CHAPTER III.THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE.Thelast years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame, though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew; all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano, daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether, as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy, attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned, and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint,and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255]Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the clang of arms. The stronghold of the spiritual power was scarcely to be recognised. After the immediate anxieties consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by the battle of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’ content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries, feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes between the Colonna and Orsini factions, in which many other families—the Savelli, Santacroce, Tuttivilla, Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was divided into two hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed; the streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One Colonna lost his life in defending the cause of his family. Girolamo Riario was mixed up in all this, and through him the Pope also became a party to it. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas, quarrelled so desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon by the two great families, peace was not restored. In the beginning of July, 1484, the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable body of troops, attacked the Colonna possessions, which surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle. He took Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s death. He felt the ground give way under his feet. Onthe morning of August 13 the populace stormed and plundered his palace at Sant’Apollinare; his magazine in the Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the Genoese—hated by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina Sforza, was safe in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of Paliano was raised at once; the troops marched to Rome, but only to turn towards the north-west to seek a junction with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from the Abruzzi, armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ Anguillara retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood were in complete anarchy; every man was in arms, and the palaces were barricaded. At last a compromise was arrived at, which, by the departure of the party leaders and the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 the conclave met, and at the end of three days Giovan Battista Cybò was chosen Pope under the title of Innocent VIII.Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense, did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli, relatives of Boniface IX.[256]But the first Cybò known to history is the Pope’sfather Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome. Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather than rule by himself.’[257]Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he will show a gracious disposition.’Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states should send their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. The Florentines were all the more eager to offer theircongratulations because they wanted to secure the favour of a Genoese Pope in their differences with Genoa. Immediately after his election Lorenzo heard, from his brother-in-law the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, and declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that all his hopes were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there was no knowing whether the end would correspond with the beginning.[258]At the close of November the embassy started for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and was received, according to custom, by the papal court, the household officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members were Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo Scala, Angelo Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, besides the resident ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci.[259]In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made to the earnest desire of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to the strife in the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that your commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; but add, as if from yourselves, in justification of late events, that we were compelled to fight contrary to our intention and will; as indeed ye very well know that our city is ever faithful to her natural desire for peace, as far as is consistent with honour and fair advantage.’Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a lad of fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies to be accompanied by youths of high rank, who might contribute to the splendour of processions and ceremonies. He gave the boy detailed instructions, such as were usual in such cases on the part of wise and careful fathers.[260]At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness of both Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authoritiesthere. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of the envoys are together with thee, behave thyself gravely and discreetly and with politeness towards thine equals. Beware of taking precedence of anyone older than thyself; for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing but a Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) thinks fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, take care to be previously well instructed in all the customary ceremonies; then, when thou comest to his Holiness, kiss the credentials which I give thee for the Holy Father and beg him to read them. After that, if thou hast to speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness, and say that I well know it was my duty to appear before him in person as I did before his predecessor of blessed memory, but that I trust he will be graciously pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I went to Rome I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind numbering more years or possessing more authority than thyself. Therefore, I think I should have pleased his Holiness less by coming than by sending thee, whereby I express in the best way possible my desire to appear in person. Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy father and lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings which, I hope, will be shared by thy brothers, whom I would rather not have as sons if it is not to be so. Hereupon thou shalt declare to his Holiness my firm resolve not to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to the Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the Holy Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. Moreover, I have experienced what disadvantages were brought upon me by the loss of the late Pope’s favour, although I believe I suffered many persecutions without fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to thejudgment of others, and however this may be, my resolution is fixed, not only never to offend his Holiness, but to meditate day and night on what may be pleasing to him.’ Doubtless Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as in his sensible advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici had he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son and the latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it to the boy—that he was a Florentine citizen like all the rest. But this tradition came to an end with Lorenzo. The further contents of the instructions will be referred to again. Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo Pandolfini, the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there had never been a Pope who took the interests of his house so much to heart as he did. ‘For as I have learned by experience how great is his honesty and wisdom, I will most willingly be guided by his counsels.’[261]Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the lasting favour of the head of the Church since a change had taken place abroad which might possibly have an important influence on the political circumstances of Italy. A year before the death of Sixtus IV. the monarch was called away, who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and his devotion—approaching to superstition, and heightened by suspicion and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement opposition to the Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at the age of sixty, at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, on the evening of August 30, 1483. Two years before, when out hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which was repeated without destroying his clearness of intellect, though his physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his approaching end with a terror which prayers and sacraments could not soothe, which drove him ceaselessly from pilgrimage to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying at Plessis.There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the breasts of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, surrounded by double and triple guards of all kinds. To the end of his days the king maintained friendly relations with Florence and the Medici; of all his political connections, this was perhaps the only one in which he never changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to Rome in November 1478,[262]he expressly mentioned that the Florentines had always, time out of mind, shown themselves true and loyal friends to France, had never done anything against the crown, and lived according to the laws and customs given them by Charles the Great.[263]A few weeks before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, St. Francis of Paola, and procured relics without end from Rome, he tried through Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved at Florence in the Girolami family, and believed to have the power of curing skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’ thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame de Cléry near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,[264]‘I have seen the ring which you sent to Monsieur de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin, governor of Provence). But I wish to know for certain whether it is really that of the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it has cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I beg you to inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to write about it in detail to the general of Normandy; also whether you have out yonder any particular cure which has the virtues of the said ring. If you can find one, send it tothe said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the pleasure you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house of Anjou became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained from the last of the house, who could no longer escape from his powerful arm, the cession of their French provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he took immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin of Italy, whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, a king of shadows if ever there was one, saw his son Jean and his grandson Nicolas both die before he himself was laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480. His nephew Charles, Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions passed with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now René’s daughter Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. She too died in the beginning of 1483, a few months before the king. Her marriage with her cousin had been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture in the female line on behalf of which René, as the husband of the heiress Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine de Vaudemont, father of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., now succeeded to the dukedom of Lorraine, as well as to the French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he who defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, in the war against the Spaniards, his son revived the old family claims to the Neapolitan crown—those claims which were to be practically made good once more in the middle of the seventeenth century by a scion of the French branch of the old house.Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost both a friend and a supporter. The political situation of France foreboded the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrainedboy of thirteen was left heir to a kingdom which a long, skilful, and despotic reign had considerably enlarged, but also filled more terribly than ever with the elements of discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Count of Beaujeu, was to conduct the government for Charles VIII. without the title of regent. Amid the opposition of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of Orleans, was the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled with no little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was the least foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of the restless nobles and put down their attempts to arm. She paved the way for the union of Brittany with the crown, by interfering with the views of Maximilian of Austria who, after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated extending the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into the very heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of the great western duchy. It is evident, however, that under all the circumstances there was not much chance of French influence extending into Italy or anywhere beyond the borders of the country itself.Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched an embassy to present to the young king good wishes on his accession, and to express sincere regret for the loss of his father.[265]Gentile Becchi, Antonio Canigiani, and Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates of Northern Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment of formalities. If any intention should be shown on the French side of interfering to restore peace in Italy, the envoys were instructed to take care that this should appear to proceed from an independent resolve of the Frenchgovernment, and not from the influence of the allies (for at that time the war with Venice was still going on). This would be the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which might arise in Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and at the same time remain most honourable for the young king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just summoned the States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by the same move which they had intended to make against her, had other things to think of than Italian complications; and the Florentine embassy, after all due ceremonies had been gone through, seems to have had to deal merely with commercial and personal interests.Five years later the Regent of France remembered the old friendship with the Medici, when she was looking about her on all sides for help against the great feudatories who supported Maximilian in his alliance with the mightiest of them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486, Maximilian was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in spite of the great difficulties with which he had to contend in his Burgundian provinces, his position was a very threatening one for France so long as internal peace was not restored, and every addition to his power was an addition to the cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of Frederic III. pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent VIII. from confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, somewhat startling. The Pope was on friendly terms with the emperor and the king; just before, at the end of 1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty which put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a letter was sent in the name of the young king Charles to Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his friendship for the royal house of France and soliciting the employment of his influence with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, shouldremain for a time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy Father that if the matter is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves that his Holiness and all who have anything to do in the matter shall perceive the result.’[266]It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to France, was reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue as this. ‘By the copy of a letter from the King of France to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the ambassador at Rome, ‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance of the affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of it with your usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and pointing out to him its importance and possible consequences; for I am of opinion that mature reflection and deliberation are needful, that the investiture in question may not give occasion to embarrassment and offence. According to my judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so much influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will always appear to me advisable to keep in harmony and friendship with him. I shall always order myself according to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but wish first fully to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and I shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions which may appear needful, that we may not lose in one quarter what we gain in another.’ Lorenzo was right in his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the Ferrarese ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,[267]‘have petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian with the dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, should he do so, their king will set every influence to work at Naples to avenge the insult. The Pope gave them a verysharp reply, saying that no request had as yet been addressed to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as that just delivered to him must have come not from the King of France, but from his evil counsellors. If he had only the latter to deal with, he would soon be able to make them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a message, and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’
CHAPTER III.THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE.Thelast years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame, though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew; all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano, daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether, as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy, attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned, and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint,and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255]Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the clang of arms. The stronghold of the spiritual power was scarcely to be recognised. After the immediate anxieties consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by the battle of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’ content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries, feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes between the Colonna and Orsini factions, in which many other families—the Savelli, Santacroce, Tuttivilla, Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was divided into two hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed; the streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One Colonna lost his life in defending the cause of his family. Girolamo Riario was mixed up in all this, and through him the Pope also became a party to it. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas, quarrelled so desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon by the two great families, peace was not restored. In the beginning of July, 1484, the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable body of troops, attacked the Colonna possessions, which surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle. He took Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s death. He felt the ground give way under his feet. Onthe morning of August 13 the populace stormed and plundered his palace at Sant’Apollinare; his magazine in the Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the Genoese—hated by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina Sforza, was safe in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of Paliano was raised at once; the troops marched to Rome, but only to turn towards the north-west to seek a junction with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from the Abruzzi, armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ Anguillara retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood were in complete anarchy; every man was in arms, and the palaces were barricaded. At last a compromise was arrived at, which, by the departure of the party leaders and the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 the conclave met, and at the end of three days Giovan Battista Cybò was chosen Pope under the title of Innocent VIII.Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense, did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli, relatives of Boniface IX.[256]But the first Cybò known to history is the Pope’sfather Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome. Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather than rule by himself.’[257]Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he will show a gracious disposition.’Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states should send their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. The Florentines were all the more eager to offer theircongratulations because they wanted to secure the favour of a Genoese Pope in their differences with Genoa. Immediately after his election Lorenzo heard, from his brother-in-law the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, and declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that all his hopes were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there was no knowing whether the end would correspond with the beginning.[258]At the close of November the embassy started for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and was received, according to custom, by the papal court, the household officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members were Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo Scala, Angelo Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, besides the resident ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci.[259]In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made to the earnest desire of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to the strife in the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that your commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; but add, as if from yourselves, in justification of late events, that we were compelled to fight contrary to our intention and will; as indeed ye very well know that our city is ever faithful to her natural desire for peace, as far as is consistent with honour and fair advantage.’Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a lad of fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies to be accompanied by youths of high rank, who might contribute to the splendour of processions and ceremonies. He gave the boy detailed instructions, such as were usual in such cases on the part of wise and careful fathers.[260]At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness of both Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authoritiesthere. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of the envoys are together with thee, behave thyself gravely and discreetly and with politeness towards thine equals. Beware of taking precedence of anyone older than thyself; for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing but a Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) thinks fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, take care to be previously well instructed in all the customary ceremonies; then, when thou comest to his Holiness, kiss the credentials which I give thee for the Holy Father and beg him to read them. After that, if thou hast to speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness, and say that I well know it was my duty to appear before him in person as I did before his predecessor of blessed memory, but that I trust he will be graciously pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I went to Rome I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind numbering more years or possessing more authority than thyself. Therefore, I think I should have pleased his Holiness less by coming than by sending thee, whereby I express in the best way possible my desire to appear in person. Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy father and lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings which, I hope, will be shared by thy brothers, whom I would rather not have as sons if it is not to be so. Hereupon thou shalt declare to his Holiness my firm resolve not to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to the Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the Holy Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. Moreover, I have experienced what disadvantages were brought upon me by the loss of the late Pope’s favour, although I believe I suffered many persecutions without fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to thejudgment of others, and however this may be, my resolution is fixed, not only never to offend his Holiness, but to meditate day and night on what may be pleasing to him.’ Doubtless Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as in his sensible advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici had he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son and the latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it to the boy—that he was a Florentine citizen like all the rest. But this tradition came to an end with Lorenzo. The further contents of the instructions will be referred to again. Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo Pandolfini, the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there had never been a Pope who took the interests of his house so much to heart as he did. ‘For as I have learned by experience how great is his honesty and wisdom, I will most willingly be guided by his counsels.’[261]Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the lasting favour of the head of the Church since a change had taken place abroad which might possibly have an important influence on the political circumstances of Italy. A year before the death of Sixtus IV. the monarch was called away, who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and his devotion—approaching to superstition, and heightened by suspicion and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement opposition to the Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at the age of sixty, at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, on the evening of August 30, 1483. Two years before, when out hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which was repeated without destroying his clearness of intellect, though his physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his approaching end with a terror which prayers and sacraments could not soothe, which drove him ceaselessly from pilgrimage to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying at Plessis.There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the breasts of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, surrounded by double and triple guards of all kinds. To the end of his days the king maintained friendly relations with Florence and the Medici; of all his political connections, this was perhaps the only one in which he never changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to Rome in November 1478,[262]he expressly mentioned that the Florentines had always, time out of mind, shown themselves true and loyal friends to France, had never done anything against the crown, and lived according to the laws and customs given them by Charles the Great.[263]A few weeks before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, St. Francis of Paola, and procured relics without end from Rome, he tried through Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved at Florence in the Girolami family, and believed to have the power of curing skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’ thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame de Cléry near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,[264]‘I have seen the ring which you sent to Monsieur de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin, governor of Provence). But I wish to know for certain whether it is really that of the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it has cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I beg you to inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to write about it in detail to the general of Normandy; also whether you have out yonder any particular cure which has the virtues of the said ring. If you can find one, send it tothe said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the pleasure you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house of Anjou became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained from the last of the house, who could no longer escape from his powerful arm, the cession of their French provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he took immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin of Italy, whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, a king of shadows if ever there was one, saw his son Jean and his grandson Nicolas both die before he himself was laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480. His nephew Charles, Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions passed with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now René’s daughter Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. She too died in the beginning of 1483, a few months before the king. Her marriage with her cousin had been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture in the female line on behalf of which René, as the husband of the heiress Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine de Vaudemont, father of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., now succeeded to the dukedom of Lorraine, as well as to the French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he who defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, in the war against the Spaniards, his son revived the old family claims to the Neapolitan crown—those claims which were to be practically made good once more in the middle of the seventeenth century by a scion of the French branch of the old house.Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost both a friend and a supporter. The political situation of France foreboded the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrainedboy of thirteen was left heir to a kingdom which a long, skilful, and despotic reign had considerably enlarged, but also filled more terribly than ever with the elements of discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Count of Beaujeu, was to conduct the government for Charles VIII. without the title of regent. Amid the opposition of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of Orleans, was the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled with no little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was the least foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of the restless nobles and put down their attempts to arm. She paved the way for the union of Brittany with the crown, by interfering with the views of Maximilian of Austria who, after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated extending the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into the very heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of the great western duchy. It is evident, however, that under all the circumstances there was not much chance of French influence extending into Italy or anywhere beyond the borders of the country itself.Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched an embassy to present to the young king good wishes on his accession, and to express sincere regret for the loss of his father.[265]Gentile Becchi, Antonio Canigiani, and Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates of Northern Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment of formalities. If any intention should be shown on the French side of interfering to restore peace in Italy, the envoys were instructed to take care that this should appear to proceed from an independent resolve of the Frenchgovernment, and not from the influence of the allies (for at that time the war with Venice was still going on). This would be the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which might arise in Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and at the same time remain most honourable for the young king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just summoned the States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by the same move which they had intended to make against her, had other things to think of than Italian complications; and the Florentine embassy, after all due ceremonies had been gone through, seems to have had to deal merely with commercial and personal interests.Five years later the Regent of France remembered the old friendship with the Medici, when she was looking about her on all sides for help against the great feudatories who supported Maximilian in his alliance with the mightiest of them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486, Maximilian was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in spite of the great difficulties with which he had to contend in his Burgundian provinces, his position was a very threatening one for France so long as internal peace was not restored, and every addition to his power was an addition to the cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of Frederic III. pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent VIII. from confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, somewhat startling. The Pope was on friendly terms with the emperor and the king; just before, at the end of 1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty which put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a letter was sent in the name of the young king Charles to Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his friendship for the royal house of France and soliciting the employment of his influence with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, shouldremain for a time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy Father that if the matter is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves that his Holiness and all who have anything to do in the matter shall perceive the result.’[266]It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to France, was reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue as this. ‘By the copy of a letter from the King of France to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the ambassador at Rome, ‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance of the affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of it with your usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and pointing out to him its importance and possible consequences; for I am of opinion that mature reflection and deliberation are needful, that the investiture in question may not give occasion to embarrassment and offence. According to my judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so much influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will always appear to me advisable to keep in harmony and friendship with him. I shall always order myself according to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but wish first fully to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and I shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions which may appear needful, that we may not lose in one quarter what we gain in another.’ Lorenzo was right in his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the Ferrarese ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,[267]‘have petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian with the dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, should he do so, their king will set every influence to work at Naples to avenge the insult. The Pope gave them a verysharp reply, saying that no request had as yet been addressed to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as that just delivered to him must have come not from the King of France, but from his evil counsellors. If he had only the latter to deal with, he would soon be able to make them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a message, and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’
THE EARLY YEARS OF INNOCENT VIII. LOUIS XI. AND FRANCE.
Thelast years of Sixtus IV. were disturbed in Rome as well as elsewhere. In both cases Girolamo Riario was the chief person to blame, though it was a great pity that such a gifted and superior man as the Pope should be led astray into crooked ways by a petty tyrant devoid of talent, hesitating before no violence, and versed only in intrigue. Sixtus could not be deceived as to the nature of his unworthy nephew; all Rome was full of his wickedness, though the excesses committed by the Florentines after the Pazzi conspiracy had damaged their cause and would have added to the power of the Pope if he, too, had not overstepped all bounds in his impetuosity. Of Riario’s part in the matter there was but one opinion. Two years later a painful occurrence took place in the Pope’s family. One of his numerous nephews, Antonio Basso della Rovere, son of his sister Luchina and brother of Cardinal Girolamo Basso, had been married only a year to Caterina Marzano, daughter of the Prince of Rossano and granddaughter of King Ferrante, when he was seized with a fever from which he never recovered. Girolamo Riario was visiting his cousin when the latter (whether, as the chronicler suggests, in the delirium of fever, or venting long-restrained malice), instead of thanking him for his sympathy, attacked him as if he were his bitterest enemy. ‘He vehemently reproached him with various actions which were universally condemned, and with his manner of life, which was a subject of general complaint,and denounced against him the judgment of God, which no human favour or power could enable him to escape. The sick man’s excitement was so great that those who had been intimate with him for years could no longer recognise his usual gentleness. The count, however, wisely bore it all patiently as the words of one delirious with fever, and openly expressed his compassion for his cousin’s state. All we who stood round the bed blushed for shame, and several tried to leave the room.’[255]
Since 1482 Rome had been constantly filled with the clang of arms. The stronghold of the spiritual power was scarcely to be recognised. After the immediate anxieties consequent on the Ferrarese war were ended by the battle of Campomorto, and the Romans had stared to their hearts’ content at the Duke of Calabria’s captive troopers and janissaries, feverish excitement was again aroused by fresh disputes between the Colonna and Orsini factions, in which many other families—the Savelli, Santacroce, Tuttivilla, Della Valle, &c.—took part. The city was divided into two hostile camps; palaces were besieged and destroyed; the streets and the neighbourhood filled with armed bands. One Colonna lost his life in defending the cause of his family. Girolamo Riario was mixed up in all this, and through him the Pope also became a party to it. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who favoured the Colonnas, quarrelled so desperately with Girolamo that the latter threatened to attack his palace. Even after a compact was agreed upon by the two great families, peace was not restored. In the beginning of July, 1484, the Pope’s nephew, with a considerable body of troops, attacked the Colonna possessions, which surrounded Rome on the west like a girdle. He took Capranica and Cave, and was laying siege to the stronghold of Paliano when he was startled by the news of the Pope’s death. He felt the ground give way under his feet. Onthe morning of August 13 the populace stormed and plundered his palace at Sant’Apollinare; his magazine in the Campagna, that of his brother-in-law and of the Genoese—hated by the people for their usury—the papal galleys at Ostia, everything was sacked. His brave wife, Caterina Sforza, was safe in the castle of St. Angelo. The siege of Paliano was raised at once; the troops marched to Rome, but only to turn towards the north-west to seek a junction with the Orsini, for from all sides, even from the Abruzzi, armed auxiliaries were flocking to the Colonna, to whom Florence and Siena also proffered assistance. Deifebo dell’ Anguillara retook several castles; the city and neighbourhood were in complete anarchy; every man was in arms, and the palaces were barricaded. At last a compromise was arrived at, which, by the departure of the party leaders and the surrender of the castle of St. Angelo to the College of Cardinals, put an end to the worst disorder. On August 26 the conclave met, and at the end of three days Giovan Battista Cybò was chosen Pope under the title of Innocent VIII.
Thus, amid all this confusion, ended the reign of a Pope who had thought he could govern the policy of Italy, and, in a certain sense, did control it better than anyone who had preceded him. He brought together the finest library of his time, carried out legal reforms for the benefit of the Roman Municipium, did more than anyone else to transform Rome from a mediæval city into one more suited to modern requirements, and enriched it with churches, palaces, bridges, and beneficent establishments. Innocent VIII. was far from possessing the striking qualities of his predecessor, but he was free from the latter’s immoderate self-confidence. He sprang from a Genoese family believed to be of Levantine origin and connected with the Tomacelli, relatives of Boniface IX.[256]But the first Cybò known to history is the Pope’sfather Arano, who married into a Genoese patrician house—that of the Mari—held important offices in Naples under René of Anjou, and later on, though still leaning towards the Angevin party, under Alfonso of Aragon, and in 1455 was a senator of Rome. Giovan Battista Cybò studied in Padua and Rome, was appointed Bishop of Savona by Paul II., and afterwards translated to Molfetta, from whence he took his usual appellation after being created a cardinal in May 1473. In the Pope’s absence, during the plague in the summer of 1476, he acted as his representative. He was in his fifty-second year. ‘The disposition of the new Pope,’ wrote Guid’Antonio Vespucci to Lorenzo immediately after the election, ‘was, during his cardinalate, benevolent and kind, and he was far more affable in society than he whom you wot of. He is not versed in either matters of state or of learning, but he is not wholly ignorant. He belonged completely to the party of San Pietro in Vincola (Giuliano della Rovere), who procured him his hat, and of whom it may be said that he is now practically Pope, and will have far more power than under Sixtus if he only knows how to manage his successor cleverly. The latter, as a cardinal, was on bad terms with the count (Riario). He is of middle height, strongly built, full in the face, has a brother and several grown-up natural children, at any rate a son and a married daughter. He gives one the impression of one who will let himself be counselled by others rather than rule by himself.’[257]Luigi Lotti wrote: ‘If he governs and proceeds according to his own judgment and not by that of others, I think he will be a good quiet Pope, and keep clear of all strife of arms. His court will resemble him, as the general opinion is that he will show a gracious disposition.’
Lodovico il Moro had proposed that the allied states should send their congratulatory embassies to Rome together. The Florentines were all the more eager to offer theircongratulations because they wanted to secure the favour of a Genoese Pope in their differences with Genoa. Immediately after his election Lorenzo heard, from his brother-in-law the archbishop, that Innocent had expressed the most friendly interest in his position and the affairs of Florence, and declared his readiness to be of use to him; adding that all his hopes were founded on Lorenzo’s wisdom, as there was no knowing whether the end would correspond with the beginning.[258]At the close of November the embassy started for Rome, where it arrived on December 8, and was received, according to custom, by the papal court, the household officers of the cardinals, and the foreign envoys. Its members were Francesco Soderini, Antonio Canigiani, Bartolommeo Scala, Angelo Niccolini, and Giovanni Tornabuoni, besides the resident ambassador Guid’Antonio Vespucci.[259]In the ‘Instructions’ reference was made to the earnest desire of the Republic to have a speedy ending put to the strife in the Lunigiana. ‘Should the new Pope or anyone else turn the discourse on the subject of the war, ye shall answer that your commission deals solely with the duty of congratulation; but add, as if from yourselves, in justification of late events, that we were compelled to fight contrary to our intention and will; as indeed ye very well know that our city is ever faithful to her natural desire for peace, as far as is consistent with honour and fair advantage.’
Lorenzo had sent with the ambassadors his eldest son, a lad of fourteen, as it was then customary for solemn embassies to be accompanied by youths of high rank, who might contribute to the splendour of processions and ceremonies. He gave the boy detailed instructions, such as were usual in such cases on the part of wise and careful fathers.[260]At Siena he was to proclaim the readiness of both Lorenzo and the Government to be of use to the authoritiesthere. ‘Everywhere, when the other young companions of the envoys are together with thee, behave thyself gravely and discreetly and with politeness towards thine equals. Beware of taking precedence of anyone older than thyself; for although thou art my son, yet thou art nothing but a Florentine citizen like the rest. If Giovanni (Tornabuoni) thinks fit to present thee to the Pope at a special audience, take care to be previously well instructed in all the customary ceremonies; then, when thou comest to his Holiness, kiss the credentials which I give thee for the Holy Father and beg him to read them. After that, if thou hast to speak, thou shalt commend me with reverence to his Holiness, and say that I well know it was my duty to appear before him in person as I did before his predecessor of blessed memory, but that I trust he will be graciously pleased to excuse me; for at the time when I went to Rome I could leave my brother at home, who was well able to represent me, but now I should have no one to leave behind numbering more years or possessing more authority than thyself. Therefore, I think I should have pleased his Holiness less by coming than by sending thee, whereby I express in the best way possible my desire to appear in person. Moreover, I send thee in order that thou mayest have an early opportunity of learning to know his Holiness as thy father and lord, and of fostering for many years those feelings which, I hope, will be shared by thy brothers, whom I would rather not have as sons if it is not to be so. Hereupon thou shalt declare to his Holiness my firm resolve not to swerve from his commands, for my innate devotion to the Apostolic See is increased by that towards the person of the Holy Father, to whom our house has long been under obligation. Moreover, I have experienced what disadvantages were brought upon me by the loss of the late Pope’s favour, although I believe I suffered many persecutions without fault of my own, and more on account of the sins of others than for misconduct towards him. But I leave this to thejudgment of others, and however this may be, my resolution is fixed, not only never to offend his Holiness, but to meditate day and night on what may be pleasing to him.’ Doubtless Lorenzo was as much in earnest in this as in his sensible advice. It would have been well for Piero de’ Medici had he never forgotten what Cosimo had impressed on his son and the latter again on his, who, as a father, now repeated it to the boy—that he was a Florentine citizen like all the rest. But this tradition came to an end with Lorenzo. The further contents of the instructions will be referred to again. Innocent VIII. afterwards said to Pier Filippo Pandolfini, the new ambassador of the Republic, that after the Genoese quarrel had been laid aside Lorenzo would perceive there had never been a Pope who took the interests of his house so much to heart as he did. ‘For as I have learned by experience how great is his honesty and wisdom, I will most willingly be guided by his counsels.’[261]
Lorenzo must have been the more anxious to obtain the lasting favour of the head of the Church since a change had taken place abroad which might possibly have an important influence on the political circumstances of Italy. A year before the death of Sixtus IV. the monarch was called away, who, amid all his dependence on the clergy and his devotion—approaching to superstition, and heightened by suspicion and torments of conscience—raised the most vehement opposition to the Pope and the papacy. Louis XI. died at the age of sixty, at his castle of Plessis-les-Tours, on the evening of August 30, 1483. Two years before, when out hunting, he had had his first apoplectic fit, which was repeated without destroying his clearness of intellect, though his physical strength gradually sank. He had seen his approaching end with a terror which prayers and sacraments could not soothe, which drove him ceaselessly from pilgrimage to pilgrimage whenever he was not staying at Plessis.There, tortured day and night by the consciousness of hatred which his cold treacherous tyranny had excited in the breasts of others, he shut himself in with a few confidants, surrounded by double and triple guards of all kinds. To the end of his days the king maintained friendly relations with Florence and the Medici; of all his political connections, this was perhaps the only one in which he never changed. In his instructions to the ambassadors sent to Rome in November 1478,[262]he expressly mentioned that the Florentines had always, time out of mind, shown themselves true and loyal friends to France, had never done anything against the crown, and lived according to the laws and customs given them by Charles the Great.[263]A few weeks before his death, Louis wrote to Lorenzo. Not content with having called to his bedside the holy hermit of Calabria, St. Francis of Paola, and procured relics without end from Rome, he tried through Lorenzo to obtain the episcopal ring of St. Zanobi, which was preserved at Florence in the Girolami family, and believed to have the power of curing skin-diseases. His wish was gratified. ‘Cousin and friend,’ thus wrote the dying man on July 9, 1483, from Notre-Dame de Cléry near Orleans, whither he had gone on a pilgrimage,[264]‘I have seen the ring which you sent to Monsieur de Soliers (Palamède de Fobrin, governor of Provence). But I wish to know for certain whether it is really that of the saint, and whether it works miracles; whether it has cured anybody, and whom; and how it is to be worn. I beg you to inform me of all this as quickly as you can, or to write about it in detail to the general of Normandy; also whether you have out yonder any particular cure which has the virtues of the said ring. If you can find one, send it tothe said general, I beg you, for the sake of all the pleasure you can give me. Now farewell, cousin and friend.’
In the last years of Louis XI. the male line of the house of Anjou became extinct. We have seen how the king obtained from the last of the house, who could no longer escape from his powerful arm, the cession of their French provinces and their Italian claims: of the former he took immediate possession, the latter remained in abeyance waiting for eventualities which did not fail to come, to the ruin of Italy, whose old sins were expiated centuries later. René, a king of shadows if ever there was one, saw his son Jean and his grandson Nicolas both die before he himself was laid to rest at Angers on July 10, 1480. His nephew Charles, Count of Maine, to whom his French possessions passed with the consent of Louis XI., followed him to the grave within seventeen months; and the sole heiress was now René’s daughter Yolande, widow of Ferry, Count of Lorraine-Vaudemont. She too died in the beginning of 1483, a few months before the king. Her marriage with her cousin had been intended to reconcile the claims of the Vaudemont branch to the Duchy of Lorraine with those of primogeniture in the female line on behalf of which René, as the husband of the heiress Isabelle, had fought unsuccessfully with Antoine de Vaudemont, father of Ferry. Yolande’s son, René II., now succeeded to the dukedom of Lorraine, as well as to the French fiefs of the Vaudemonts. It was he who defeated Charles the Bold at Nancy, and was led by the Venetians into the war with King Ferrante in Italy, where years after, in the war against the Spaniards, his son revived the old family claims to the Neapolitan crown—those claims which were to be practically made good once more in the middle of the seventeenth century by a scion of the French branch of the old house.
Lorenzo could not fail to notice that in Louis XI. he lost both a friend and a supporter. The political situation of France foreboded the worst vicissitudes. A delicate illtrainedboy of thirteen was left heir to a kingdom which a long, skilful, and despotic reign had considerably enlarged, but also filled more terribly than ever with the elements of discord. The Queen-mother, Charlotte of Savoy, was an invalid, and incapable of acting; according to Louis’ arrangements his elder daughter Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, Count of Beaujeu, was to conduct the government for Charles VIII. without the title of regent. Amid the opposition of the nobles, of whom one, Louis of Orleans, was the next heir to the throne, this task was fulfilled with no little skill by the Princess, then aged twenty-two, of whom her father once said that ‘no woman was wise, but Anne was the least foolish.’ It was she who thwarted all the plans of the restless nobles and put down their attempts to arm. She paved the way for the union of Brittany with the crown, by interfering with the views of Maximilian of Austria who, after the early death of Mary of Burgundy, contemplated extending the new possessions of the house of Habsburg into the very heart of France by his marriage with the heiress of the great western duchy. It is evident, however, that under all the circumstances there was not much chance of French influence extending into Italy or anywhere beyond the borders of the country itself.
Immediately after the death of Louis, Florence despatched an embassy to present to the young king good wishes on his accession, and to express sincere regret for the loss of his father.[265]Gentile Becchi, Antonio Canigiani, and Lorenzo de’ Medici the son of Pier Francesco, were the members of this embassy, which was to visit the potentates of Northern Italy on its way. Its chief object was the fulfilment of formalities. If any intention should be shown on the French side of interfering to restore peace in Italy, the envoys were instructed to take care that this should appear to proceed from an independent resolve of the Frenchgovernment, and not from the influence of the allies (for at that time the war with Venice was still going on). This would be the best way ‘to avoid dangerous conjunctures which might arise in Italy from these obstinate dissensions,’ and at the same time remain most honourable for the young king. But Anne de Beaujeu, who had just summoned the States-General in order to checkmate the allied princes by the same move which they had intended to make against her, had other things to think of than Italian complications; and the Florentine embassy, after all due ceremonies had been gone through, seems to have had to deal merely with commercial and personal interests.
Five years later the Regent of France remembered the old friendship with the Medici, when she was looking about her on all sides for help against the great feudatories who supported Maximilian in his alliance with the mightiest of them all, the Duke of Brittany. On April 5, 1486, Maximilian was crowned king of the Romans at Aachen; and in spite of the great difficulties with which he had to contend in his Burgundian provinces, his position was a very threatening one for France so long as internal peace was not restored, and every addition to his power was an addition to the cares of Anne de Beaujeu. The advanced age of Frederic III. pointed to a speedy vacancy of the imperial throne. That the idea occurred to France of trying to prevent Innocent VIII. from confirming Maximilian’s election is, however, somewhat startling. The Pope was on friendly terms with the emperor and the king; just before, at the end of 1487, he had given proof of this by signing the treaty which put an end to the long-standing war between Venice and Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol. On February 8, 1488, a letter was sent in the name of the young king Charles to Lorenzo de’ Medici, claiming his friendship for the royal house of France and soliciting the employment of his influence with the Pope, in order that Maximilian’s kingly dignity, as injurious to the interests of France, shouldremain for a time unconfirmed. ‘You may assure the Holy Father that if the matter is delayed, we will so conduct ourselves that his Holiness and all who have anything to do in the matter shall perceive the result.’[266]
It is very clear that Lorenzo, with all his attachment to France, was reluctant to mix himself with such an intrigue as this. ‘By the copy of a letter from the King of France to me,’ he wrote on February 8 to the ambassador at Rome, ‘you will see the king’s desire and the importance of the affair. For practical reasons I do not think it fitting to write to his Holiness; but I am for your informing him of it with your usual adroitness as soon as you think good, and pointing out to him its importance and possible consequences; for I am of opinion that mature reflection and deliberation are needful, that the investiture in question may not give occasion to embarrassment and offence. According to my judgment, the Most Christian king is so powerful and has so much influence in the affairs of Christendom, that it will always appear to me advisable to keep in harmony and friendship with him. I shall always order myself according to the wise judgment of his Holiness; but wish first fully to express my own view. The rest I leave to you, and I shall be glad if you can manage so that the king’s plenipotentiary is pleased. But you will not neglect any precautions which may appear needful, that we may not lose in one quarter what we gain in another.’ Lorenzo was right in his caution. ‘The French envoys,’ reports the Ferrarese ambassador at Florence to his duke on March 10,[267]‘have petitioned the Pope that he should not invest Maximilian with the dignity of King of the Romans, declaring that, should he do so, their king will set every influence to work at Naples to avenge the insult. The Pope gave them a verysharp reply, saying that no request had as yet been addressed to him in relation to this matter by Maximilian’s orators; and, moreover, he thought that such a message as that just delivered to him must have come not from the King of France, but from his evil counsellors. If he had only the latter to deal with, he would soon be able to make them understand how unworthy of a Pope was such a message, and how his footstool deserved greater reverence.’