despotism. On these grounds the ban of the church was pronounced against Lorenzo, the priors, the Gonfaloniere, and other magistrates, and everyone who should afford them assistance, or had done so, as against traitors and desecrators of the Church. They were declared to be deprived of all possessions, all honours and offices, and the capability of bequeathing to their heirs. All their male descendants were included in this sentence. If Florence did not deliver up Lorenzo and his fellow culprits within a month, she should be deprived of her archbishopric, and with her entire territory, and those of Fiesole and Pistoja, be placed under an interdict.[244]It is a singular fact that, even after the publication of the bull, Cardinal d’Estouteville wrote to Lorenzo to acquaint him with the Papal grants of tithes in the territory of the Republic.[245]Thus war was declared. On both sides it was necessary to collect forces and gain allies.The history of the events of the last years has shown how intimate the connection of King Ferrante and hisfamily was with the Medici. Outwardly this connection was still existing when the strife between Florence and the Pope began. In November 1477, the Duke of Calabria, when he wrote to Lorenzo, styled him ‘my dear and most beloved;’ the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, had the best position in Florence; the king sent horses and falcons to Medici, and entrusted Giovan Batista Coppola, on March 23, 1478, with a mission, the aim of which is unknown. A letter of April 30 of the same year, four days, therefore, before the terrible event, begins with the words: ‘Illustrious lord, dearest friend and gossip.’ But there was no lack of grounds for displeasure and disunion. Ferrante, who was as shrewd as he was ambitious, soon discovered that Lorenzo stood in the way of his endeavour to attain the preponderating influence in Italy, and if he had earlier sought to use the position of the Medici for his own purposes he easily offered his aid to overthrow them when he found them to be no mere tools of his. There is no record that he knew of Riario’s plans; but we know from Sixtus’s own words that he not only agreed to the enraged Pope’s proposal to proceed against Florence, but fomented his hatred of her. Causes easily to be understood contributed to render a change in Florence desirable to the king. Whether the supposition be true or not, that Ferrante had once projected a marriage between his second son and the duchess dowager of Milan, but that the plan was frustrated by Lorenzo, cannot be decided. But other facts are undoubted. It was the ancient policy of the rulers of Naples to employ the Sienese against their neighbours. Even King Manfred had pursued this. Ferrante, and still more his son Alfonso, cherished the secret hope of gaining firm footing in Siena, which wavered like a reed in every wind, and thus keeping Florence in check. By her very dubious conduct in the predatory attack of Fortebraccio, of whom it was supposed that, had he succeeded in getting possession of Siena, he would have delivered it to the Florentines, the latter had played their enemies’ game. Weshall see how it was by the merest chance that the plans of the Aragonese were not realised.The result of such mistakes was that the connection between the Sienese and the King and the Pope became closer, and the confirmation of the alliance between them had been published in Siena on February 8, giving general satisfaction. It may be easily understood that Ferrante made use of these circumstances, and after the Duke of Calabria had arrived at Rome on May 12 to consult with the Pope and his captains respecting military measures, the valley of the Chiana was chosen as the basis of the operations which should receive support from Umbria. The Duke of Urbino, as captain-general of the church, undertook the chief command in conjunction with the Neapolitan prince. Not only the military skill of Federigo di Montefeltro, but the affairs of Romagna, rendered his accession important.We have already pointed out the disturbed state of this province, and the different interests which prevailed among its dynasties. Several of these remained faithful for a long time on the side of Florence, others only waited for an opportunity of declaring themselves for the Republic. Sixtus IV. fully perceived how serious was the position of affairs. Bologna especially inspired him with anxiety, on account of the friendship of the Bentivogli with the Medici, so that he sent thither the legate of the city, the Cardinal of Mantua, as Francesco Gonzaga was commonly called, in order to win and preserve them in fealty to the Holy See. The instructions that he gave him plainly betrayed his anxiety as well as his consciousness of the bad impression which the events at Florence had produced. After he had spoken of his duty to watch over the whole State, and especially over a city which was the first and most illustrious after Rome, and exhorted its inhabitants not to waver in their fidelity nor allow a passage to hostile troops which might be intended to attack the Papal army, but to abstain from all communications with the Florentines, he continues thus: ‘That on the firstnews of the Florentine disturbances our Bolognese assisted their neighbours, has not been taken amiss by us, nor blamed, but we have regarded it as an act of sympathy, as they had as yet done nothing against the dignity of the Church, and we, too, lamented the first occurrence, to which we testified in a letter to the Florentines. But as the latter subsequently showed such unworthy slights and insults to the ecclesiastical order, every honourable ground has been removed for the Bolognese assisting a people obstinately offending the dignity of the Holy Roman Church, and rightly condemned by her on account of public crimes; for aid to them would be rather a personal insult to us.’ If any projects for aid were in progress the legate was first to exhort paternally, and if this did not avail, to excommunicate the offenders, and, in the last extremity, to lay the city under an interdict and shake the dust from their feet. In like manner he was to proceed with Giovanni Bentivoglio, who, as he took a privileged position in the city with Papal consent, was especially bound to the Holy See as feudatory and vassal. But the Pope hoped that the inhabitants would show themselves good and loyal sons.[246]If Sixtus IV. found allies, his opponents did not lack them either. In the foremost ranks were Venice and Milan. The Republic had already, on April 28, despatched a letter of condolence to Florence,[247]at the same time announcing that they had immediately resolved upon decisive measures if necessary, in concert with the ambassadors from Milan and Ferrara. Giovanni Emo arrived in Florence with the commission, to confirm these friendly intentions and inform himself of the position of affairs. Serious representations were made in Rome, first in order to hinder the Pope from giving free course to his rage against the Florentines; and, secondly, in order to persuade him to retract the bull. When both failed, the Republic assumed a decided tone of command.‘Because his Holiness,’ so she wrote to her ambassador, ‘on the urging of others, and to satisfy their unjust demands, attacks the Florentines with spiritual and temporal weapons, we wish that the Holy Father should know that we, of one accord with them, and the state of Milan, will defend the possessions, honour, and dignity of our ally in spiritual and temporal things. The Holy Father must not flatter himself he can conceal the purpose of his evil thoughts by asserting that he does not fight against Florence only, but against Lorenzo personally, for we all know perfectly well that this attack is not only upon Lorenzo, who is entirely innocent of the false accusations heaped upon him, but the present form of government in Florence, which they wish to overthrow, and change according to their will, with the whole of Italy. We wish, also, that the Holy Father should be assured henceforth that if he does not recall the ban, and refrain from warlike preparations, but continues his attack, we three will recall our ambassadors, and take such measures that he shall soon perceive that we have said the truth respecting our intentions, and that whoever causes him to take hostile steps deceives him in order to make him the instrument of views which are in themselves shameful and dangerous to the States of the Church, and especially to his Holiness.’[248]That the duchess-regent of Milan, guided by Simonetta, in whom the tradition of Francesco Sforza’s policy lived, acted in concert with Venice, is proved by this declaration. On the side of Savoy there was as little to fear as from Ferrara, for although the duke was son-in-law of the King of Naples, he was yet entirely powerless in the presence of his neighbour, even if he had intended to obey Ferrante. Thus it stood with Upper Italy. Abroad the Florentines could likewise count on allies; the most important of whom, if not in reference to actual assistance, yet on account of his position, was the French king.We have remarked before upon the intimate connections of Louis XI. with Florence and the Medici. But it was not only the wish to preserve connections which were beneficial to his country which induced the king to take the side of the Republic. The strange mixture of bigotry and gross superstition with extreme contempt for the persons connected with the Church, even her highest dignitaries, which certainly never existed in such a degree as with this prince, are here revealed. The man who had faith in amulets and portable altars, who, as the Bishop de Seyssel informs us in his panegyric, knelt from time to time before lead and tin figures of the Madonna fastened to the brim of his hat, so that the people thought him mad, allowed the disputes of his clergy to grow to a schism when he found them opposed to his projects, or thought them connected with the attempts at conspiracy by which he constantly believed himself threatened. Wherever his authority was questioned, he regarded the Pope and clergy as hostile powers, and their conduct unfortunately often added strength to such views. When he confined the Cardinal La Balue in an iron cage, which still may be seen in the castle of Loches in Touraine, the latter had deserved severer punishment for his dishonourable treason. Just at this time many reasons combined to irritate him, and the accusations hurled against him in the sermons preached at Paris by the Franciscan Antoine Fradin, which found their echo in popular tumults, did not help to pacify him.Louis XI.’s relation to Pope Sixtus IV. had always been uncertain. The king had, from the beginning of his reign, held out the Pragmatic Sanction and the Council as a bait and a terror. He had not even always observed outward respect; anger and sorrow at the slighting treatment shown to him during his French legation, had shortened Cardinal Bessarion’s life. He was on the verge of open hostility when the Pope appointed Giuliano della Rovere legate of Avignon, which dignity was filled by Charles de Bourbon.The king accused the new legate of being implicated in Réné of Anjou’s plans, who, at variance with Louis XI., hoped to obtain the county of Provence for the Duke of Burgundy. After appointing his only remaining nephew, Charles, Count of Maine, as his heir, the old king entered into an agreement of the kind with Charles the Bold in 1474, who by this means, and the reviving of the superannuated royal title of Arelat, hoped to attain the dignity, for the grant of which he had vainly negotiated with the Emperor Frederick III. Louis XI. had formerly garrisoned the province of Anjou, and taken the precautions necessary to hold both Charles and Réné in check. Towards the end of the winter of 1476 the terrible defeat of Charles at Granson left the hands of Louis free, and he immediately commenced a trial against Réné in Parliament for high treason, and forced him and the other branches of the house of Anjou at Lyons to cede all rights and claims to him. Réné, who was then sixty-eight years old, still retained the government of his States, but the king took precautions against future vagaries by fortifying and by gaining over to his side the principal councillors of his wavering and incapable cousin, precautions which future events proved useless.The influence on the destinies of Italy of this transferring of the claims on Naples from a weak collateral line to the royal house of France, need not be indicated here. In order to punish the Holy See for the share ascribed to her legates, the king had an idea of garrisoning Franche Comtois, Venaissin and Anjou, and he refrained only because Charles the Bold, who had speedily collected his army, threatened to advance into Provence in case the Pope were annoyed in his French possessions.It was his relationship with the Duke of Burgundy which so violently excited Louis XI. against Sixtus IV.’s ally, the king of Naples, and this was the foundation of French policy towards the Aragonese. It has been observed already that King Ferrante declined Louis’s proposals of a family alliance, out of regard for his connections with Spain andBurgundy. He held firmly to his alliance with the latter, even when, after the battle at Granson, Milan and Savoy turned aside from the vanquished party and joined the king. In the autumn of 1474 Ferrante had sent his younger son Federigo to the duke to deliver to him the order of the Ermine, and the prince had married a daughter of the duke of Bourbon, Charles the Bold’s adherent, and had only returned home two years later. Among his companions was the same Cola di Campobasso, who remained in the duke’s service, and exercised, by his shameful treason, only too great an influence on his tragical fate.[249]In April 1475 the Bastard of Burgundy, Antony, brother of the Duke, was in Naples, where he lived in the house of Diomed Carafa, and was most honourably treated by the King.[250]Charles the Bold’s death, in the battle near Nancy, January 5, 1477—an event which made Louis XI. entirely master of France, although it did not diminish the discontent excited by his covetousness, cunning, and cruelty—was a heavy blow for Ferrante’s entire policy, and later forced him into compliance when affairs in Italy also took a turn not in accordance with his expectations.From Arras, which the king had taken May 4, 1478, in war against Mary of Burgundy, Charles’s daughter, by means of a capitulation which seemed concluded only to be broken, Louis XI. addressed a letter to the Florentines, May 12, in which he expressed his sorrow and indignation at what had occurred, and announced the arrival of an ambassador: ‘Our regret is as great as if the matter had concerned ourselves, and our honour is as much insulted as your own, the Medici being our relations, friends, and allies. We hold the attempt against you, and the murder of our cousinGiuliano, as equal to an attempt against ourselves, and we consider the Pazzi as guilty of high treason. On no account do we wish that their crime go unpunished, but desire with all our heart that a chastisement may be inflicted which shall serve as an example for ever. Thus we have determined to send our beloved and faithful chamberlain to your Excellencies, the Lord of Argenton, seneschal of our province of Poitou, at present one of the men who has our complete confidence, in order to make known our intentions to you. He will inform you of various things concerning these matters.’[251]It was no unimportant man whom the king sent to Italy. Philippe de Commines delineates in his memoirs an ambassador as ‘a complaisant man, who takes liberties with things and words in order to attain his end.’ It was he who wrote thus, whom Louis XI. selected. During the days of Peronne, when the king had voluntarily put himself in the power of his mighty opponent, Charles the Bold, he recognised Commines’ acuteness and knew his obligations to him, so that when the duke in his inconsiderate haste was plunging himself into destruction, the king employed every means in his power to gain over this most capable councillor. The youthful companion and confidant of Charles went over to the enemy’s camp in 1472, and his new master so overwhelmed him with honours and gain that the motives of his change of party and faithlessness now seem even worse than they perhaps really were, however unfavourable certain expressions attributed to him on other occasions may appear. When the Duke of Burgundy at last met before Nancy, the death he had challenged so often, the king dreaded to employ Commines to execute his plans against Flanders; he employed him first in Burgundy itself, and then entrusted him with the Italian embassy. Florentine affairs formed only a part of his mission. A question arose concerning the intentions of Sixtus IV. and his predominating influence in Central Italy, limiting the ambitionof the Aragonese who promoted these views for the time, and thus forced Florence, as well as Savoy and Milan, to adhere closer to the French interest.In the middle of June the lord of Argenton—Commines bore this title after his marriage with Hélène de Jambes, heiress of Ortes—arrived at Turin. The duchess of Savoy, Jolante, widow of Amadeus IX., regent for her son Philibert I., was the King’s sister, and he had always managed to make use of the relationship more in the French interest than in that of the little neighbour state. He must have repented frustrating Philibert’s marriage with Mary of Burgundy when the archduke Max obtained her hand. He promoted the betrothal of the latter with Bianca Sforza, who was destined in later years to become the consort of the Emperor. Commines was to negotiate this affair in Milan with Bianca’s mother, Bona of Savoy. He repaired thither after two days’ halt in Turin. The promise of the renewal of the investiture of Genoa and Savona, in favour of Giovan Galeazzo Sforza, was to ally the regent of Milan more closely to France, and confirm the common alliance with Florence. The Italians soon observed, however, how the matter stood respecting the king’s intentions towards the Holy See, even before Commines expressed himself on the subject to Bona of Savoy. On June 16, during Commines’ residence in Turin, Antonio d’Appiano, Milanese ambassador at the court of Guglielmo Paleologus, marquis of Montferrat, wrote from Casale to the duchess, ‘The marquis imparted to me to-day that the French king has long been labouring to produce a schism in the church. What has occurred in Florence seems to afford him a suitable means to this end; on which account he sends the lord of Argenton to the duchess of Savoy, to your Excellence, and to Florence. To Venice he will not go, because the king is certain that, in respect to the alliance entered into, a simple letter will suffice to persuade the Republic to comply. The purpose is to complain of the Pope, because, instead of protecting Christendom againstthe Turks, he thinks of nothing but elevating and enriching his relations, by suffering all wickedness and treasons, and allowing them to be carried out without hindrance, as is the case in Florence. For this reason he wishes that the Duchess of Savoy, your Excellency, and the Venetians may let none pass to Rome from beyond the mountains. Without taking up arms against the Pope, he wishes thus to awake in him bitter repentance for his errors, and to proceed gradually, day by day, according to circumstances and information and careful calculation.’ It was said the Bishop of Clermont was to go to Rome to make representations to the Pope and to threaten Riario personally.[252]On June 22 Commines left Milan with a suite of twenty-five horsemen. ‘The lord of Argenton,’ thus wrote the duchess to her ambassador in Rome, ‘leaves us to-day for Florence. He is commissioned to persuade all the powers to withdraw from their obedience to the Pope, the king of France deeming it necessary for the weal of Christendom to assemble a general council as soon as a disposition favourable to it evinces itself. His Majesty will immediately summon one in the kingdom.’ Three days before, Lorenzo de’ Medici had thanked the king for his sympathy, and given him information of the excommunication proclaimed against him and the strife in prospect. ‘God is my witness that I am conscious of having done nothing against the Pope but that I live, that I did not allow myself to be killed, that grace from above protected me. This is my sin; this my crime for which I deserve destruction and exclusion from the Church. But we have the canon laws, we have natural and political justice, we have truth and innocence, and we have God and man.’[253]The lord of Argenton, who had obtained auxiliary troops as well from Savoy as from Milan, was received at Florencewith open arms. ‘We went to meet him,’ wrote the Milanese ambassadors,[254]‘with the deputies of the league and many citizens, with the Lord Lorenzo, Lorenzino his cousin, and a troop of armed men for his guard.’ Commines found the city in the midst of preparations for war. He offered the assistance of the king against the Pope’s measures, both spiritual and military. In his memoirs he does not say much of this embassy. ‘The favour of the king was useful to them in some measure, but not so much as I could have wished. I could offer them no army, and had nothing excepting my suite.’[255]Of his journey to Rome and the affairs there, he says not a word. That they were not without fear in high ecclesiastical circles is shown by a letter addressed to the Pope by the Cardinal of Pavia on July 16, from San Lorenzo alle Grotte on the Lake of Bolsena, in which he speaks of the opposition extending within and without Italy, and gives the advice to gain time till the cardinals were again more numerously assembled in Rome. ‘Certain intelligence has reached me that the French king is sending an ambassador to us, a man of high standing in France, who has received peremptory instructions. If the ban against the Florentines be not removed, if the sharers and accomplices in the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici be not punished, and if peace be not restored, the king will have no scruple in pronouncing the withdrawal of obedience, and appealing to the council.’ When the cardinal wrote thus, Commines must have been long in Rome, as he passed through Perugia on July 9, accompanied by the Florentine ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci. Of the negotiation with the Pope nothing is known. That Sixtus IV. did not allow himself to be frightened by the king’s threats is shown by the fact that the war began at once. That the circumstances of the Papal States made no unfavourable impression on the ambassador is proved by his remark that the Popes were prudent and well-advised,and the inhabitants of the States would be the happiest people in the world but for the quarrels of the Colonna and the Orsini, for they paid no taxes nor any impositions worthy of consideration. After a few days, Philippe de Commines was again in Florence without having accomplished anything. We shall speak of his later activity further on.
CHAPTER II.ALLIANCES AND COUNTER ALLIANCES. PREPARATION FOR THE CONFLICT.Inthe speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set out from Umbria with an equal number of armed men. Lorenzo’s first thought was to cover the passes of the Apennines, thus rendering any attack on that side very difficult for the enemy, as the German freebooters experienced to their misfortune about the middle of the fourteenth century. However, the first news of the events in Florence sufficed to induce the intruders to retreat. But Lorenzo was not at ease. The revelations of Montesecco had fully explained to him Riario’s fierce hatred and the Pope’s dangerous indulgence towards his nephews. It was necessary to prevent future plots, either by reconciling opponents or by rendering them harmless, and to gain friends abroad Lorenzo spared no labour. The city was provisioned, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and a sharp eye was kept on all who passed in and out. A band of armed men whom Giovanni Bentivoglio caused to advance as far as the Mugello, for the protection of Florence, secured theApennine side from a sudden attack. Lorenzo took care to win over those who belonged to families involved in the plot, and who were in continual dread of discovery. He calmed and assured by friendly advances Averardo Salviati, a near relation of the archbishop, who kept hidden from fear.His chief cause of anxiety was Sixtus IV. A cardinal was in the palace of the Signoria deprived of his freedom. An archbishop had been shamefully killed without a trial, and several ecclesiastics had lost their lives.When the news arrived in Rome Donato Acciaiuoli was there as ambassador of the Republic.[239]It was the second time that he had represented his native city under Sixtus IV., and his caution and shrewdness seem to have succeeded in restoring a tolerable feeling between the two neighbours when this new complication arose and threatened a dangerous crisis. Acciaiuoli, to whom Riario’s plans had remained a secret, saw the danger immediately, but he was not prepared for the violence to which the Pope’s nephew resorted. When the latter heard what had happened he flew into a great rage. Exasperated at the ill-success of his enterprise, and the insult done to his family, he urged the Pope and the Sacred College to violent measures. He then hastened, with a company of 300 mercenaries, with halberds on their shoulders, to Acciaiuoli’s lodging, and summoned him to follow him. Donato answered that he was much surprised at a demand which insulted both himself and the Republic he represented, which was contrary to all custom, and the respect befitting foreign ambassadors, so that he could not believe that it had happened with the knowledge of the Pope and the College of Cardinals. He, the count, might go wheresoever he pleased: the Signoria would know how they ought to avenge a slight shown to them in the person of their ambassador. Girolamo Riario in his rage scarcely deigned an answer, so that Acciaiuoli, to guard against worse violence,commissioned his chancellor to bring the ciphers and important papers in safety, and instantly to inform those at home of the occurrence; after which he prepared to leave. Surrounded by armed men, he reached the Vatican, where he demanded an interview with the Pope. Before the Holy Father he complained bitterly of the undignified proceeding, and then turned to Riario: ‘Count,’ he said, ‘I am astonished at the insolent daring with which you came armed to my residence, the residence of the Florentine ambassador, and led me like a criminal through the city to the palace. I declare to you that the insult done me is so great that the Republic will not rest till you have been brought to reason.’ Hereupon he represented to the Pope that His Holiness had done wrong in allowing such a thing, contrary to all custom and the respect due to all foreign ambassadors. Sixtus protested with an oath it had happened without his knowledge, and that he regretted the event, upon which he dismissed Donato to his lodging in the city.The latter was so affected at the insult to himself, the slight cast upon his native city, and the prospect of irremediable evils, that he fell into a dangerous illness, from which he never recovered. He immediately wrote to Florence an account of what had happened, and urged most pressingly that the cardinal should be set at liberty without delay. The Signoria had announced to the Pope that he had been brought to a safe place to protect him from the popular fury, and was now at the disposal of his Holiness. The ambassador confirmed this statement, and urged his government to fulfil it, if they did not intend to plunge him into still greater difficulties. King Ferrante commissioned his ambassador to the Republic to act in a like manner. But in Florence they seem to have listened to other counsels from Rome than these commendable suggestions, and only increased the seriousness of the situation. The execution of Montesecco, and the disturbance made about his revelations, irritated the Pope and Girolamo as much as the imprisonmentof the Cardinal. The demand of the former, that Lorenzo should be banished and complete satisfaction given for all that had taken place, a demand which seems to have been supported by King Ferrante, added fuel to the flames in Florence. It is said that the Pope intended to put Acciaiuoli in the castle of St. Angelo, and the reason it was not done was that the Venetian and Milanese ambassadors declared they would share the fate of their colleagues. Certain it is, that the Florentine feared to leave his house, and as matters grew daily worse he soon begged permission to quit a post in which he could no longer work for the good of his native place. But it was only towards the end of June that he reached Florence, seriously ill.What had been threatened against the ambassador actually happened to the other Florentines in Rome. Many of the merchants and bankers were taken to the Castle and had their property confiscated in order to prevent them leaving the city with it, according to a summons which they had received from home. A migration like that would have excited public attention and brought serious loss to many persons of the Pope’s court, who had deposited considerable sums in their banks. Scarcely, however, had they been shut up when the matter was reconsidered, and the prisoners set at liberty again, on their promising not to leave Rome. Thus four weeks slipped by without either party arriving at a decision, one way or the other, while they naturally irritated each other more and more. On May 24 the bishop of Perugia was sent to Florence to fetch the cardinal and accompany him to Rome, and he delivered a letter addressed to Lorenzo by the Cardinal Camerlengo Guillaume d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, who knew Florence and the Medici well, since Cosimo’s time, and had gone in person to Castle Sant’Angelo to effect the liberation of the prisoners. The letter announced that the Pope and College of Cardinals had determined to proceed to measures against the Republic if the cardinal of San Giorgio (Riario) were not immediately set at liberty, and a commissionconsisting of five cardinals had already been appointed to commence legal proceedings. Lorenzo might thus, in order to avoid anger and injury, use his influence to a conciliatory purpose. The imprisonment and liberation of the Florentine merchants were explained by the circumstance mentioned above, and would, it was said, give the Republic no cause to complain.[240]In Florence they were by no means inclined to push matters to extremes, because the Venetian Signoria, when asked for advice respecting the cardinal, gave it as their opinion, on May 22, that his captivity not only served no purpose, but afforded the enemies of the Republic ground for accusation, and that it would be most rational to announce at Rome that from respect to His Holiness and the Sacred College, they had protected the cardinal from popular fury, and would leave him entire personal freedom.[241]Ample time had been afforded them to convince themselves of the innocence of young Riario. On June 5 he quitted the palace and repaired first to the Servite cloister by S. Annunziata, from whence he addressed to the Pope, on the 10th of the same month, the following letter which may have been dictated to him, but which did not describe the situation of affairs incorrectly. ‘A few days ago I informed your Holiness that perfect freedom over my movements had been granted me. Besides this, I said how much I was obliged to the Government here, and especially to Lorenzo de’ Medici for their great kindness to me. Finally, I begged your Holiness to grant the Florentines some favour in return for the benefits shown me in your name. My hope has, however, been bitterly disappointed on learning that Lorenzo and the Florentine people have been laid under an interdict; and I, unhappy man that I am, expected and wished that good might befall them, whereas the contrary has happened. But I cannot say, Holy Father, how much it grieves me thatmy requests have so little weight with your Holiness, and that I should appear ungrateful towards those to whom I owe so much, and it seems to me not fitting I should leave this city before such a sentence should be reprieved. Were the attachment of this people to the Medici fully known to your Holiness, you would not hate them as you do. As I rejoiced when your Holiness granted me the cardinal’s dignity, just so and even more will I rejoice if I hear that these men, who have deserved so much from us, have received grace for my sake. I shall then believe that I am in favour with your Holiness when this senate, and Lorenzo above all, have a share in your favour. From the cloister of S. Annunziata, June 10, 1478.’[242]On June 12 Riario set out on his journey to Siena. A Sienese chronicler relates that the cardinal reached the city June 13th, and alighted at the house of Messer Tommé, bishop of Pienza, more dead than alive from the terror he had undergone, which was still so bewildering in its effect that he thought he felt the rope round his neck.[243]The scene of which he had been an involuntary spectator, and the danger which he had incurred of being seized by the furious crowd, had made the deepest impression on him. If it is true, as some say, that he never recovered his natural spirits, his whole later life proves at least that his frivolous disposition suffered no change; for forty years he lived in a turmoil of gaiety, splendour, and luxury, occupied with the execution of works of art, and sharing in amusements and intrigues which, towards the end of his worldly career, involved him in a far worse complication than did the conspiracy of the Pazzi.Four days before Riario’s liberation on June 1st, Sixtus IV. had published the bull of excommunication against Lorenzo de’ Medici who, according, to the usual style of such documents, was termed ‘iniquitatis filius et perditionis alumnus.’ His adherents and the members of the government were included. The bull begins with the enumeration of the old differences existing between the Pope and Florence, the protection afforded to Niccolò Vitelli, Carlo Fortebraccio, Deifebo dell’Anguillara, the attacks on the Papal territory in the valley of the Tiber, the hindrance to those journeying to Rome, whether they came to the city by land or by water, and the refusal to allow Francesco Salviati to take possession of his archiepiscopal chair. It then passed on to mention recent events, the murder of the archbishop and other priests, and the imprisonment of the cardinal on account of civil and family feuds, which had arisen because the Medici and their party had seized all power for themselves and had exercised it to the prejudice of others with severity and despotism. On these grounds the ban of the church was pronounced against Lorenzo, the priors, the Gonfaloniere, and other magistrates, and everyone who should afford them assistance, or had done so, as against traitors and desecrators of the Church. They were declared to be deprived of all possessions, all honours and offices, and the capability of bequeathing to their heirs. All their male descendants were included in this sentence. If Florence did not deliver up Lorenzo and his fellow culprits within a month, she should be deprived of her archbishopric, and with her entire territory, and those of Fiesole and Pistoja, be placed under an interdict.[244]It is a singular fact that, even after the publication of the bull, Cardinal d’Estouteville wrote to Lorenzo to acquaint him with the Papal grants of tithes in the territory of the Republic.[245]Thus war was declared. On both sides it was necessary to collect forces and gain allies.The history of the events of the last years has shown how intimate the connection of King Ferrante and hisfamily was with the Medici. Outwardly this connection was still existing when the strife between Florence and the Pope began. In November 1477, the Duke of Calabria, when he wrote to Lorenzo, styled him ‘my dear and most beloved;’ the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, had the best position in Florence; the king sent horses and falcons to Medici, and entrusted Giovan Batista Coppola, on March 23, 1478, with a mission, the aim of which is unknown. A letter of April 30 of the same year, four days, therefore, before the terrible event, begins with the words: ‘Illustrious lord, dearest friend and gossip.’ But there was no lack of grounds for displeasure and disunion. Ferrante, who was as shrewd as he was ambitious, soon discovered that Lorenzo stood in the way of his endeavour to attain the preponderating influence in Italy, and if he had earlier sought to use the position of the Medici for his own purposes he easily offered his aid to overthrow them when he found them to be no mere tools of his. There is no record that he knew of Riario’s plans; but we know from Sixtus’s own words that he not only agreed to the enraged Pope’s proposal to proceed against Florence, but fomented his hatred of her. Causes easily to be understood contributed to render a change in Florence desirable to the king. Whether the supposition be true or not, that Ferrante had once projected a marriage between his second son and the duchess dowager of Milan, but that the plan was frustrated by Lorenzo, cannot be decided. But other facts are undoubted. It was the ancient policy of the rulers of Naples to employ the Sienese against their neighbours. Even King Manfred had pursued this. Ferrante, and still more his son Alfonso, cherished the secret hope of gaining firm footing in Siena, which wavered like a reed in every wind, and thus keeping Florence in check. By her very dubious conduct in the predatory attack of Fortebraccio, of whom it was supposed that, had he succeeded in getting possession of Siena, he would have delivered it to the Florentines, the latter had played their enemies’ game. Weshall see how it was by the merest chance that the plans of the Aragonese were not realised.The result of such mistakes was that the connection between the Sienese and the King and the Pope became closer, and the confirmation of the alliance between them had been published in Siena on February 8, giving general satisfaction. It may be easily understood that Ferrante made use of these circumstances, and after the Duke of Calabria had arrived at Rome on May 12 to consult with the Pope and his captains respecting military measures, the valley of the Chiana was chosen as the basis of the operations which should receive support from Umbria. The Duke of Urbino, as captain-general of the church, undertook the chief command in conjunction with the Neapolitan prince. Not only the military skill of Federigo di Montefeltro, but the affairs of Romagna, rendered his accession important.We have already pointed out the disturbed state of this province, and the different interests which prevailed among its dynasties. Several of these remained faithful for a long time on the side of Florence, others only waited for an opportunity of declaring themselves for the Republic. Sixtus IV. fully perceived how serious was the position of affairs. Bologna especially inspired him with anxiety, on account of the friendship of the Bentivogli with the Medici, so that he sent thither the legate of the city, the Cardinal of Mantua, as Francesco Gonzaga was commonly called, in order to win and preserve them in fealty to the Holy See. The instructions that he gave him plainly betrayed his anxiety as well as his consciousness of the bad impression which the events at Florence had produced. After he had spoken of his duty to watch over the whole State, and especially over a city which was the first and most illustrious after Rome, and exhorted its inhabitants not to waver in their fidelity nor allow a passage to hostile troops which might be intended to attack the Papal army, but to abstain from all communications with the Florentines, he continues thus: ‘That on the firstnews of the Florentine disturbances our Bolognese assisted their neighbours, has not been taken amiss by us, nor blamed, but we have regarded it as an act of sympathy, as they had as yet done nothing against the dignity of the Church, and we, too, lamented the first occurrence, to which we testified in a letter to the Florentines. But as the latter subsequently showed such unworthy slights and insults to the ecclesiastical order, every honourable ground has been removed for the Bolognese assisting a people obstinately offending the dignity of the Holy Roman Church, and rightly condemned by her on account of public crimes; for aid to them would be rather a personal insult to us.’ If any projects for aid were in progress the legate was first to exhort paternally, and if this did not avail, to excommunicate the offenders, and, in the last extremity, to lay the city under an interdict and shake the dust from their feet. In like manner he was to proceed with Giovanni Bentivoglio, who, as he took a privileged position in the city with Papal consent, was especially bound to the Holy See as feudatory and vassal. But the Pope hoped that the inhabitants would show themselves good and loyal sons.[246]If Sixtus IV. found allies, his opponents did not lack them either. In the foremost ranks were Venice and Milan. The Republic had already, on April 28, despatched a letter of condolence to Florence,[247]at the same time announcing that they had immediately resolved upon decisive measures if necessary, in concert with the ambassadors from Milan and Ferrara. Giovanni Emo arrived in Florence with the commission, to confirm these friendly intentions and inform himself of the position of affairs. Serious representations were made in Rome, first in order to hinder the Pope from giving free course to his rage against the Florentines; and, secondly, in order to persuade him to retract the bull. When both failed, the Republic assumed a decided tone of command.‘Because his Holiness,’ so she wrote to her ambassador, ‘on the urging of others, and to satisfy their unjust demands, attacks the Florentines with spiritual and temporal weapons, we wish that the Holy Father should know that we, of one accord with them, and the state of Milan, will defend the possessions, honour, and dignity of our ally in spiritual and temporal things. The Holy Father must not flatter himself he can conceal the purpose of his evil thoughts by asserting that he does not fight against Florence only, but against Lorenzo personally, for we all know perfectly well that this attack is not only upon Lorenzo, who is entirely innocent of the false accusations heaped upon him, but the present form of government in Florence, which they wish to overthrow, and change according to their will, with the whole of Italy. We wish, also, that the Holy Father should be assured henceforth that if he does not recall the ban, and refrain from warlike preparations, but continues his attack, we three will recall our ambassadors, and take such measures that he shall soon perceive that we have said the truth respecting our intentions, and that whoever causes him to take hostile steps deceives him in order to make him the instrument of views which are in themselves shameful and dangerous to the States of the Church, and especially to his Holiness.’[248]That the duchess-regent of Milan, guided by Simonetta, in whom the tradition of Francesco Sforza’s policy lived, acted in concert with Venice, is proved by this declaration. On the side of Savoy there was as little to fear as from Ferrara, for although the duke was son-in-law of the King of Naples, he was yet entirely powerless in the presence of his neighbour, even if he had intended to obey Ferrante. Thus it stood with Upper Italy. Abroad the Florentines could likewise count on allies; the most important of whom, if not in reference to actual assistance, yet on account of his position, was the French king.We have remarked before upon the intimate connections of Louis XI. with Florence and the Medici. But it was not only the wish to preserve connections which were beneficial to his country which induced the king to take the side of the Republic. The strange mixture of bigotry and gross superstition with extreme contempt for the persons connected with the Church, even her highest dignitaries, which certainly never existed in such a degree as with this prince, are here revealed. The man who had faith in amulets and portable altars, who, as the Bishop de Seyssel informs us in his panegyric, knelt from time to time before lead and tin figures of the Madonna fastened to the brim of his hat, so that the people thought him mad, allowed the disputes of his clergy to grow to a schism when he found them opposed to his projects, or thought them connected with the attempts at conspiracy by which he constantly believed himself threatened. Wherever his authority was questioned, he regarded the Pope and clergy as hostile powers, and their conduct unfortunately often added strength to such views. When he confined the Cardinal La Balue in an iron cage, which still may be seen in the castle of Loches in Touraine, the latter had deserved severer punishment for his dishonourable treason. Just at this time many reasons combined to irritate him, and the accusations hurled against him in the sermons preached at Paris by the Franciscan Antoine Fradin, which found their echo in popular tumults, did not help to pacify him.Louis XI.’s relation to Pope Sixtus IV. had always been uncertain. The king had, from the beginning of his reign, held out the Pragmatic Sanction and the Council as a bait and a terror. He had not even always observed outward respect; anger and sorrow at the slighting treatment shown to him during his French legation, had shortened Cardinal Bessarion’s life. He was on the verge of open hostility when the Pope appointed Giuliano della Rovere legate of Avignon, which dignity was filled by Charles de Bourbon.The king accused the new legate of being implicated in Réné of Anjou’s plans, who, at variance with Louis XI., hoped to obtain the county of Provence for the Duke of Burgundy. After appointing his only remaining nephew, Charles, Count of Maine, as his heir, the old king entered into an agreement of the kind with Charles the Bold in 1474, who by this means, and the reviving of the superannuated royal title of Arelat, hoped to attain the dignity, for the grant of which he had vainly negotiated with the Emperor Frederick III. Louis XI. had formerly garrisoned the province of Anjou, and taken the precautions necessary to hold both Charles and Réné in check. Towards the end of the winter of 1476 the terrible defeat of Charles at Granson left the hands of Louis free, and he immediately commenced a trial against Réné in Parliament for high treason, and forced him and the other branches of the house of Anjou at Lyons to cede all rights and claims to him. Réné, who was then sixty-eight years old, still retained the government of his States, but the king took precautions against future vagaries by fortifying and by gaining over to his side the principal councillors of his wavering and incapable cousin, precautions which future events proved useless.The influence on the destinies of Italy of this transferring of the claims on Naples from a weak collateral line to the royal house of France, need not be indicated here. In order to punish the Holy See for the share ascribed to her legates, the king had an idea of garrisoning Franche Comtois, Venaissin and Anjou, and he refrained only because Charles the Bold, who had speedily collected his army, threatened to advance into Provence in case the Pope were annoyed in his French possessions.It was his relationship with the Duke of Burgundy which so violently excited Louis XI. against Sixtus IV.’s ally, the king of Naples, and this was the foundation of French policy towards the Aragonese. It has been observed already that King Ferrante declined Louis’s proposals of a family alliance, out of regard for his connections with Spain andBurgundy. He held firmly to his alliance with the latter, even when, after the battle at Granson, Milan and Savoy turned aside from the vanquished party and joined the king. In the autumn of 1474 Ferrante had sent his younger son Federigo to the duke to deliver to him the order of the Ermine, and the prince had married a daughter of the duke of Bourbon, Charles the Bold’s adherent, and had only returned home two years later. Among his companions was the same Cola di Campobasso, who remained in the duke’s service, and exercised, by his shameful treason, only too great an influence on his tragical fate.[249]In April 1475 the Bastard of Burgundy, Antony, brother of the Duke, was in Naples, where he lived in the house of Diomed Carafa, and was most honourably treated by the King.[250]Charles the Bold’s death, in the battle near Nancy, January 5, 1477—an event which made Louis XI. entirely master of France, although it did not diminish the discontent excited by his covetousness, cunning, and cruelty—was a heavy blow for Ferrante’s entire policy, and later forced him into compliance when affairs in Italy also took a turn not in accordance with his expectations.From Arras, which the king had taken May 4, 1478, in war against Mary of Burgundy, Charles’s daughter, by means of a capitulation which seemed concluded only to be broken, Louis XI. addressed a letter to the Florentines, May 12, in which he expressed his sorrow and indignation at what had occurred, and announced the arrival of an ambassador: ‘Our regret is as great as if the matter had concerned ourselves, and our honour is as much insulted as your own, the Medici being our relations, friends, and allies. We hold the attempt against you, and the murder of our cousinGiuliano, as equal to an attempt against ourselves, and we consider the Pazzi as guilty of high treason. On no account do we wish that their crime go unpunished, but desire with all our heart that a chastisement may be inflicted which shall serve as an example for ever. Thus we have determined to send our beloved and faithful chamberlain to your Excellencies, the Lord of Argenton, seneschal of our province of Poitou, at present one of the men who has our complete confidence, in order to make known our intentions to you. He will inform you of various things concerning these matters.’[251]It was no unimportant man whom the king sent to Italy. Philippe de Commines delineates in his memoirs an ambassador as ‘a complaisant man, who takes liberties with things and words in order to attain his end.’ It was he who wrote thus, whom Louis XI. selected. During the days of Peronne, when the king had voluntarily put himself in the power of his mighty opponent, Charles the Bold, he recognised Commines’ acuteness and knew his obligations to him, so that when the duke in his inconsiderate haste was plunging himself into destruction, the king employed every means in his power to gain over this most capable councillor. The youthful companion and confidant of Charles went over to the enemy’s camp in 1472, and his new master so overwhelmed him with honours and gain that the motives of his change of party and faithlessness now seem even worse than they perhaps really were, however unfavourable certain expressions attributed to him on other occasions may appear. When the Duke of Burgundy at last met before Nancy, the death he had challenged so often, the king dreaded to employ Commines to execute his plans against Flanders; he employed him first in Burgundy itself, and then entrusted him with the Italian embassy. Florentine affairs formed only a part of his mission. A question arose concerning the intentions of Sixtus IV. and his predominating influence in Central Italy, limiting the ambitionof the Aragonese who promoted these views for the time, and thus forced Florence, as well as Savoy and Milan, to adhere closer to the French interest.In the middle of June the lord of Argenton—Commines bore this title after his marriage with Hélène de Jambes, heiress of Ortes—arrived at Turin. The duchess of Savoy, Jolante, widow of Amadeus IX., regent for her son Philibert I., was the King’s sister, and he had always managed to make use of the relationship more in the French interest than in that of the little neighbour state. He must have repented frustrating Philibert’s marriage with Mary of Burgundy when the archduke Max obtained her hand. He promoted the betrothal of the latter with Bianca Sforza, who was destined in later years to become the consort of the Emperor. Commines was to negotiate this affair in Milan with Bianca’s mother, Bona of Savoy. He repaired thither after two days’ halt in Turin. The promise of the renewal of the investiture of Genoa and Savona, in favour of Giovan Galeazzo Sforza, was to ally the regent of Milan more closely to France, and confirm the common alliance with Florence. The Italians soon observed, however, how the matter stood respecting the king’s intentions towards the Holy See, even before Commines expressed himself on the subject to Bona of Savoy. On June 16, during Commines’ residence in Turin, Antonio d’Appiano, Milanese ambassador at the court of Guglielmo Paleologus, marquis of Montferrat, wrote from Casale to the duchess, ‘The marquis imparted to me to-day that the French king has long been labouring to produce a schism in the church. What has occurred in Florence seems to afford him a suitable means to this end; on which account he sends the lord of Argenton to the duchess of Savoy, to your Excellence, and to Florence. To Venice he will not go, because the king is certain that, in respect to the alliance entered into, a simple letter will suffice to persuade the Republic to comply. The purpose is to complain of the Pope, because, instead of protecting Christendom againstthe Turks, he thinks of nothing but elevating and enriching his relations, by suffering all wickedness and treasons, and allowing them to be carried out without hindrance, as is the case in Florence. For this reason he wishes that the Duchess of Savoy, your Excellency, and the Venetians may let none pass to Rome from beyond the mountains. Without taking up arms against the Pope, he wishes thus to awake in him bitter repentance for his errors, and to proceed gradually, day by day, according to circumstances and information and careful calculation.’ It was said the Bishop of Clermont was to go to Rome to make representations to the Pope and to threaten Riario personally.[252]On June 22 Commines left Milan with a suite of twenty-five horsemen. ‘The lord of Argenton,’ thus wrote the duchess to her ambassador in Rome, ‘leaves us to-day for Florence. He is commissioned to persuade all the powers to withdraw from their obedience to the Pope, the king of France deeming it necessary for the weal of Christendom to assemble a general council as soon as a disposition favourable to it evinces itself. His Majesty will immediately summon one in the kingdom.’ Three days before, Lorenzo de’ Medici had thanked the king for his sympathy, and given him information of the excommunication proclaimed against him and the strife in prospect. ‘God is my witness that I am conscious of having done nothing against the Pope but that I live, that I did not allow myself to be killed, that grace from above protected me. This is my sin; this my crime for which I deserve destruction and exclusion from the Church. But we have the canon laws, we have natural and political justice, we have truth and innocence, and we have God and man.’[253]The lord of Argenton, who had obtained auxiliary troops as well from Savoy as from Milan, was received at Florencewith open arms. ‘We went to meet him,’ wrote the Milanese ambassadors,[254]‘with the deputies of the league and many citizens, with the Lord Lorenzo, Lorenzino his cousin, and a troop of armed men for his guard.’ Commines found the city in the midst of preparations for war. He offered the assistance of the king against the Pope’s measures, both spiritual and military. In his memoirs he does not say much of this embassy. ‘The favour of the king was useful to them in some measure, but not so much as I could have wished. I could offer them no army, and had nothing excepting my suite.’[255]Of his journey to Rome and the affairs there, he says not a word. That they were not without fear in high ecclesiastical circles is shown by a letter addressed to the Pope by the Cardinal of Pavia on July 16, from San Lorenzo alle Grotte on the Lake of Bolsena, in which he speaks of the opposition extending within and without Italy, and gives the advice to gain time till the cardinals were again more numerously assembled in Rome. ‘Certain intelligence has reached me that the French king is sending an ambassador to us, a man of high standing in France, who has received peremptory instructions. If the ban against the Florentines be not removed, if the sharers and accomplices in the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici be not punished, and if peace be not restored, the king will have no scruple in pronouncing the withdrawal of obedience, and appealing to the council.’ When the cardinal wrote thus, Commines must have been long in Rome, as he passed through Perugia on July 9, accompanied by the Florentine ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci. Of the negotiation with the Pope nothing is known. That Sixtus IV. did not allow himself to be frightened by the king’s threats is shown by the fact that the war began at once. That the circumstances of the Papal States made no unfavourable impression on the ambassador is proved by his remark that the Popes were prudent and well-advised,and the inhabitants of the States would be the happiest people in the world but for the quarrels of the Colonna and the Orsini, for they paid no taxes nor any impositions worthy of consideration. After a few days, Philippe de Commines was again in Florence without having accomplished anything. We shall speak of his later activity further on.
ALLIANCES AND COUNTER ALLIANCES. PREPARATION FOR THE CONFLICT.
Inthe speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set out from Umbria with an equal number of armed men. Lorenzo’s first thought was to cover the passes of the Apennines, thus rendering any attack on that side very difficult for the enemy, as the German freebooters experienced to their misfortune about the middle of the fourteenth century. However, the first news of the events in Florence sufficed to induce the intruders to retreat. But Lorenzo was not at ease. The revelations of Montesecco had fully explained to him Riario’s fierce hatred and the Pope’s dangerous indulgence towards his nephews. It was necessary to prevent future plots, either by reconciling opponents or by rendering them harmless, and to gain friends abroad Lorenzo spared no labour. The city was provisioned, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and a sharp eye was kept on all who passed in and out. A band of armed men whom Giovanni Bentivoglio caused to advance as far as the Mugello, for the protection of Florence, secured theApennine side from a sudden attack. Lorenzo took care to win over those who belonged to families involved in the plot, and who were in continual dread of discovery. He calmed and assured by friendly advances Averardo Salviati, a near relation of the archbishop, who kept hidden from fear.
His chief cause of anxiety was Sixtus IV. A cardinal was in the palace of the Signoria deprived of his freedom. An archbishop had been shamefully killed without a trial, and several ecclesiastics had lost their lives.
When the news arrived in Rome Donato Acciaiuoli was there as ambassador of the Republic.[239]It was the second time that he had represented his native city under Sixtus IV., and his caution and shrewdness seem to have succeeded in restoring a tolerable feeling between the two neighbours when this new complication arose and threatened a dangerous crisis. Acciaiuoli, to whom Riario’s plans had remained a secret, saw the danger immediately, but he was not prepared for the violence to which the Pope’s nephew resorted. When the latter heard what had happened he flew into a great rage. Exasperated at the ill-success of his enterprise, and the insult done to his family, he urged the Pope and the Sacred College to violent measures. He then hastened, with a company of 300 mercenaries, with halberds on their shoulders, to Acciaiuoli’s lodging, and summoned him to follow him. Donato answered that he was much surprised at a demand which insulted both himself and the Republic he represented, which was contrary to all custom, and the respect befitting foreign ambassadors, so that he could not believe that it had happened with the knowledge of the Pope and the College of Cardinals. He, the count, might go wheresoever he pleased: the Signoria would know how they ought to avenge a slight shown to them in the person of their ambassador. Girolamo Riario in his rage scarcely deigned an answer, so that Acciaiuoli, to guard against worse violence,commissioned his chancellor to bring the ciphers and important papers in safety, and instantly to inform those at home of the occurrence; after which he prepared to leave. Surrounded by armed men, he reached the Vatican, where he demanded an interview with the Pope. Before the Holy Father he complained bitterly of the undignified proceeding, and then turned to Riario: ‘Count,’ he said, ‘I am astonished at the insolent daring with which you came armed to my residence, the residence of the Florentine ambassador, and led me like a criminal through the city to the palace. I declare to you that the insult done me is so great that the Republic will not rest till you have been brought to reason.’ Hereupon he represented to the Pope that His Holiness had done wrong in allowing such a thing, contrary to all custom and the respect due to all foreign ambassadors. Sixtus protested with an oath it had happened without his knowledge, and that he regretted the event, upon which he dismissed Donato to his lodging in the city.
The latter was so affected at the insult to himself, the slight cast upon his native city, and the prospect of irremediable evils, that he fell into a dangerous illness, from which he never recovered. He immediately wrote to Florence an account of what had happened, and urged most pressingly that the cardinal should be set at liberty without delay. The Signoria had announced to the Pope that he had been brought to a safe place to protect him from the popular fury, and was now at the disposal of his Holiness. The ambassador confirmed this statement, and urged his government to fulfil it, if they did not intend to plunge him into still greater difficulties. King Ferrante commissioned his ambassador to the Republic to act in a like manner. But in Florence they seem to have listened to other counsels from Rome than these commendable suggestions, and only increased the seriousness of the situation. The execution of Montesecco, and the disturbance made about his revelations, irritated the Pope and Girolamo as much as the imprisonmentof the Cardinal. The demand of the former, that Lorenzo should be banished and complete satisfaction given for all that had taken place, a demand which seems to have been supported by King Ferrante, added fuel to the flames in Florence. It is said that the Pope intended to put Acciaiuoli in the castle of St. Angelo, and the reason it was not done was that the Venetian and Milanese ambassadors declared they would share the fate of their colleagues. Certain it is, that the Florentine feared to leave his house, and as matters grew daily worse he soon begged permission to quit a post in which he could no longer work for the good of his native place. But it was only towards the end of June that he reached Florence, seriously ill.
What had been threatened against the ambassador actually happened to the other Florentines in Rome. Many of the merchants and bankers were taken to the Castle and had their property confiscated in order to prevent them leaving the city with it, according to a summons which they had received from home. A migration like that would have excited public attention and brought serious loss to many persons of the Pope’s court, who had deposited considerable sums in their banks. Scarcely, however, had they been shut up when the matter was reconsidered, and the prisoners set at liberty again, on their promising not to leave Rome. Thus four weeks slipped by without either party arriving at a decision, one way or the other, while they naturally irritated each other more and more. On May 24 the bishop of Perugia was sent to Florence to fetch the cardinal and accompany him to Rome, and he delivered a letter addressed to Lorenzo by the Cardinal Camerlengo Guillaume d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen, who knew Florence and the Medici well, since Cosimo’s time, and had gone in person to Castle Sant’Angelo to effect the liberation of the prisoners. The letter announced that the Pope and College of Cardinals had determined to proceed to measures against the Republic if the cardinal of San Giorgio (Riario) were not immediately set at liberty, and a commissionconsisting of five cardinals had already been appointed to commence legal proceedings. Lorenzo might thus, in order to avoid anger and injury, use his influence to a conciliatory purpose. The imprisonment and liberation of the Florentine merchants were explained by the circumstance mentioned above, and would, it was said, give the Republic no cause to complain.[240]
In Florence they were by no means inclined to push matters to extremes, because the Venetian Signoria, when asked for advice respecting the cardinal, gave it as their opinion, on May 22, that his captivity not only served no purpose, but afforded the enemies of the Republic ground for accusation, and that it would be most rational to announce at Rome that from respect to His Holiness and the Sacred College, they had protected the cardinal from popular fury, and would leave him entire personal freedom.[241]Ample time had been afforded them to convince themselves of the innocence of young Riario. On June 5 he quitted the palace and repaired first to the Servite cloister by S. Annunziata, from whence he addressed to the Pope, on the 10th of the same month, the following letter which may have been dictated to him, but which did not describe the situation of affairs incorrectly. ‘A few days ago I informed your Holiness that perfect freedom over my movements had been granted me. Besides this, I said how much I was obliged to the Government here, and especially to Lorenzo de’ Medici for their great kindness to me. Finally, I begged your Holiness to grant the Florentines some favour in return for the benefits shown me in your name. My hope has, however, been bitterly disappointed on learning that Lorenzo and the Florentine people have been laid under an interdict; and I, unhappy man that I am, expected and wished that good might befall them, whereas the contrary has happened. But I cannot say, Holy Father, how much it grieves me thatmy requests have so little weight with your Holiness, and that I should appear ungrateful towards those to whom I owe so much, and it seems to me not fitting I should leave this city before such a sentence should be reprieved. Were the attachment of this people to the Medici fully known to your Holiness, you would not hate them as you do. As I rejoiced when your Holiness granted me the cardinal’s dignity, just so and even more will I rejoice if I hear that these men, who have deserved so much from us, have received grace for my sake. I shall then believe that I am in favour with your Holiness when this senate, and Lorenzo above all, have a share in your favour. From the cloister of S. Annunziata, June 10, 1478.’[242]
On June 12 Riario set out on his journey to Siena. A Sienese chronicler relates that the cardinal reached the city June 13th, and alighted at the house of Messer Tommé, bishop of Pienza, more dead than alive from the terror he had undergone, which was still so bewildering in its effect that he thought he felt the rope round his neck.[243]The scene of which he had been an involuntary spectator, and the danger which he had incurred of being seized by the furious crowd, had made the deepest impression on him. If it is true, as some say, that he never recovered his natural spirits, his whole later life proves at least that his frivolous disposition suffered no change; for forty years he lived in a turmoil of gaiety, splendour, and luxury, occupied with the execution of works of art, and sharing in amusements and intrigues which, towards the end of his worldly career, involved him in a far worse complication than did the conspiracy of the Pazzi.
Four days before Riario’s liberation on June 1st, Sixtus IV. had published the bull of excommunication against Lorenzo de’ Medici who, according, to the usual style of such documents, was termed ‘iniquitatis filius et perditionis alumnus.’ His adherents and the members of the government were included. The bull begins with the enumeration of the old differences existing between the Pope and Florence, the protection afforded to Niccolò Vitelli, Carlo Fortebraccio, Deifebo dell’Anguillara, the attacks on the Papal territory in the valley of the Tiber, the hindrance to those journeying to Rome, whether they came to the city by land or by water, and the refusal to allow Francesco Salviati to take possession of his archiepiscopal chair. It then passed on to mention recent events, the murder of the archbishop and other priests, and the imprisonment of the cardinal on account of civil and family feuds, which had arisen because the Medici and their party had seized all power for themselves and had exercised it to the prejudice of others with severity and despotism. On these grounds the ban of the church was pronounced against Lorenzo, the priors, the Gonfaloniere, and other magistrates, and everyone who should afford them assistance, or had done so, as against traitors and desecrators of the Church. They were declared to be deprived of all possessions, all honours and offices, and the capability of bequeathing to their heirs. All their male descendants were included in this sentence. If Florence did not deliver up Lorenzo and his fellow culprits within a month, she should be deprived of her archbishopric, and with her entire territory, and those of Fiesole and Pistoja, be placed under an interdict.[244]It is a singular fact that, even after the publication of the bull, Cardinal d’Estouteville wrote to Lorenzo to acquaint him with the Papal grants of tithes in the territory of the Republic.[245]
Thus war was declared. On both sides it was necessary to collect forces and gain allies.
The history of the events of the last years has shown how intimate the connection of King Ferrante and hisfamily was with the Medici. Outwardly this connection was still existing when the strife between Florence and the Pope began. In November 1477, the Duke of Calabria, when he wrote to Lorenzo, styled him ‘my dear and most beloved;’ the Neapolitan ambassador, Marino Tomacelli, had the best position in Florence; the king sent horses and falcons to Medici, and entrusted Giovan Batista Coppola, on March 23, 1478, with a mission, the aim of which is unknown. A letter of April 30 of the same year, four days, therefore, before the terrible event, begins with the words: ‘Illustrious lord, dearest friend and gossip.’ But there was no lack of grounds for displeasure and disunion. Ferrante, who was as shrewd as he was ambitious, soon discovered that Lorenzo stood in the way of his endeavour to attain the preponderating influence in Italy, and if he had earlier sought to use the position of the Medici for his own purposes he easily offered his aid to overthrow them when he found them to be no mere tools of his. There is no record that he knew of Riario’s plans; but we know from Sixtus’s own words that he not only agreed to the enraged Pope’s proposal to proceed against Florence, but fomented his hatred of her. Causes easily to be understood contributed to render a change in Florence desirable to the king. Whether the supposition be true or not, that Ferrante had once projected a marriage between his second son and the duchess dowager of Milan, but that the plan was frustrated by Lorenzo, cannot be decided. But other facts are undoubted. It was the ancient policy of the rulers of Naples to employ the Sienese against their neighbours. Even King Manfred had pursued this. Ferrante, and still more his son Alfonso, cherished the secret hope of gaining firm footing in Siena, which wavered like a reed in every wind, and thus keeping Florence in check. By her very dubious conduct in the predatory attack of Fortebraccio, of whom it was supposed that, had he succeeded in getting possession of Siena, he would have delivered it to the Florentines, the latter had played their enemies’ game. Weshall see how it was by the merest chance that the plans of the Aragonese were not realised.
The result of such mistakes was that the connection between the Sienese and the King and the Pope became closer, and the confirmation of the alliance between them had been published in Siena on February 8, giving general satisfaction. It may be easily understood that Ferrante made use of these circumstances, and after the Duke of Calabria had arrived at Rome on May 12 to consult with the Pope and his captains respecting military measures, the valley of the Chiana was chosen as the basis of the operations which should receive support from Umbria. The Duke of Urbino, as captain-general of the church, undertook the chief command in conjunction with the Neapolitan prince. Not only the military skill of Federigo di Montefeltro, but the affairs of Romagna, rendered his accession important.
We have already pointed out the disturbed state of this province, and the different interests which prevailed among its dynasties. Several of these remained faithful for a long time on the side of Florence, others only waited for an opportunity of declaring themselves for the Republic. Sixtus IV. fully perceived how serious was the position of affairs. Bologna especially inspired him with anxiety, on account of the friendship of the Bentivogli with the Medici, so that he sent thither the legate of the city, the Cardinal of Mantua, as Francesco Gonzaga was commonly called, in order to win and preserve them in fealty to the Holy See. The instructions that he gave him plainly betrayed his anxiety as well as his consciousness of the bad impression which the events at Florence had produced. After he had spoken of his duty to watch over the whole State, and especially over a city which was the first and most illustrious after Rome, and exhorted its inhabitants not to waver in their fidelity nor allow a passage to hostile troops which might be intended to attack the Papal army, but to abstain from all communications with the Florentines, he continues thus: ‘That on the firstnews of the Florentine disturbances our Bolognese assisted their neighbours, has not been taken amiss by us, nor blamed, but we have regarded it as an act of sympathy, as they had as yet done nothing against the dignity of the Church, and we, too, lamented the first occurrence, to which we testified in a letter to the Florentines. But as the latter subsequently showed such unworthy slights and insults to the ecclesiastical order, every honourable ground has been removed for the Bolognese assisting a people obstinately offending the dignity of the Holy Roman Church, and rightly condemned by her on account of public crimes; for aid to them would be rather a personal insult to us.’ If any projects for aid were in progress the legate was first to exhort paternally, and if this did not avail, to excommunicate the offenders, and, in the last extremity, to lay the city under an interdict and shake the dust from their feet. In like manner he was to proceed with Giovanni Bentivoglio, who, as he took a privileged position in the city with Papal consent, was especially bound to the Holy See as feudatory and vassal. But the Pope hoped that the inhabitants would show themselves good and loyal sons.[246]
If Sixtus IV. found allies, his opponents did not lack them either. In the foremost ranks were Venice and Milan. The Republic had already, on April 28, despatched a letter of condolence to Florence,[247]at the same time announcing that they had immediately resolved upon decisive measures if necessary, in concert with the ambassadors from Milan and Ferrara. Giovanni Emo arrived in Florence with the commission, to confirm these friendly intentions and inform himself of the position of affairs. Serious representations were made in Rome, first in order to hinder the Pope from giving free course to his rage against the Florentines; and, secondly, in order to persuade him to retract the bull. When both failed, the Republic assumed a decided tone of command.‘Because his Holiness,’ so she wrote to her ambassador, ‘on the urging of others, and to satisfy their unjust demands, attacks the Florentines with spiritual and temporal weapons, we wish that the Holy Father should know that we, of one accord with them, and the state of Milan, will defend the possessions, honour, and dignity of our ally in spiritual and temporal things. The Holy Father must not flatter himself he can conceal the purpose of his evil thoughts by asserting that he does not fight against Florence only, but against Lorenzo personally, for we all know perfectly well that this attack is not only upon Lorenzo, who is entirely innocent of the false accusations heaped upon him, but the present form of government in Florence, which they wish to overthrow, and change according to their will, with the whole of Italy. We wish, also, that the Holy Father should be assured henceforth that if he does not recall the ban, and refrain from warlike preparations, but continues his attack, we three will recall our ambassadors, and take such measures that he shall soon perceive that we have said the truth respecting our intentions, and that whoever causes him to take hostile steps deceives him in order to make him the instrument of views which are in themselves shameful and dangerous to the States of the Church, and especially to his Holiness.’[248]That the duchess-regent of Milan, guided by Simonetta, in whom the tradition of Francesco Sforza’s policy lived, acted in concert with Venice, is proved by this declaration. On the side of Savoy there was as little to fear as from Ferrara, for although the duke was son-in-law of the King of Naples, he was yet entirely powerless in the presence of his neighbour, even if he had intended to obey Ferrante. Thus it stood with Upper Italy. Abroad the Florentines could likewise count on allies; the most important of whom, if not in reference to actual assistance, yet on account of his position, was the French king.
We have remarked before upon the intimate connections of Louis XI. with Florence and the Medici. But it was not only the wish to preserve connections which were beneficial to his country which induced the king to take the side of the Republic. The strange mixture of bigotry and gross superstition with extreme contempt for the persons connected with the Church, even her highest dignitaries, which certainly never existed in such a degree as with this prince, are here revealed. The man who had faith in amulets and portable altars, who, as the Bishop de Seyssel informs us in his panegyric, knelt from time to time before lead and tin figures of the Madonna fastened to the brim of his hat, so that the people thought him mad, allowed the disputes of his clergy to grow to a schism when he found them opposed to his projects, or thought them connected with the attempts at conspiracy by which he constantly believed himself threatened. Wherever his authority was questioned, he regarded the Pope and clergy as hostile powers, and their conduct unfortunately often added strength to such views. When he confined the Cardinal La Balue in an iron cage, which still may be seen in the castle of Loches in Touraine, the latter had deserved severer punishment for his dishonourable treason. Just at this time many reasons combined to irritate him, and the accusations hurled against him in the sermons preached at Paris by the Franciscan Antoine Fradin, which found their echo in popular tumults, did not help to pacify him.
Louis XI.’s relation to Pope Sixtus IV. had always been uncertain. The king had, from the beginning of his reign, held out the Pragmatic Sanction and the Council as a bait and a terror. He had not even always observed outward respect; anger and sorrow at the slighting treatment shown to him during his French legation, had shortened Cardinal Bessarion’s life. He was on the verge of open hostility when the Pope appointed Giuliano della Rovere legate of Avignon, which dignity was filled by Charles de Bourbon.The king accused the new legate of being implicated in Réné of Anjou’s plans, who, at variance with Louis XI., hoped to obtain the county of Provence for the Duke of Burgundy. After appointing his only remaining nephew, Charles, Count of Maine, as his heir, the old king entered into an agreement of the kind with Charles the Bold in 1474, who by this means, and the reviving of the superannuated royal title of Arelat, hoped to attain the dignity, for the grant of which he had vainly negotiated with the Emperor Frederick III. Louis XI. had formerly garrisoned the province of Anjou, and taken the precautions necessary to hold both Charles and Réné in check. Towards the end of the winter of 1476 the terrible defeat of Charles at Granson left the hands of Louis free, and he immediately commenced a trial against Réné in Parliament for high treason, and forced him and the other branches of the house of Anjou at Lyons to cede all rights and claims to him. Réné, who was then sixty-eight years old, still retained the government of his States, but the king took precautions against future vagaries by fortifying and by gaining over to his side the principal councillors of his wavering and incapable cousin, precautions which future events proved useless.
The influence on the destinies of Italy of this transferring of the claims on Naples from a weak collateral line to the royal house of France, need not be indicated here. In order to punish the Holy See for the share ascribed to her legates, the king had an idea of garrisoning Franche Comtois, Venaissin and Anjou, and he refrained only because Charles the Bold, who had speedily collected his army, threatened to advance into Provence in case the Pope were annoyed in his French possessions.
It was his relationship with the Duke of Burgundy which so violently excited Louis XI. against Sixtus IV.’s ally, the king of Naples, and this was the foundation of French policy towards the Aragonese. It has been observed already that King Ferrante declined Louis’s proposals of a family alliance, out of regard for his connections with Spain andBurgundy. He held firmly to his alliance with the latter, even when, after the battle at Granson, Milan and Savoy turned aside from the vanquished party and joined the king. In the autumn of 1474 Ferrante had sent his younger son Federigo to the duke to deliver to him the order of the Ermine, and the prince had married a daughter of the duke of Bourbon, Charles the Bold’s adherent, and had only returned home two years later. Among his companions was the same Cola di Campobasso, who remained in the duke’s service, and exercised, by his shameful treason, only too great an influence on his tragical fate.[249]In April 1475 the Bastard of Burgundy, Antony, brother of the Duke, was in Naples, where he lived in the house of Diomed Carafa, and was most honourably treated by the King.[250]Charles the Bold’s death, in the battle near Nancy, January 5, 1477—an event which made Louis XI. entirely master of France, although it did not diminish the discontent excited by his covetousness, cunning, and cruelty—was a heavy blow for Ferrante’s entire policy, and later forced him into compliance when affairs in Italy also took a turn not in accordance with his expectations.
From Arras, which the king had taken May 4, 1478, in war against Mary of Burgundy, Charles’s daughter, by means of a capitulation which seemed concluded only to be broken, Louis XI. addressed a letter to the Florentines, May 12, in which he expressed his sorrow and indignation at what had occurred, and announced the arrival of an ambassador: ‘Our regret is as great as if the matter had concerned ourselves, and our honour is as much insulted as your own, the Medici being our relations, friends, and allies. We hold the attempt against you, and the murder of our cousinGiuliano, as equal to an attempt against ourselves, and we consider the Pazzi as guilty of high treason. On no account do we wish that their crime go unpunished, but desire with all our heart that a chastisement may be inflicted which shall serve as an example for ever. Thus we have determined to send our beloved and faithful chamberlain to your Excellencies, the Lord of Argenton, seneschal of our province of Poitou, at present one of the men who has our complete confidence, in order to make known our intentions to you. He will inform you of various things concerning these matters.’[251]
It was no unimportant man whom the king sent to Italy. Philippe de Commines delineates in his memoirs an ambassador as ‘a complaisant man, who takes liberties with things and words in order to attain his end.’ It was he who wrote thus, whom Louis XI. selected. During the days of Peronne, when the king had voluntarily put himself in the power of his mighty opponent, Charles the Bold, he recognised Commines’ acuteness and knew his obligations to him, so that when the duke in his inconsiderate haste was plunging himself into destruction, the king employed every means in his power to gain over this most capable councillor. The youthful companion and confidant of Charles went over to the enemy’s camp in 1472, and his new master so overwhelmed him with honours and gain that the motives of his change of party and faithlessness now seem even worse than they perhaps really were, however unfavourable certain expressions attributed to him on other occasions may appear. When the Duke of Burgundy at last met before Nancy, the death he had challenged so often, the king dreaded to employ Commines to execute his plans against Flanders; he employed him first in Burgundy itself, and then entrusted him with the Italian embassy. Florentine affairs formed only a part of his mission. A question arose concerning the intentions of Sixtus IV. and his predominating influence in Central Italy, limiting the ambitionof the Aragonese who promoted these views for the time, and thus forced Florence, as well as Savoy and Milan, to adhere closer to the French interest.
In the middle of June the lord of Argenton—Commines bore this title after his marriage with Hélène de Jambes, heiress of Ortes—arrived at Turin. The duchess of Savoy, Jolante, widow of Amadeus IX., regent for her son Philibert I., was the King’s sister, and he had always managed to make use of the relationship more in the French interest than in that of the little neighbour state. He must have repented frustrating Philibert’s marriage with Mary of Burgundy when the archduke Max obtained her hand. He promoted the betrothal of the latter with Bianca Sforza, who was destined in later years to become the consort of the Emperor. Commines was to negotiate this affair in Milan with Bianca’s mother, Bona of Savoy. He repaired thither after two days’ halt in Turin. The promise of the renewal of the investiture of Genoa and Savona, in favour of Giovan Galeazzo Sforza, was to ally the regent of Milan more closely to France, and confirm the common alliance with Florence. The Italians soon observed, however, how the matter stood respecting the king’s intentions towards the Holy See, even before Commines expressed himself on the subject to Bona of Savoy. On June 16, during Commines’ residence in Turin, Antonio d’Appiano, Milanese ambassador at the court of Guglielmo Paleologus, marquis of Montferrat, wrote from Casale to the duchess, ‘The marquis imparted to me to-day that the French king has long been labouring to produce a schism in the church. What has occurred in Florence seems to afford him a suitable means to this end; on which account he sends the lord of Argenton to the duchess of Savoy, to your Excellence, and to Florence. To Venice he will not go, because the king is certain that, in respect to the alliance entered into, a simple letter will suffice to persuade the Republic to comply. The purpose is to complain of the Pope, because, instead of protecting Christendom againstthe Turks, he thinks of nothing but elevating and enriching his relations, by suffering all wickedness and treasons, and allowing them to be carried out without hindrance, as is the case in Florence. For this reason he wishes that the Duchess of Savoy, your Excellency, and the Venetians may let none pass to Rome from beyond the mountains. Without taking up arms against the Pope, he wishes thus to awake in him bitter repentance for his errors, and to proceed gradually, day by day, according to circumstances and information and careful calculation.’ It was said the Bishop of Clermont was to go to Rome to make representations to the Pope and to threaten Riario personally.[252]
On June 22 Commines left Milan with a suite of twenty-five horsemen. ‘The lord of Argenton,’ thus wrote the duchess to her ambassador in Rome, ‘leaves us to-day for Florence. He is commissioned to persuade all the powers to withdraw from their obedience to the Pope, the king of France deeming it necessary for the weal of Christendom to assemble a general council as soon as a disposition favourable to it evinces itself. His Majesty will immediately summon one in the kingdom.’ Three days before, Lorenzo de’ Medici had thanked the king for his sympathy, and given him information of the excommunication proclaimed against him and the strife in prospect. ‘God is my witness that I am conscious of having done nothing against the Pope but that I live, that I did not allow myself to be killed, that grace from above protected me. This is my sin; this my crime for which I deserve destruction and exclusion from the Church. But we have the canon laws, we have natural and political justice, we have truth and innocence, and we have God and man.’[253]
The lord of Argenton, who had obtained auxiliary troops as well from Savoy as from Milan, was received at Florencewith open arms. ‘We went to meet him,’ wrote the Milanese ambassadors,[254]‘with the deputies of the league and many citizens, with the Lord Lorenzo, Lorenzino his cousin, and a troop of armed men for his guard.’ Commines found the city in the midst of preparations for war. He offered the assistance of the king against the Pope’s measures, both spiritual and military. In his memoirs he does not say much of this embassy. ‘The favour of the king was useful to them in some measure, but not so much as I could have wished. I could offer them no army, and had nothing excepting my suite.’[255]Of his journey to Rome and the affairs there, he says not a word. That they were not without fear in high ecclesiastical circles is shown by a letter addressed to the Pope by the Cardinal of Pavia on July 16, from San Lorenzo alle Grotte on the Lake of Bolsena, in which he speaks of the opposition extending within and without Italy, and gives the advice to gain time till the cardinals were again more numerously assembled in Rome. ‘Certain intelligence has reached me that the French king is sending an ambassador to us, a man of high standing in France, who has received peremptory instructions. If the ban against the Florentines be not removed, if the sharers and accomplices in the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici be not punished, and if peace be not restored, the king will have no scruple in pronouncing the withdrawal of obedience, and appealing to the council.’ When the cardinal wrote thus, Commines must have been long in Rome, as he passed through Perugia on July 9, accompanied by the Florentine ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci. Of the negotiation with the Pope nothing is known. That Sixtus IV. did not allow himself to be frightened by the king’s threats is shown by the fact that the war began at once. That the circumstances of the Papal States made no unfavourable impression on the ambassador is proved by his remark that the Popes were prudent and well-advised,and the inhabitants of the States would be the happiest people in the world but for the quarrels of the Colonna and the Orsini, for they paid no taxes nor any impositions worthy of consideration. After a few days, Philippe de Commines was again in Florence without having accomplished anything. We shall speak of his later activity further on.