FIFTH BOOK.THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY.CHAPTER I.CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.Theevents of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not quite so secure of the direction of public affairs as he had seemed to be immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The vicissitudes of the war had produced an abrupt change in public feeling; it had become clear that internal affairs were in a great measure subject to external influences. Even when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a diplomatist justly observed that his authority in the city depended on the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian powers and by foreign sovereigns.[226]The traditions of independence were too fresh, party interests too various and too powerful, not to create constant difficulties. The great art of the party leaders had always consisted in excluding from office any but their own partisans. But it was by no means easy to prevent internal divisions between sections of the parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they offered to a measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction to its original limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty was the necessity he was under of controlling parties in the state, without altering constitutional forms except in apparent agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism known as the power ofammonirehad proved just as dangerous as the excitement caused by the frequent summoningof parliaments. His only plan therefore was, by creating a docile following, to exclude, without the use of strong measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and to accustom the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another motive. He had not been fortunate in business matters. During his grandfather’s time the State finances had become entangled with those of the family. Cosimo, who was a financial genius, took care of his own interests without letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the case was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the State; Lorenzo, on the other hand, stood in need of public money for private objects. The expenses of the war, sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the ostensible cause of irregularity in the payment of interest on the national debt, and in the settlement of marriage portions by the establishment existing for that purpose. This state of things could not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the national credit to be maintained. For further operations, rendered hazardous by the embarrassment that already existed, men were needed who were both familiar with business and willing to go hand in hand with the director of the State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, that it was thought advisable to avow it with apparent frankness before taking measures which really aimed at withdrawing the direction of the banks from public control, although their object was made to appear a reform for the general welfare.On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was proclaimed, the Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, proceeded, without the intervention of a parliament, to make sweeping changes in the constitution. They carried through the three legislative councils a resolution empowering them to create a new college, in whose hands were to be placed all the appointments to public offices. This college was divided into a smaller and greater council: the formerconsisting of thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected with the Signoria; the latter containing 210 members not under thirty years of age, who with the Signoria and first college filled up the required number of offices. The presence of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate majority of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings. One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter of the city; if a family orconsorteriahad sent but one representative among the thirty, two of its members were eligible as councillors; otherwise only one, except in the case of two houses to be named by the Signoria and the thirty, for which there was to be no limit as to number or age. The 210 then added to their body 48 other members, and thus formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet in November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria proceeded to nominate the thirty. But a few days later a considerable modification was made in the scheme, for on the 19th the smaller council of thirty was increased by a resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the additional members being chosen by those already nominated. The new members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging to one of the great guilds, must have held the office of Gonfaloniere. This permanent senate of seventy, which now took the place of the former electors to the offices (accoppiatori), was divided into two equal parts, alternating every half year. When united, it had in fact the direction of the whole state; the more so because it had the right of filling up vacancies in its own body from among those who had held the office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done nothing to displease the ruling party. To this senate no proposal or petition could be addressed by private persons, but only by the Signoria.The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees of its own members. The first, commonly called from its number theOtto di pratica, took the place of the Magistracy of Ten. It sat only in time of war, and assumed the controlof political and military affairs, which, after deliberation in full session, it submitted to the Seventy. The other committee, consisting of twelve members, was entrusted with all affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six months, and any vacancies caused by death or an appointment to offices abroad were to be filled up from the same college.[227]The existing magistracy, called theOtto di balia, whose authority in both civil and criminal affairs had almost extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been reduced within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from among the Seventy.However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity may differ as to the character and scope of these institutions, which were afterwards greatly modified in the direction of centralisation, all agree that the measures just described contributed most effectively to the establishment of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom was taken from the people and they were made the servants of the Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member of the Council of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance with truth.’ And further, on the completion of the scheme: ‘The decree contained many things dishonourable and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom of the people; and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to me dead and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is shown by the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo was always thinking how he could increase his authority. After the new reform had conferredon the electors a power formerly belonging to the whole body of citizens, the former took into their own hands the money matters that needed regulating. The state finances had been used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More than a hundred thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, where Tommaso Portinari was at the head of the Medici bank, then in danger of failure. The unfortunate community had to pay it all, for the members of the new elective body cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and assented to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; the citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet what they did obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all looked enviously on the inner council, to which each thought himself worthy to belong.’ The voice that carries most weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi, who gives a sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine constitution of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,[228]‘spent a great deal of money on a thousand things, and was not a good man of business, his fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo had spent large sums of money; perhaps because he believed that the glory of building churches and monuments would be of more advantage to his family than stores of gold; and in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. When their credit fell, they would have been driven from their position but for the events of 1478, which gained for the Medici new friends and confirmed the attachment of old ones, and altogether strengthened their power. The same events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using both his private means and the moneys of the State, which before he would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations, and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis while rectifying his financial embarrassments.’The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus described by Niccolò Valori:[229]‘Although no new taxes wereimposed, the revenues of the State increased so much after peace was assured, that State-creditors had reason to be satisfied. The Republic has such good resources that she can hold out long in time of war, and recover rapidly in time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to Alamanno Rinuccini,[230]the public credit had to be supported in the course of the very next year by a sale of State property. The bad name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation of public moneys seems to have induced him to restrict his banking operations, which depended for success on changes of fortune and on the skill of agents, and to lay out his means in landed property rather than trust to foreign speculations.If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were imposed in 1480. But an examination of the proceedings of the board of taxation shows how little this statement is to be relied on. The progressive scale of 1447, which originally produced the large sums laid out in supporting Francesco Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years only, the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, had remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, and with some modifications under Piero and his son. According to a calculation of the payments in 1471-1480, the sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on an average 168,288 gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to 367,450 gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following January 30, introduced a double progressive duty in place of the former one. The first, fixed for seven years, was on immovable property, so that the lowest class, with an income extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the highest, having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per cent. The second was a personal tax, which, according tothe same scale, amounted to one gold florin and four-twentieths for the lowest class, four florins and four-twentieths for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby a quota of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with some changes till Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to keep the lower orders in good humour and weaken the great families; while those that governed always found means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that equality of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were collected according to the needs of the Government. More than once they were paid seven times in the year. The proceeds at one collection of the first of these taxes had been estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded 25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year to 15,000. From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments amounted to 1,561,836 gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. The largest revenue was that of the year 1483—that of the Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the smallest those of the years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000. Under Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. On calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable property, appearing under manifold names, ever changing with circumstances, alternately rising and falling, it becomes evident that the direct tax, which by the old financial system of the Republic was limited to 25,000 or 30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against the duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered at the Monte, and might discharge part of their payments in its bonds. But the Monte more than once stopped paying interest altogether, often paid only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, couldnot but be injurious to the interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure foundations.[231]At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480, there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople. Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him in communication with Amoretto,just the man, he considered, for a hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church; according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy pronounced it high treason, and enacted that in future every act by which Lorenzo was injured or his life threatened was to be regarded in the same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks the Ferrarese agent,[232]‘was certainly heightened by this event, but many are of opinion that it did him more harm than good, by increasing the number of his enemies.’ When sentence was pronounced many citizens went to console the prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they regretted not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the failure of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to do what ought to be the duty of every citizen, and if they had only had two hours more it would have been seen of what they were capable. They met their doom on the morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the Podestà. Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and to his noble friends throughout Italy, either by private letters or through the ambassadors of the Republic, the danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that traitor Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence was that the following of friends and clients which had served to protect Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formeditself into a regular body-guard, and the capital became accustomed to see him appear in public with a suite differing from that of a tyrant only by the civil character of its members.Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the beginning of the year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian States had met at Rome to consider an alliance in which foreign countries were invited to join against the Infidels. Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help from various quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. Alfonso of Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As he could not succeed in completely cutting off the approach by sea, the town might have held out a long time, particularly as a new Turkish army was gathering on the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor, and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to the resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto opened its gates, but it never recovered from these heavy strokes of fate. The duke, whose easy victory was commemorated by medals, did not keep to the conditions of the surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors but as doubly vanquished; they were those who had taken service in the Neapolitan army, which thus once again—as in the days of Frederic II.—numbered unbelievers in its ranks.
FIFTH BOOK.THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY.CHAPTER I.CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.Theevents of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not quite so secure of the direction of public affairs as he had seemed to be immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The vicissitudes of the war had produced an abrupt change in public feeling; it had become clear that internal affairs were in a great measure subject to external influences. Even when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a diplomatist justly observed that his authority in the city depended on the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian powers and by foreign sovereigns.[226]The traditions of independence were too fresh, party interests too various and too powerful, not to create constant difficulties. The great art of the party leaders had always consisted in excluding from office any but their own partisans. But it was by no means easy to prevent internal divisions between sections of the parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they offered to a measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction to its original limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty was the necessity he was under of controlling parties in the state, without altering constitutional forms except in apparent agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism known as the power ofammonirehad proved just as dangerous as the excitement caused by the frequent summoningof parliaments. His only plan therefore was, by creating a docile following, to exclude, without the use of strong measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and to accustom the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another motive. He had not been fortunate in business matters. During his grandfather’s time the State finances had become entangled with those of the family. Cosimo, who was a financial genius, took care of his own interests without letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the case was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the State; Lorenzo, on the other hand, stood in need of public money for private objects. The expenses of the war, sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the ostensible cause of irregularity in the payment of interest on the national debt, and in the settlement of marriage portions by the establishment existing for that purpose. This state of things could not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the national credit to be maintained. For further operations, rendered hazardous by the embarrassment that already existed, men were needed who were both familiar with business and willing to go hand in hand with the director of the State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, that it was thought advisable to avow it with apparent frankness before taking measures which really aimed at withdrawing the direction of the banks from public control, although their object was made to appear a reform for the general welfare.On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was proclaimed, the Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, proceeded, without the intervention of a parliament, to make sweeping changes in the constitution. They carried through the three legislative councils a resolution empowering them to create a new college, in whose hands were to be placed all the appointments to public offices. This college was divided into a smaller and greater council: the formerconsisting of thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected with the Signoria; the latter containing 210 members not under thirty years of age, who with the Signoria and first college filled up the required number of offices. The presence of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate majority of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings. One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter of the city; if a family orconsorteriahad sent but one representative among the thirty, two of its members were eligible as councillors; otherwise only one, except in the case of two houses to be named by the Signoria and the thirty, for which there was to be no limit as to number or age. The 210 then added to their body 48 other members, and thus formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet in November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria proceeded to nominate the thirty. But a few days later a considerable modification was made in the scheme, for on the 19th the smaller council of thirty was increased by a resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the additional members being chosen by those already nominated. The new members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging to one of the great guilds, must have held the office of Gonfaloniere. This permanent senate of seventy, which now took the place of the former electors to the offices (accoppiatori), was divided into two equal parts, alternating every half year. When united, it had in fact the direction of the whole state; the more so because it had the right of filling up vacancies in its own body from among those who had held the office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done nothing to displease the ruling party. To this senate no proposal or petition could be addressed by private persons, but only by the Signoria.The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees of its own members. The first, commonly called from its number theOtto di pratica, took the place of the Magistracy of Ten. It sat only in time of war, and assumed the controlof political and military affairs, which, after deliberation in full session, it submitted to the Seventy. The other committee, consisting of twelve members, was entrusted with all affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six months, and any vacancies caused by death or an appointment to offices abroad were to be filled up from the same college.[227]The existing magistracy, called theOtto di balia, whose authority in both civil and criminal affairs had almost extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been reduced within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from among the Seventy.However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity may differ as to the character and scope of these institutions, which were afterwards greatly modified in the direction of centralisation, all agree that the measures just described contributed most effectively to the establishment of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom was taken from the people and they were made the servants of the Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member of the Council of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance with truth.’ And further, on the completion of the scheme: ‘The decree contained many things dishonourable and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom of the people; and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to me dead and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is shown by the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo was always thinking how he could increase his authority. After the new reform had conferredon the electors a power formerly belonging to the whole body of citizens, the former took into their own hands the money matters that needed regulating. The state finances had been used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More than a hundred thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, where Tommaso Portinari was at the head of the Medici bank, then in danger of failure. The unfortunate community had to pay it all, for the members of the new elective body cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and assented to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; the citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet what they did obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all looked enviously on the inner council, to which each thought himself worthy to belong.’ The voice that carries most weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi, who gives a sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine constitution of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,[228]‘spent a great deal of money on a thousand things, and was not a good man of business, his fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo had spent large sums of money; perhaps because he believed that the glory of building churches and monuments would be of more advantage to his family than stores of gold; and in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. When their credit fell, they would have been driven from their position but for the events of 1478, which gained for the Medici new friends and confirmed the attachment of old ones, and altogether strengthened their power. The same events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using both his private means and the moneys of the State, which before he would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations, and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis while rectifying his financial embarrassments.’The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus described by Niccolò Valori:[229]‘Although no new taxes wereimposed, the revenues of the State increased so much after peace was assured, that State-creditors had reason to be satisfied. The Republic has such good resources that she can hold out long in time of war, and recover rapidly in time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to Alamanno Rinuccini,[230]the public credit had to be supported in the course of the very next year by a sale of State property. The bad name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation of public moneys seems to have induced him to restrict his banking operations, which depended for success on changes of fortune and on the skill of agents, and to lay out his means in landed property rather than trust to foreign speculations.If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were imposed in 1480. But an examination of the proceedings of the board of taxation shows how little this statement is to be relied on. The progressive scale of 1447, which originally produced the large sums laid out in supporting Francesco Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years only, the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, had remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, and with some modifications under Piero and his son. According to a calculation of the payments in 1471-1480, the sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on an average 168,288 gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to 367,450 gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following January 30, introduced a double progressive duty in place of the former one. The first, fixed for seven years, was on immovable property, so that the lowest class, with an income extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the highest, having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per cent. The second was a personal tax, which, according tothe same scale, amounted to one gold florin and four-twentieths for the lowest class, four florins and four-twentieths for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby a quota of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with some changes till Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to keep the lower orders in good humour and weaken the great families; while those that governed always found means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that equality of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were collected according to the needs of the Government. More than once they were paid seven times in the year. The proceeds at one collection of the first of these taxes had been estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded 25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year to 15,000. From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments amounted to 1,561,836 gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. The largest revenue was that of the year 1483—that of the Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the smallest those of the years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000. Under Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. On calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable property, appearing under manifold names, ever changing with circumstances, alternately rising and falling, it becomes evident that the direct tax, which by the old financial system of the Republic was limited to 25,000 or 30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against the duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered at the Monte, and might discharge part of their payments in its bonds. But the Monte more than once stopped paying interest altogether, often paid only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, couldnot but be injurious to the interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure foundations.[231]At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480, there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople. Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him in communication with Amoretto,just the man, he considered, for a hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church; according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy pronounced it high treason, and enacted that in future every act by which Lorenzo was injured or his life threatened was to be regarded in the same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks the Ferrarese agent,[232]‘was certainly heightened by this event, but many are of opinion that it did him more harm than good, by increasing the number of his enemies.’ When sentence was pronounced many citizens went to console the prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they regretted not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the failure of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to do what ought to be the duty of every citizen, and if they had only had two hours more it would have been seen of what they were capable. They met their doom on the morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the Podestà. Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and to his noble friends throughout Italy, either by private letters or through the ambassadors of the Republic, the danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that traitor Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence was that the following of friends and clients which had served to protect Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formeditself into a regular body-guard, and the capital became accustomed to see him appear in public with a suite differing from that of a tyrant only by the civil character of its members.Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the beginning of the year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian States had met at Rome to consider an alliance in which foreign countries were invited to join against the Infidels. Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help from various quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. Alfonso of Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As he could not succeed in completely cutting off the approach by sea, the town might have held out a long time, particularly as a new Turkish army was gathering on the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor, and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to the resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto opened its gates, but it never recovered from these heavy strokes of fate. The duke, whose easy victory was commemorated by medals, did not keep to the conditions of the surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors but as doubly vanquished; they were those who had taken service in the Neapolitan army, which thus once again—as in the days of Frederic II.—numbered unbelievers in its ranks.
FIFTH BOOK.
THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY.
CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.
Theevents of two years had shown that Lorenzo was not quite so secure of the direction of public affairs as he had seemed to be immediately after the conspiracy of the Pazzi. The vicissitudes of the war had produced an abrupt change in public feeling; it had become clear that internal affairs were in a great measure subject to external influences. Even when Lorenzo’s position was far stronger, a diplomatist justly observed that his authority in the city depended on the estimation in which he was held by the other Italian powers and by foreign sovereigns.[226]The traditions of independence were too fresh, party interests too various and too powerful, not to create constant difficulties. The great art of the party leaders had always consisted in excluding from office any but their own partisans. But it was by no means easy to prevent internal divisions between sections of the parties themselves. During the war, a college of magistrates had to be dismissed, on account of the opposition they offered to a measure which aimed at reducing their jurisdiction to its original limits. Lorenzo’s standing difficulty was the necessity he was under of controlling parties in the state, without altering constitutional forms except in apparent agreement with the popular sentiment. The ostracism known as the power ofammonirehad proved just as dangerous as the excitement caused by the frequent summoningof parliaments. His only plan therefore was, by creating a docile following, to exclude, without the use of strong measures, all elements he could not rely upon, and to accustom the multitude to the gradual extension of his influence on home as well as foreign policy. Lorenzo had another motive. He had not been fortunate in business matters. During his grandfather’s time the State finances had become entangled with those of the family. Cosimo, who was a financial genius, took care of his own interests without letting those of the State suffer. With his grandson the case was different. Cosimo had advanced money to the State; Lorenzo, on the other hand, stood in need of public money for private objects. The expenses of the war, sacrifices and losses of all kinds were the ostensible cause of irregularity in the payment of interest on the national debt, and in the settlement of marriage portions by the establishment existing for that purpose. This state of things could not last if the public bonds were to retain any value and the national credit to be maintained. For further operations, rendered hazardous by the embarrassment that already existed, men were needed who were both familiar with business and willing to go hand in hand with the director of the State. The embarrassment was already so publicly known, that it was thought advisable to avow it with apparent frankness before taking measures which really aimed at withdrawing the direction of the banks from public control, although their object was made to appear a reform for the general welfare.
On April 8, 1480, scarcely a fortnight after peace was proclaimed, the Signoria, who were all in Lorenzo’s confidence, proceeded, without the intervention of a parliament, to make sweeping changes in the constitution. They carried through the three legislative councils a resolution empowering them to create a new college, in whose hands were to be placed all the appointments to public offices. This college was divided into a smaller and greater council: the formerconsisting of thirty citizens capable of holding office, elected with the Signoria; the latter containing 210 members not under thirty years of age, who with the Signoria and first college filled up the required number of offices. The presence of two-thirds of the members and a proportionate majority of those present sufficed for the validity of the proceedings. One-fourth of the councillors were to come from each quarter of the city; if a family orconsorteriahad sent but one representative among the thirty, two of its members were eligible as councillors; otherwise only one, except in the case of two houses to be named by the Signoria and the thirty, for which there was to be no limit as to number or age. The 210 then added to their body 48 other members, and thus formed a great council of 288 members, which was to meet in November for the elections. On April 11 the Signoria proceeded to nominate the thirty. But a few days later a considerable modification was made in the scheme, for on the 19th the smaller council of thirty was increased by a resolution of the Signoria to seventy; the additional members being chosen by those already nominated. The new members were to be at least forty years old, and, if belonging to one of the great guilds, must have held the office of Gonfaloniere. This permanent senate of seventy, which now took the place of the former electors to the offices (accoppiatori), was divided into two equal parts, alternating every half year. When united, it had in fact the direction of the whole state; the more so because it had the right of filling up vacancies in its own body from among those who had held the office of Gonfaloniere, provided they had done nothing to displease the ruling party. To this senate no proposal or petition could be addressed by private persons, but only by the Signoria.
The Council of Seventy then appointed two committees of its own members. The first, commonly called from its number theOtto di pratica, took the place of the Magistracy of Ten. It sat only in time of war, and assumed the controlof political and military affairs, which, after deliberation in full session, it submitted to the Seventy. The other committee, consisting of twelve members, was entrusted with all affairs concerning the national credit, and all matters of jurisdiction. Both were nominated for a period of six months, and any vacancies caused by death or an appointment to offices abroad were to be filled up from the same college.[227]The existing magistracy, called theOtto di balia, whose authority in both civil and criminal affairs had almost extinguished that of the podestà but had lately been reduced within narrower limits, was likewise chosen from among the Seventy.
However widely the opinions of contemporaries and posterity may differ as to the character and scope of these institutions, which were afterwards greatly modified in the direction of centralisation, all agree that the measures just described contributed most effectively to the establishment of personal government. ‘One must perceive,’ observes Alamanno Rinuccini on the first resolution, ‘that all freedom was taken from the people and they were made the servants of the Thirty, as I, Alamanno Rinuccini, though a member of the Council of the Two Hundred and Ten, testify in accordance with truth.’ And further, on the completion of the scheme: ‘The decree contained many things dishonourable and opposed to citizen-life and to the freedom of the people; and, indeed, from that day their freedom seemed to me dead and buried.’ The general opinion on the connection of the administration with the financial affairs of the Medici is shown by the remarks of both friends and foes. Giovanni Cambi remarks: ‘Lorenzo was always thinking how he could increase his authority. After the new reform had conferredon the electors a power formerly belonging to the whole body of citizens, the former took into their own hands the money matters that needed regulating. The state finances had been used to support Lorenzo in his private affairs. More than a hundred thousand gold florins went to Bruges alone, where Tommaso Portinari was at the head of the Medici bank, then in danger of failure. The unfortunate community had to pay it all, for the members of the new elective body cared for nothing but to keep their own position, and assented to everything. Thus a servile feeling gained ground; the citizens sacrificed their freedom to obtain office. Yet what they did obtain was not enough to satisfy them; for all looked enviously on the inner council, to which each thought himself worthy to belong.’ The voice that carries most weight is perhaps that of Alessandro de’ Pazzi, who gives a sketch of his uncle in his disquisition on the Florentine constitution of 1522. ‘As Lorenzo,’ he says,[228]‘spent a great deal of money on a thousand things, and was not a good man of business, his fortune suffered considerably. Cosimo had spent large sums of money; perhaps because he believed that the glory of building churches and monuments would be of more advantage to his family than stores of gold; and in this his example was followed by Piero and his sons. When their credit fell, they would have been driven from their position but for the events of 1478, which gained for the Medici new friends and confirmed the attachment of old ones, and altogether strengthened their power. The same events furnished Lorenzo with the means of using both his private means and the moneys of the State, which before he would not have dared to touch, to fulfil his own obligations, and re-establish his political influence on a permanent basis while rectifying his financial embarrassments.’
The altered constitution with respect to finance is thus described by Niccolò Valori:[229]‘Although no new taxes wereimposed, the revenues of the State increased so much after peace was assured, that State-creditors had reason to be satisfied. The Republic has such good resources that she can hold out long in time of war, and recover rapidly in time of peace.’ This sounds very well; but, according to Alamanno Rinuccini,[230]the public credit had to be supported in the course of the very next year by a sale of State property. The bad name which Lorenzo acquired by his arbitrary appropriation of public moneys seems to have induced him to restrict his banking operations, which depended for success on changes of fortune and on the skill of agents, and to lay out his means in landed property rather than trust to foreign speculations.
If Niccolò Valori is to be believed, no new taxes were imposed in 1480. But an examination of the proceedings of the board of taxation shows how little this statement is to be relied on. The progressive scale of 1447, which originally produced the large sums laid out in supporting Francesco Sforza, and which was to be in operation for three years only, the tax being collected in small instalments as need arose, had remained in force during the remaining years of Cosimo, and with some modifications under Piero and his son. According to a calculation of the payments in 1471-1480, the sum total amounted to 1,682,888, or on an average 168,288 gold florins annually. In 1479 the tax had risen to 367,450 gold florins. The new law issued by the new finance committee on May 18, 1480, and modified on the following January 30, introduced a double progressive duty in place of the former one. The first, fixed for seven years, was on immovable property, so that the lowest class, with an income extending beyond the actual necessaries of life but under fifty gold florins, was to pay seven per cent., and the highest, having an income of 400 and over, twenty-two per cent. The second was a personal tax, which, according tothe same scale, amounted to one gold florin and four-twentieths for the lowest class, four florins and four-twentieths for the highest. This mode of taxation, whereby a quota of the national debt could be discharged, lasted with some changes till Lorenzo’s death; its real aim being to keep the lower orders in good humour and weaken the great families; while those that governed always found means to indemnify themselves and their friends, so that equality of taxation was merely apparent. The taxes were collected according to the needs of the Government. More than once they were paid seven times in the year. The proceeds at one collection of the first of these taxes had been estimated at about 30,000 gold florins, but only yielded 25,000; in 1487 it fell to 18,000; and in the following year to 15,000. From 1481 to 1492 the sum of the tax payments amounted to 1,561,836 gold florins, or, on an average, 130,153. The largest revenue was that of the year 1483—that of the Ferrara war—viz. 164,665, and the smallest those of the years of peace, from 1489 to 1492, viz. 105,000. Under Lorenzo’s son the total annual amount was reduced to 90,000. On calculating the various duties on both movable and immovable property, appearing under manifold names, ever changing with circumstances, alternately rising and falling, it becomes evident that the direct tax, which by the old financial system of the Republic was limited to 25,000 or 30,000 gold florins, a light weight in the balance against the duties estimated at 250,000 to 300,000, had increased twelvefold in Lorenzo’s time. The taxpayers were indeed registered at the Monte, and might discharge part of their payments in its bonds. But the Monte more than once stopped paying interest altogether, often paid only half, and sometimes only a fifth. The exchequer then took the quotas of taxes in question not at the nominal value of the bonds, but according to the rate of payment then current at the Monte. All these manipulations, which made the artificial financial system of Florence a perfect labyrinth of perplexity, couldnot but be injurious to the interests of the community, while they deprived property of its secure foundations.[231]
At the same time, the repeated modifications in the constitution which had been going on ever since Cosimo’s time had thrown it completely off the balance. People had long been accustomed to see the exercise of popular sovereignty by means of parliaments converted into a mere party manœuvre. The men in power, in order to gain a formal legal countenance for their measures, would have some extraordinary authority conferred on them by the so-called people, i.e. by that portion of the citizens who were either on their side or were coerced into becoming so through fear. The constant change in the mode of election to the offices, either by lot or by nomination, produced in the end no great difference, for all were excluded who were not thought to have been made sure of. In Lorenzo’s time, at least after the restrictions subsequently imposed on the scheme introduced in 1480, there was no more trouble in that respect. In defiance of democratic forms, everything tended to a personal government. As if enough had not already occurred to increase the power of the Medici, another circumstance—unimportant in itself—occurred to raise Lorenzo’s position. On the evening of June 2, Amoretto Baldovinetti, natural son of a citizen of good family, was arrested, and on the following morning Battista Frescobaldi, formerly consul at Constantinople. Scarcely were they in custody when an attempt was made to seize the brothers Francesco and Antonio Balducci, but only the latter was captured. Immediately a report was spread of a conspiracy against Lorenzo’s life. Frescobaldi had once greatly assisted in delivering up Giovanni Bandini to justice, and seems to have thought himself insufficiently rewarded for having spent some of his private means in the affair. In Rome he met some Florentine emigrants who put him in communication with Amoretto,just the man, he considered, for a hazardous undertaking. Provided with weapons and poison, these two came to Florence. Their efforts to gain supporters had little success; even the brothers Balducci seem to have been undecided. Nevertheless they resolved to attempt the assassination, and again in a church; according to some it was to be in the cathedral, according to others in S. Pietro in Carmine, where Lorenzo was expected on Ascension day. The plot failed and the three conspirators were condemned to death. A legal objection was raised against the sentence, as the case was only that of a criminal project; but the Signoria and the Council of Seventy pronounced it high treason, and enacted that in future every act by which Lorenzo was injured or his life threatened was to be regarded in the same light. ‘Lorenzo’s position and authority,’ remarks the Ferrarese agent,[232]‘was certainly heightened by this event, but many are of opinion that it did him more harm than good, by increasing the number of his enemies.’ When sentence was pronounced many citizens went to console the prisoners; but they answered cheerfully that they regretted not so much the sentence they had to undergo as the failure of their scheme to free the city; they had tried to do what ought to be the duty of every citizen, and if they had only had two hours more it would have been seen of what they were capable. They met their doom on the morning of the 6th, on the gallows in the palace of the Podestà. Lorenzo took care to announce to the courts and to his noble friends throughout Italy, either by private letters or through the ambassadors of the Republic, the danger with which he had been threatened ‘by that traitor Battista Frescobaldi and his companions.’ The consequence was that the following of friends and clients which had served to protect Lorenzo since the Pazzi conspiracy formeditself into a regular body-guard, and the capital became accustomed to see him appear in public with a suite differing from that of a tyrant only by the civil character of its members.
Three months after this Otranto was re-taken. In the beginning of the year the plenipotentiaries of the Italian States had met at Rome to consider an alliance in which foreign countries were invited to join against the Infidels. Sixtus IV. bestirred himself actively. With help from various quarters, King Ferrante made great exertions to meet the danger that was threatening not only Apulia but all Italy. Alfonso of Calabria besieged Otranto with a large force. As he could not succeed in completely cutting off the approach by sea, the town might have held out a long time, particularly as a new Turkish army was gathering on the Albanian and Dalmatian coasts; but the death of the Grand Signor, and the strife of his two sons for the throne, put an end to the resistance of the place. On September 10, Otranto opened its gates, but it never recovered from these heavy strokes of fate. The duke, whose easy victory was commemorated by medals, did not keep to the conditions of the surrender. A year later, Rome, so lately threatened by the Turks, saw many of them within her walls, not as victors but as doubly vanquished; they were those who had taken service in the Neapolitan army, which thus once again—as in the days of Frederic II.—numbered unbelievers in its ranks.