CHAPTER IX.POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.Formany of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the frequent subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the complimentary art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preferred as the more dignified, even after Italian poetry had secured a position by considerable achievements. Many of these poetical productions have been rescued from oblivion only to sink back again, unless they contribute to the historical knowledge of the period. Their literary worth consists merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most of the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the court-poet of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams are addressed to Lorenzo, and the elegance of the form as well as the warmth of feeling which breathes through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that impression of servility which is inseparable from this kind of poetry. Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words and deeds—wishes that he may attain the age of Nestor, as he already possesses his wisdom—thanks for favour granted, and offers of future service, are the themes of verse, as well as the merits of a swift runner, of a Spanish hound, of a tree before the Medicean house, supposed to be dead, but which had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers was the object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable love-poem of some length on the name of Giuliano. Hethoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He was still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of his son Piero; but before the latter was eight years old dissensions occurred which caused the poet-pedagogue many an hour of discomfort.In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a residence in Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, sent his wife and children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably received in the house of Andrea Panciatichi, the head of an influential family inclined to the Medici. They were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters, and a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was going to take the command at Florence. In October they exchanged their residence at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, where the family circle was increased by the sons of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And here arose a difference between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was a good and careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great trouble to her and to his grandmother, on account of his delicate health. Concerning Giuliano, then a few months old, whose constitution always remained feeble, she wrote later to her husband: ‘I will care for him as a mother should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for the children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up did not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice against him; the good terms on which they had once been are proved by the letters which he addressed to her on several occasions when he was absent from Florence with Lorenzo.[48]He bestowed great care on his young pupil, of whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the father. ‘I shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja,September 20, ‘in attention and fidelity. I know what I owe to your Magnificence, and I feel for Piero and your other children an affection equal to that of a father. Should anything unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to bear it, out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks previously he had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage him to write, and I think in a few days you will receive a letter which will astonish you. We have a master here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it seems quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and look quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would that I could serve you in greater things; but this is my work, and I fulfil it with joy. But I beg you to ensure, either by letter or by a messenger, that my authority shall not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide the boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according to your pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with equanimity.’ And on the same day: ‘We get on as well as we can, but I cannot escape a few collisions.’ That he was dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near Lorenzo, is clear from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna Lucrezia and to her son.To make matters worse, came thevilleggiaturaat Caffaggiuolo, whither Clarice went in November. This was, from position and climate, a melancholy winter residence, where loneliness and bad weather seem to have put the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the country house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence of the sad circumstances of the time, which weighed heavily on the mind of this vehement accuser of the Pope. Gentile had felt the events of the spring deeply, and had been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano. Poliziano had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired historical importance from the testimony it bears to the hopesof foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the Medici and many of the Florentine people; hopes which were but very partially fulfilled.[49]AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM.Gentilesanimi maxima pars mei,Communi nimium sorte quid angeris?Quid curis animum lugubribus teris,Et me discrucias simul?Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumusLuctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacrisIllum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas!Stratum sacrilega manu!At sunt attonito quæ dare pectoriSolamen valeant plurima, nam superEst, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo,Laurens Etruriæ caput.Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum paterTutum terrifica gorgone præstitit;Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus LeoServant, et Draco pervigil.Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules;Illi fatiferis militat arcubus;Illi mittit equos Francia martios,Felix Francia regibus.Circumstat populus murmure dissono;Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres;Causa vincimus et robore militum;Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet.Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia,Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravisAbsterisse bono lætitiæ dieAudes nubila pectoris.Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliqueritArtus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retroMordacesve trahunt sollicitudines,Mentis, curaque pervicax.Thus rendered by Roscoe:—OFriend, whose woes this bosom shares,Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares?Ah! why thy days to grief resign,With thy regrets recalling mine?Eternal o’er the atrocious deed,‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed,When he, twin glory of our land,Fell by a sacrilegious hand!But sure, my friend, there yet remainsSome solace for these piercing pains,Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side,Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride.Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured headJove his terrific gorgon spread;Whose steps the lion-pair await,Of Florence and Venetia’s state.For him his crest the dragon rears;For him the Herculean band appears;Her martial succour Gallia brings—Gallia, that glories in her kings!See round the youth the purpled bandOf venerable fathers stand;Exulting crowds around him throng,And hail him as he moves along.Strong in our cause and in our friends,Our righteous battle Jove defends;Thy useless sorrows then represt,Let joy once more dilate thy breast.To animate the clay-cold frame,No sighs shall fan the vital flame;Nor all the tears that love can shedRecall to life the silent dead.The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the poet himself became infected with melancholy. ‘The news from this place,’ wrote Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on November 18, ‘is that it rains violently and incessantly, so that it is impossible to leave the house, and instead of hunting we have taken to playing ball, that the children may have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers, and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; for that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear nothing that cheers me, so deeply have our misfortunes affected me. Sleeping or waking, I have nothing in my head but these fancies. The day before yesterday we were all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to be some still going about. In town we have at least some comfort, if it is only that of seeing Lorenzo come home safe and well. Here, everything makes us uneasy, and I assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in his own room, with no company but his thoughts; and I find him so cast down and full of care that his society only increases my own sadness. Ser Alberto del Malerba (a priest who was then in the Medicean household) recites the service all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying, my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and war—grief for the past, anxiety for the future. I have no one to turn my thoughts to him, and am dying of weariness. And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to whom I can vent my feelings.’At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, 1479, Poliziano wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here at Careggi, having left Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna Clarice. The grounds of my departure, I desire, aye I earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain to you by word of mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that, when you have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on myside. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence without your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your Magnificence informs me what I am to do. For I am yours, though the world itself should turn upside down; and if fortune will not smile upon me in your service, that will not prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am entirely at your commands.’ What had moved Madonna Clarice to this strong measure is clear. She could have nothing to say against the scholar; but the man inspired her with very little confidence, although we cannot think that she was influenced by the evil rumours which were afterwards spread as to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours characteristic of a time that delighted in the most dishonouring accusations. Men of letters were so full of exaggerated self-importance, and so incapable of controlling their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had right on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s education; the tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ wrote he to Lorenzo from Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed a letter from Piero, ‘his mother makes him read in the Psalter, which I cannot at all approve. When she does not interfere with him his progress is surprising, so that he can read without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of three as a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by Marsilio Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could not make the same objection which was made in the next by another scholar, who received the cardinalate—Pietro Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles: that they spoilt one’s style.At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the crisis in public affairs that strife in his own household must have been doubly troublesome to him. He did not think of restoring to his post the pedagogue who had been turned out of doors. He offered him the villa at Fiesole, where Polizianowrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo, about the leisure he was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards the city of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,[50]but evidently put no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna Clarice to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,[51]after affectionately entreating him to take care of his health during the continued sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like Luigi Pulci in Matteo Franco’s verses. I also wish that Messer Angelo shall not be able to boast of remaining in the house in defiance of me, or of your having offered him a home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your will that he should remain here, I would be content, and although I have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear it patiently if such were your decision, though I cannot believe it possible.’ Clarice’s remonstrances must have made some impression on Lorenzo. Although Poliziano saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house. He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna Lucrezia, to whom he represented his difficult position, if the hopes set on Piero came to nothing.[52]He begged her to try to fathom Lorenzo’s intentions concerning him. The tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons, Martino della Comedia, gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also Bernardo Michelozzi (son of the architect), who actually educated Giovanni, and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ he wrote, ‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would be a pity. I understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but I cannot quite see how he is to go on with my work, unless he remains permanently. In this case, indeed, it will bejust as well that the shell has burst. But I do not believe it, and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions, that I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the battle. I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s wishes, for I am certain that he sees deeper into things than I, and that he will guard my honour as he always has done, and as my faithful services give me some right to expect.’When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered from Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years at this period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return from Naples, show that at that time Poliziano had not returned to his house.[53]A year after, in 1481, Piero was again entrusted to his guidance; for the Latin dictation for him,[54]in which the siege of Otranto by the Duke of Calabria is mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for translation, which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek any really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of connectedness and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the highly gifted man’s powers of teaching. But Piero had other teachers besides Poliziano; among them was the theologian Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and conduct Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted the defence of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man who many years later took so decided a part with Reuchlin against those who accused him of heresy. Giovanni del Prato, afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio Barberini, a professor of theology at Florence, were also called in.[55]When Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be married, Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until his death a member of the most intimate circle of the family.He never was a priest, though he held a couple of ecclesiastical benefices.We can well understand that the choice of a man of such uncommon intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything was expected to give way to classical culture, found many eulogists; and the words of Cristoforo Landino in his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’ Medici do not stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was not wasted so far as concerns the elegant culture which was fast superseding the more practical education of older times. But the essential principle of a serious moral view of the world Angelo Poliziano could not give to his pupil, for he had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the progress of the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific, artistic and social movement of which the house of Medici formed the centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was thus prepared for the position he was in some degree destined to inherit. He always showed interest in scientific matters. It was at his desire that his tutor made the collection of letters above mentioned, which, however, were not printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s banishment; a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. But posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment on his pupil. It was the judgment of a courtier. In Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della Mirandola,[56]there lived again the spirit of his father, the virtue of his grandfather, the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty, piety, generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors.If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house between his wife and a literary friend, still less could he keep it between the latter and another member of his confidential circle. To this belonged, like Poliziano, a man whoseliterary merits contributed nothing to the celebrity of the age, but who attained to a higher and more secure position than most of his compeers because he showed himself a manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,[57]born about 1430 at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself described his origin and the commencement of his fortunes in a letter to Poliziano, and he deserves at least some credit for avowing so openly what it is true everybody already knew. ‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and born of parents of low degree, I came here, without means, without claims, without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his family.’[58]His father was a miller, and the youth’s first years in Florence were passed in bitter want, as we know from the letters of Cardinal Ammanati, who was there in not very brilliant circumstances. As in the case of otherprotégés, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs. This only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.[59]Although by no means without cultivation and practice in business, Scala stood far below those who had preceded him with so much distinction in the chancellorship, since the days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the man whom he replaced. For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of manhood, did honour to the name which his family had already acquired in the field of learning, and united sound knowledge of law with unusual elegance of expression; whilehis eloquence and excellent memory rendered him peculiarly fit for the various solemnities at which addresses and replies had to be made without long preparation. His Latin history of the first Crusade, founded on French materials, and dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source whence Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and even in the great commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. Posts of honour, embassies, knighthood, riches, fell to his share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and in constant correspondence with him on civil and political affairs. In the storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small use to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo always kept the Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty villa—which afterwards passed to the Guadagni[60]—on the slope of the hill at Fiesole, and his town house (now belonging, with its beautiful gardens, to the Count della Gherardesca) still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors had written a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do the same. His work, which comes down to Charles of Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and his other writings are even more utterly forgotten than those of the obscurest among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to give no ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose relations to Florence he was obliged to touch in his history is shown by his oft-repeated request to the Ferrarese ambassador for information about the Este family, ‘because he wished to write in praise of that illustrious house.’[61]Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His letters to Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.[62]‘Thou wilt hardly venture to compete with my honours.The Florentine people have raised me first to the Priorship, then to the Gonfaloniership, and now to the rank of senator and knight, with such unanimity that many were of opinion there had never been a more popular act; besides which I have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction was never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon Poliziano did not fail to pay him back with an abusive answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo and Lorenzo was a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him he was influenced by other considerations, not by his own opinion, and had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers to correct, as the latter must have known very well. Lorenzo had prevented the former from destroying the mocking iambics on Scala,[63]saying it was a pity to sacrifice such good verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two became involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by Filelfo, Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo a quarrel broke out between the two men, who emulated each other in abasing the moral dignity of scholarship.There seems to have been another cause of strife besides literary rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter Alessandra. Like many other women of her day, she devoted herself in her youth to the study of Greek, and her teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and Johannes Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent passion for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.[64]‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking,Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with her admirer, and sent him flowers and received small presents, seems to have been very far from returning his affection. She tells him plainly that he has not found what hesought; paying him at the same time compliments on his learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him much. When the disdainful beauty gave her hand to Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a Greek established in Italy early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour forth a torrent of abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time had been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of Pier Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed with praises of the Greek, who was pronounced superior to Catullus.[65]Now just as immoderate in the opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most extravagant against the man who had become his happy rival. Under the name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, heaping upon him all the abuse that could be raked out of the poems of antiquity.[66]Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung backwards and forwardsusque ad nauseam. Poliziano’s hooked nose and crooked neck, and the supposed infidelity of both combatants are mutually held up to contempt. Well-turned though the epigrams may be, they were better absent from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the convent of San Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506.Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning while taking an active part in public affairs, Alamanno Rinuccini holds a foremost place.[67]He was descended from an old noble family, whose castle near San Donato alla Collina, on the road which leads from Florence to Arezzo, along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of its mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio and Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek andhis original Latin writings he displayed a perfect command of both tongues, and his house was a place where his friends met for learned discourse. He rose to the highest offices in the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal the chancellorship of the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various diplomatic embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo and his brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary events. Although an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, while fully admitting Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes on him a severe judgment, showing how the spirit of independence still survived among the aristocracy, and how hard it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by raising them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character of the writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed on him. It was much the same with Bernardo Rucellai, one of the most esteemed members of the Medicean circle. He controlled his ambition during the life of his brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was gone and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he took his own course. He had early distinguished himself in his classical and philosophical studies, and while scarcely more than a youth was a professor at the University of Pisa. Of his Latin historical writings, that on the war of Pisa is founded on the narratives of Gino and Neri Capponi; that on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses some intrinsic value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources of information. Both display his command of style; and his topography of ancient Rome shows how well versed he was in ancient literature.[68]The first principle of this work isa mistake, because it rests on the so-calledregionarii, that arbitrarily interpolated version of the old topographical texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors in thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered upon a new phase, not merely in political life. It was he who, after the storms which burst over Florence in 1494, received into his new house, with its large and beautiful gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic Academy, then in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these ‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the brilliant but unquiet times that followed.[69]Here, where Bernardo Rucellai brought together some of the sculptures scattered at the plundering of the Medici palaces, Niccolò Machiavelli read his book on the art of war; here in 1516 Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of ‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here in 1522 was laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici which put an end to the Academy for ever.
CHAPTER IX.POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.Formany of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the frequent subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the complimentary art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preferred as the more dignified, even after Italian poetry had secured a position by considerable achievements. Many of these poetical productions have been rescued from oblivion only to sink back again, unless they contribute to the historical knowledge of the period. Their literary worth consists merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most of the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the court-poet of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams are addressed to Lorenzo, and the elegance of the form as well as the warmth of feeling which breathes through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that impression of servility which is inseparable from this kind of poetry. Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words and deeds—wishes that he may attain the age of Nestor, as he already possesses his wisdom—thanks for favour granted, and offers of future service, are the themes of verse, as well as the merits of a swift runner, of a Spanish hound, of a tree before the Medicean house, supposed to be dead, but which had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers was the object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable love-poem of some length on the name of Giuliano. Hethoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He was still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of his son Piero; but before the latter was eight years old dissensions occurred which caused the poet-pedagogue many an hour of discomfort.In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a residence in Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, sent his wife and children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably received in the house of Andrea Panciatichi, the head of an influential family inclined to the Medici. They were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters, and a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was going to take the command at Florence. In October they exchanged their residence at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, where the family circle was increased by the sons of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And here arose a difference between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was a good and careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great trouble to her and to his grandmother, on account of his delicate health. Concerning Giuliano, then a few months old, whose constitution always remained feeble, she wrote later to her husband: ‘I will care for him as a mother should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for the children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up did not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice against him; the good terms on which they had once been are proved by the letters which he addressed to her on several occasions when he was absent from Florence with Lorenzo.[48]He bestowed great care on his young pupil, of whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the father. ‘I shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja,September 20, ‘in attention and fidelity. I know what I owe to your Magnificence, and I feel for Piero and your other children an affection equal to that of a father. Should anything unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to bear it, out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks previously he had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage him to write, and I think in a few days you will receive a letter which will astonish you. We have a master here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it seems quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and look quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would that I could serve you in greater things; but this is my work, and I fulfil it with joy. But I beg you to ensure, either by letter or by a messenger, that my authority shall not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide the boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according to your pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with equanimity.’ And on the same day: ‘We get on as well as we can, but I cannot escape a few collisions.’ That he was dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near Lorenzo, is clear from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna Lucrezia and to her son.To make matters worse, came thevilleggiaturaat Caffaggiuolo, whither Clarice went in November. This was, from position and climate, a melancholy winter residence, where loneliness and bad weather seem to have put the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the country house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence of the sad circumstances of the time, which weighed heavily on the mind of this vehement accuser of the Pope. Gentile had felt the events of the spring deeply, and had been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano. Poliziano had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired historical importance from the testimony it bears to the hopesof foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the Medici and many of the Florentine people; hopes which were but very partially fulfilled.[49]AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM.Gentilesanimi maxima pars mei,Communi nimium sorte quid angeris?Quid curis animum lugubribus teris,Et me discrucias simul?Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumusLuctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacrisIllum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas!Stratum sacrilega manu!At sunt attonito quæ dare pectoriSolamen valeant plurima, nam superEst, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo,Laurens Etruriæ caput.Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum paterTutum terrifica gorgone præstitit;Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus LeoServant, et Draco pervigil.Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules;Illi fatiferis militat arcubus;Illi mittit equos Francia martios,Felix Francia regibus.Circumstat populus murmure dissono;Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres;Causa vincimus et robore militum;Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet.Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia,Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravisAbsterisse bono lætitiæ dieAudes nubila pectoris.Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliqueritArtus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retroMordacesve trahunt sollicitudines,Mentis, curaque pervicax.Thus rendered by Roscoe:—OFriend, whose woes this bosom shares,Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares?Ah! why thy days to grief resign,With thy regrets recalling mine?Eternal o’er the atrocious deed,‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed,When he, twin glory of our land,Fell by a sacrilegious hand!But sure, my friend, there yet remainsSome solace for these piercing pains,Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side,Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride.Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured headJove his terrific gorgon spread;Whose steps the lion-pair await,Of Florence and Venetia’s state.For him his crest the dragon rears;For him the Herculean band appears;Her martial succour Gallia brings—Gallia, that glories in her kings!See round the youth the purpled bandOf venerable fathers stand;Exulting crowds around him throng,And hail him as he moves along.Strong in our cause and in our friends,Our righteous battle Jove defends;Thy useless sorrows then represt,Let joy once more dilate thy breast.To animate the clay-cold frame,No sighs shall fan the vital flame;Nor all the tears that love can shedRecall to life the silent dead.The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the poet himself became infected with melancholy. ‘The news from this place,’ wrote Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on November 18, ‘is that it rains violently and incessantly, so that it is impossible to leave the house, and instead of hunting we have taken to playing ball, that the children may have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers, and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; for that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear nothing that cheers me, so deeply have our misfortunes affected me. Sleeping or waking, I have nothing in my head but these fancies. The day before yesterday we were all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to be some still going about. In town we have at least some comfort, if it is only that of seeing Lorenzo come home safe and well. Here, everything makes us uneasy, and I assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in his own room, with no company but his thoughts; and I find him so cast down and full of care that his society only increases my own sadness. Ser Alberto del Malerba (a priest who was then in the Medicean household) recites the service all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying, my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and war—grief for the past, anxiety for the future. I have no one to turn my thoughts to him, and am dying of weariness. And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to whom I can vent my feelings.’At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, 1479, Poliziano wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here at Careggi, having left Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna Clarice. The grounds of my departure, I desire, aye I earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain to you by word of mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that, when you have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on myside. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence without your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your Magnificence informs me what I am to do. For I am yours, though the world itself should turn upside down; and if fortune will not smile upon me in your service, that will not prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am entirely at your commands.’ What had moved Madonna Clarice to this strong measure is clear. She could have nothing to say against the scholar; but the man inspired her with very little confidence, although we cannot think that she was influenced by the evil rumours which were afterwards spread as to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours characteristic of a time that delighted in the most dishonouring accusations. Men of letters were so full of exaggerated self-importance, and so incapable of controlling their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had right on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s education; the tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ wrote he to Lorenzo from Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed a letter from Piero, ‘his mother makes him read in the Psalter, which I cannot at all approve. When she does not interfere with him his progress is surprising, so that he can read without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of three as a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by Marsilio Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could not make the same objection which was made in the next by another scholar, who received the cardinalate—Pietro Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles: that they spoilt one’s style.At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the crisis in public affairs that strife in his own household must have been doubly troublesome to him. He did not think of restoring to his post the pedagogue who had been turned out of doors. He offered him the villa at Fiesole, where Polizianowrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo, about the leisure he was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards the city of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,[50]but evidently put no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna Clarice to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,[51]after affectionately entreating him to take care of his health during the continued sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like Luigi Pulci in Matteo Franco’s verses. I also wish that Messer Angelo shall not be able to boast of remaining in the house in defiance of me, or of your having offered him a home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your will that he should remain here, I would be content, and although I have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear it patiently if such were your decision, though I cannot believe it possible.’ Clarice’s remonstrances must have made some impression on Lorenzo. Although Poliziano saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house. He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna Lucrezia, to whom he represented his difficult position, if the hopes set on Piero came to nothing.[52]He begged her to try to fathom Lorenzo’s intentions concerning him. The tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons, Martino della Comedia, gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also Bernardo Michelozzi (son of the architect), who actually educated Giovanni, and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ he wrote, ‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would be a pity. I understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but I cannot quite see how he is to go on with my work, unless he remains permanently. In this case, indeed, it will bejust as well that the shell has burst. But I do not believe it, and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions, that I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the battle. I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s wishes, for I am certain that he sees deeper into things than I, and that he will guard my honour as he always has done, and as my faithful services give me some right to expect.’When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered from Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years at this period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return from Naples, show that at that time Poliziano had not returned to his house.[53]A year after, in 1481, Piero was again entrusted to his guidance; for the Latin dictation for him,[54]in which the siege of Otranto by the Duke of Calabria is mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for translation, which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek any really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of connectedness and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the highly gifted man’s powers of teaching. But Piero had other teachers besides Poliziano; among them was the theologian Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and conduct Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted the defence of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man who many years later took so decided a part with Reuchlin against those who accused him of heresy. Giovanni del Prato, afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio Barberini, a professor of theology at Florence, were also called in.[55]When Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be married, Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until his death a member of the most intimate circle of the family.He never was a priest, though he held a couple of ecclesiastical benefices.We can well understand that the choice of a man of such uncommon intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything was expected to give way to classical culture, found many eulogists; and the words of Cristoforo Landino in his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’ Medici do not stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was not wasted so far as concerns the elegant culture which was fast superseding the more practical education of older times. But the essential principle of a serious moral view of the world Angelo Poliziano could not give to his pupil, for he had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the progress of the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific, artistic and social movement of which the house of Medici formed the centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was thus prepared for the position he was in some degree destined to inherit. He always showed interest in scientific matters. It was at his desire that his tutor made the collection of letters above mentioned, which, however, were not printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s banishment; a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. But posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment on his pupil. It was the judgment of a courtier. In Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della Mirandola,[56]there lived again the spirit of his father, the virtue of his grandfather, the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty, piety, generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors.If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house between his wife and a literary friend, still less could he keep it between the latter and another member of his confidential circle. To this belonged, like Poliziano, a man whoseliterary merits contributed nothing to the celebrity of the age, but who attained to a higher and more secure position than most of his compeers because he showed himself a manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,[57]born about 1430 at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself described his origin and the commencement of his fortunes in a letter to Poliziano, and he deserves at least some credit for avowing so openly what it is true everybody already knew. ‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and born of parents of low degree, I came here, without means, without claims, without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his family.’[58]His father was a miller, and the youth’s first years in Florence were passed in bitter want, as we know from the letters of Cardinal Ammanati, who was there in not very brilliant circumstances. As in the case of otherprotégés, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs. This only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.[59]Although by no means without cultivation and practice in business, Scala stood far below those who had preceded him with so much distinction in the chancellorship, since the days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the man whom he replaced. For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of manhood, did honour to the name which his family had already acquired in the field of learning, and united sound knowledge of law with unusual elegance of expression; whilehis eloquence and excellent memory rendered him peculiarly fit for the various solemnities at which addresses and replies had to be made without long preparation. His Latin history of the first Crusade, founded on French materials, and dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source whence Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and even in the great commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. Posts of honour, embassies, knighthood, riches, fell to his share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and in constant correspondence with him on civil and political affairs. In the storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small use to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo always kept the Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty villa—which afterwards passed to the Guadagni[60]—on the slope of the hill at Fiesole, and his town house (now belonging, with its beautiful gardens, to the Count della Gherardesca) still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors had written a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do the same. His work, which comes down to Charles of Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and his other writings are even more utterly forgotten than those of the obscurest among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to give no ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose relations to Florence he was obliged to touch in his history is shown by his oft-repeated request to the Ferrarese ambassador for information about the Este family, ‘because he wished to write in praise of that illustrious house.’[61]Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His letters to Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.[62]‘Thou wilt hardly venture to compete with my honours.The Florentine people have raised me first to the Priorship, then to the Gonfaloniership, and now to the rank of senator and knight, with such unanimity that many were of opinion there had never been a more popular act; besides which I have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction was never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon Poliziano did not fail to pay him back with an abusive answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo and Lorenzo was a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him he was influenced by other considerations, not by his own opinion, and had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers to correct, as the latter must have known very well. Lorenzo had prevented the former from destroying the mocking iambics on Scala,[63]saying it was a pity to sacrifice such good verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two became involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by Filelfo, Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo a quarrel broke out between the two men, who emulated each other in abasing the moral dignity of scholarship.There seems to have been another cause of strife besides literary rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter Alessandra. Like many other women of her day, she devoted herself in her youth to the study of Greek, and her teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and Johannes Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent passion for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.[64]‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking,Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with her admirer, and sent him flowers and received small presents, seems to have been very far from returning his affection. She tells him plainly that he has not found what hesought; paying him at the same time compliments on his learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him much. When the disdainful beauty gave her hand to Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a Greek established in Italy early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour forth a torrent of abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time had been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of Pier Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed with praises of the Greek, who was pronounced superior to Catullus.[65]Now just as immoderate in the opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most extravagant against the man who had become his happy rival. Under the name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, heaping upon him all the abuse that could be raked out of the poems of antiquity.[66]Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung backwards and forwardsusque ad nauseam. Poliziano’s hooked nose and crooked neck, and the supposed infidelity of both combatants are mutually held up to contempt. Well-turned though the epigrams may be, they were better absent from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the convent of San Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506.Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning while taking an active part in public affairs, Alamanno Rinuccini holds a foremost place.[67]He was descended from an old noble family, whose castle near San Donato alla Collina, on the road which leads from Florence to Arezzo, along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of its mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio and Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek andhis original Latin writings he displayed a perfect command of both tongues, and his house was a place where his friends met for learned discourse. He rose to the highest offices in the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal the chancellorship of the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various diplomatic embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo and his brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary events. Although an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, while fully admitting Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes on him a severe judgment, showing how the spirit of independence still survived among the aristocracy, and how hard it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by raising them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character of the writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed on him. It was much the same with Bernardo Rucellai, one of the most esteemed members of the Medicean circle. He controlled his ambition during the life of his brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was gone and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he took his own course. He had early distinguished himself in his classical and philosophical studies, and while scarcely more than a youth was a professor at the University of Pisa. Of his Latin historical writings, that on the war of Pisa is founded on the narratives of Gino and Neri Capponi; that on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses some intrinsic value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources of information. Both display his command of style; and his topography of ancient Rome shows how well versed he was in ancient literature.[68]The first principle of this work isa mistake, because it rests on the so-calledregionarii, that arbitrarily interpolated version of the old topographical texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors in thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered upon a new phase, not merely in political life. It was he who, after the storms which burst over Florence in 1494, received into his new house, with its large and beautiful gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic Academy, then in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these ‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the brilliant but unquiet times that followed.[69]Here, where Bernardo Rucellai brought together some of the sculptures scattered at the plundering of the Medici palaces, Niccolò Machiavelli read his book on the art of war; here in 1516 Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of ‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here in 1522 was laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici which put an end to the Academy for ever.
POLIZIANO IN THE MEDICEAN HOUSE. SCALA AND RUCELLAI.
Formany of his contemporaries Lorenzo de’ Medici was the frequent subject of verse, especially Latin verse, which the complimentary art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries preferred as the more dignified, even after Italian poetry had secured a position by considerable achievements. Many of these poetical productions have been rescued from oblivion only to sink back again, unless they contribute to the historical knowledge of the period. Their literary worth consists merely in a talent for form which was surpassed by most of the Latinists of the following century. Fortunately the court-poet of the Medici was Poliziano. Many of his epigrams are addressed to Lorenzo, and the elegance of the form as well as the warmth of feeling which breathes through all he wrote about his patron, diminishes that impression of servility which is inseparable from this kind of poetry. Praise of his discretion and foresight, of his words and deeds—wishes that he may attain the age of Nestor, as he already possesses his wisdom—thanks for favour granted, and offers of future service, are the themes of verse, as well as the merits of a swift runner, of a Spanish hound, of a tree before the Medicean house, supposed to be dead, but which had bloomed again, and of the brook of Ambra. During Giuliano’s lifetime, the concord between the two brothers was the object of praise; they were called Castor and Pollux, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Angelo wrote an agreeable love-poem of some length on the name of Giuliano. Hethoroughly belonged to the Medicean household. He was still young when Lorenzo entrusted to him the education of his son Piero; but before the latter was eight years old dissensions occurred which caused the poet-pedagogue many an hour of discomfort.
In the summer of 1478, when war and sickness made a residence in Florence undesirable, Lorenzo, as already stated, sent his wife and children to Pistoja, where they were hospitably received in the house of Andrea Panciatichi, the head of an influential family inclined to the Medici. They were accompanied by Angelo Poliziano, other masters, and a doctor. Here Piero, only seven years old, with his great-uncle Giovanni Tornabuoni received Ercole d’Este, who was going to take the command at Florence. In October they exchanged their residence at Pistoja for the villa at Fiesole, where the family circle was increased by the sons of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano. And here arose a difference between the mother and the tutor. Clarice was a good and careful mother. Giovanni, who was not yet three, had soon after his birth given occasion for anxiety, and been a great trouble to her and to his grandmother, on account of his delicate health. Concerning Giuliano, then a few months old, whose constitution always remained feeble, she wrote later to her husband: ‘I will care for him as a mother should, but I beseech you to take care of yourself for the children’s sake and mine.’ Poliziano’s mode of bringing up did not satisfy her. Not that she began with a prejudice against him; the good terms on which they had once been are proved by the letters which he addressed to her on several occasions when he was absent from Florence with Lorenzo.[48]He bestowed great care on his young pupil, of whose writing and composition he sent specimens to the father. ‘I shall not fail,’ he wrote to Lorenzo from Pistoja,September 20, ‘in attention and fidelity. I know what I owe to your Magnificence, and I feel for Piero and your other children an affection equal to that of a father. Should anything unpleasant occur, I will endeavour myself to bear it, out of love to you, to whom I owe everything.’ These words show that there was already something amiss. Four weeks previously he had written: ‘I am busy with Piero, and encourage him to write, and I think in a few days you will receive a letter which will astonish you. We have a master here who teaches writing in a fortnight, so that it seems quite a miracle. The children are particularly happy, and look quite blooming. Piero never leaves my side. I would that I could serve you in greater things; but this is my work, and I fulfil it with joy. But I beg you to ensure, either by letter or by a messenger, that my authority shall not be restricted, so that I may the more easily guide the boy and fulfil my duty. Nevertheless, act therein according to your pleasure. Whatever may happen, I will bear it with equanimity.’ And on the same day: ‘We get on as well as we can, but I cannot escape a few collisions.’ That he was dissatisfied, dull, and longing to be near Lorenzo, is clear from all his letters at this time, both to Madonna Lucrezia and to her son.
To make matters worse, came thevilleggiaturaat Caffaggiuolo, whither Clarice went in November. This was, from position and climate, a melancholy winter residence, where loneliness and bad weather seem to have put the excitable man doubly out of humour, and all the more so because Lorenzo’s old tutor, Gentile Becchi, who lived at the country house with the family, grew very unsociable in consequence of the sad circumstances of the time, which weighed heavily on the mind of this vehement accuser of the Pope. Gentile had felt the events of the spring deeply, and had been terribly cast down by the death of Giuliano. Poliziano had tried to cheer him with an ode, which has acquired historical importance from the testimony it bears to the hopesof foreign aid which were cherished by the adherents of the Medici and many of the Florentine people; hopes which were but very partially fulfilled.[49]
AD GENTILEM EPISCOPUM.
Gentilesanimi maxima pars mei,
Communi nimium sorte quid angeris?Quid curis animum lugubribus teris,
Et me discrucias simul?
Passi digna quidem perpetuo sumus
Luctu, qui mediis (heu miseri) sacrisIllum, illum juvenem vidimus, O nefas!
Stratum sacrilega manu!
At sunt attonito quæ dare pectori
Solamen valeant plurima, nam superEst, qui vel gremio creverit in tuo,
Laurens Etruriæ caput.
Laurens quem patriæ cœlicolum pater
Tutum terrifica gorgone præstitit;Quem Tuscus pariter, quem Venetus Leo
Servant, et Draco pervigil.
Illi bellipotens excubat Hercules;
Illi fatiferis militat arcubus;Illi mittit equos Francia martios,
Felix Francia regibus.
Circumstat populus murmure dissono;
Circumstant juvenem purpurei patres;Causa vincimus et robore militum;
Hac stat Juppiter, hac favet.
Quare, O cum misera quid tibi Nenia,
Si nil proficimus? quin potius gravisAbsterisse bono lætitiæ die
Audes nubila pectoris.
Nam cum jam gelidos umbra reliquerit
Artus, non dolor hanc perpetuus retroMordacesve trahunt sollicitudines,
Mentis, curaque pervicax.
Thus rendered by Roscoe:—
OFriend, whose woes this bosom shares,Why ceaseless mourn our mutual cares?Ah! why thy days to grief resign,With thy regrets recalling mine?
Eternal o’er the atrocious deed,‘Tis true our kindred hearts may bleed,When he, twin glory of our land,Fell by a sacrilegious hand!
But sure, my friend, there yet remainsSome solace for these piercing pains,Whilst he, once nurtured at thy side,Lorenzo lives, Etruria’s pride.
Lorenzo, o’er whose favoured headJove his terrific gorgon spread;Whose steps the lion-pair await,Of Florence and Venetia’s state.
For him his crest the dragon rears;For him the Herculean band appears;Her martial succour Gallia brings—Gallia, that glories in her kings!
See round the youth the purpled bandOf venerable fathers stand;Exulting crowds around him throng,And hail him as he moves along.
Strong in our cause and in our friends,Our righteous battle Jove defends;Thy useless sorrows then represt,Let joy once more dilate thy breast.
To animate the clay-cold frame,No sighs shall fan the vital flame;Nor all the tears that love can shedRecall to life the silent dead.
The poem seems to have had little or no effect, and the poet himself became infected with melancholy. ‘The news from this place,’ wrote Poliziano to Madonna Lucrezia, on November 18, ‘is that it rains violently and incessantly, so that it is impossible to leave the house, and instead of hunting we have taken to playing ball, that the children may have exercise. I sit by the fire in dressing-gown and slippers, and if you saw me you would take me for melancholy incarnate; for that is what I seem to myself. I do, see, hear nothing that cheers me, so deeply have our misfortunes affected me. Sleeping or waking, I have nothing in my head but these fancies. The day before yesterday we were all in joyful excitement, because we heard that the sickness had ceased. Now we are down again, as there is said to be some still going about. In town we have at least some comfort, if it is only that of seeing Lorenzo come home safe and well. Here, everything makes us uneasy, and I assure you I am dying of melancholy, such a burthen is loneliness to me. Monsignore (Becchi) shuts himself up in his own room, with no company but his thoughts; and I find him so cast down and full of care that his society only increases my own sadness. Ser Alberto del Malerba (a priest who was then in the Medicean household) recites the service all day long with the children. When I am tired of studying, my fancy goes off on a chase through pestilence and war—grief for the past, anxiety for the future. I have no one to turn my thoughts to him, and am dying of weariness. And here I have not my Madonna Lucrezia to whom I can vent my feelings.’
At last matters came to an open breach. On May 6, 1479, Poliziano wrote to Lorenzo from Careggi: ‘I am here at Careggi, having left Caffaggiuolo by command of Madonna Clarice. The grounds of my departure, I desire, aye I earnestly entreat, to be allowed to explain to you by word of mouth, for it is a prolix affair. I believe that, when you have heard me, you will find that the wrong is not all on myside. For decency’s sake, and in order not to go to Florence without your orders, I came here, and am waiting till your Magnificence informs me what I am to do. For I am yours, though the world itself should turn upside down; and if fortune will not smile upon me in your service, that will not prevent me from always faithfully devoting myself to that service. I commend myself to your Magnificence, and am entirely at your commands.’ What had moved Madonna Clarice to this strong measure is clear. She could have nothing to say against the scholar; but the man inspired her with very little confidence, although we cannot think that she was influenced by the evil rumours which were afterwards spread as to Poliziano’s moral conduct—rumours characteristic of a time that delighted in the most dishonouring accusations. Men of letters were so full of exaggerated self-importance, and so incapable of controlling their tongues or their pens, that Lorenzo’s wife probably had right on her side. She wanted to superintend her children’s education; the tutor would not suffer it. ‘As for Giovanni,’ wrote he to Lorenzo from Caffaggiuolo on April 6, when he enclosed a letter from Piero, ‘his mother makes him read in the Psalter, which I cannot at all approve. When she does not interfere with him his progress is surprising, so that he can read without any help.’ To give the Psalter to a child of three as a reading-book is certainly a strange proceeding. But if, as we must suppose, it was the translation made for Clarice by Marsilio Ficino, the scholar of the fifteenth century could not make the same objection which was made in the next by another scholar, who received the cardinalate—Pietro Bembo—to the reading of St. Paul’s Epistles: that they spoilt one’s style.
At this time Lorenzo was so much occupied with the crisis in public affairs that strife in his own household must have been doubly troublesome to him. He did not think of restoring to his post the pedagogue who had been turned out of doors. He offered him the villa at Fiesole, where Polizianowrote Latin verses in praise of Lorenzo, about the leisure he was himself enjoying, of the pleasant view towards the city of the Muses, and of the winding Arno,[50]but evidently put no bridle on his tongue. ‘I should like,’ wrote Madonna Clarice to her husband on May 28 from Caffaggiuolo,[51]after affectionately entreating him to take care of his health during the continued sickness, ‘not to be put into a fable like Luigi Pulci in Matteo Franco’s verses. I also wish that Messer Angelo shall not be able to boast of remaining in the house in defiance of me, or of your having offered him a home at Fiesole. You know I told you that if it was your will that he should remain here, I would be content, and although I have had to submit to his rudeness, I would bear it patiently if such were your decision, though I cannot believe it possible.’ Clarice’s remonstrances must have made some impression on Lorenzo. Although Poliziano saw him frequently, he remained excluded from the house. He repeatedly and urgently commended his cause to Madonna Lucrezia, to whom he represented his difficult position, if the hopes set on Piero came to nothing.[52]He begged her to try to fathom Lorenzo’s intentions concerning him. The tutor of Giovanni Tornabuoni’s sons, Martino della Comedia, gave lessons to Piero for a time, as did also Bernardo Michelozzi (son of the architect), who actually educated Giovanni, and was afterwards Bishop of Forlì. Poliziano’s impatience and vexation are clearly shown. ‘I shall be much surprised,’ he wrote, ‘if they let Piero lose his time, and it really would be a pity. I understand that Messer Bernardo is there, but I cannot quite see how he is to go on with my work, unless he remains permanently. In this case, indeed, it will bejust as well that the shell has burst. But I do not believe it, and therefore I beg you to find out Lorenzo’s intentions, that I may judge whether to arm myself for the tourney or the battle. I will always order myself according to Lorenzo’s wishes, for I am certain that he sees deeper into things than I, and that he will guard my honour as he always has done, and as my faithful services give me some right to expect.’
When the reconciliation took place cannot be discovered from Poliziano’s letters, which are missing for several years at this period. The verses addressed to Lorenzo on his return from Naples, show that at that time Poliziano had not returned to his house.[53]A year after, in 1481, Piero was again entrusted to his guidance; for the Latin dictation for him,[54]in which the siege of Otranto by the Duke of Calabria is mentioned, is of this year. In these subjects for translation, which sometimes treat of contemporary events, sometimes allude to this or that occurrence of daily life, we vainly seek any really healthy food for a youthful mind. Their want of connectedness and gravity gives no brilliant testimony to the highly gifted man’s powers of teaching. But Piero had other teachers besides Poliziano; among them was the theologian Giorgio Cenigno, in whose learning and conduct Lorenzo, who was often present at his lectures, had great confidence, and to whose judgment he afterwards submitted the defence of Pico della Mirandola. This is the same man who many years later took so decided a part with Reuchlin against those who accused him of heresy. Giovanni del Prato, afterwards Bishop of Aquila, and Antonio Barberini, a professor of theology at Florence, were also called in.[55]When Piero went to Rome, in 1484 and again in 1488, the first time to welcome Pope Innocent VIII., the second time to be married, Poliziano accompanied him, and he remained until his death a member of the most intimate circle of the family.He never was a priest, though he held a couple of ecclesiastical benefices.
We can well understand that the choice of a man of such uncommon intellectual gifts as a tutor, at a time when everything was expected to give way to classical culture, found many eulogists; and the words of Cristoforo Landino in his dedication of Virgil’s works to Piero de’ Medici do not stand alone. Piero was wanting neither in understanding nor the desire to learn, and the instruction he received was not wasted so far as concerns the elegant culture which was fast superseding the more practical education of older times. But the essential principle of a serious moral view of the world Angelo Poliziano could not give to his pupil, for he had it not himself. The father rejoiced in the progress of the son, promoted as it was by the liberal, scientific, artistic and social movement of which the house of Medici formed the centre. Piero, like his father, entered life early, and was thus prepared for the position he was in some degree destined to inherit. He always showed interest in scientific matters. It was at his desire that his tutor made the collection of letters above mentioned, which, however, were not printed till after Poliziano’s death and Piero’s banishment; a collection which, like many of the kind, contains much that for the writer’s honour had better have remained unprinted. But posterity has not confirmed Poliziano’s judgment on his pupil. It was the judgment of a courtier. In Piero, thus he wrote to Pico della Mirandola,[56]there lived again the spirit of his father, the virtue of his grandfather, the humanity of his great-grandfather, the honesty, piety, generosity, and high-mindedness of all his ancestors.
If Lorenzo could not keep the peace in his own house between his wife and a literary friend, still less could he keep it between the latter and another member of his confidential circle. To this belonged, like Poliziano, a man whoseliterary merits contributed nothing to the celebrity of the age, but who attained to a higher and more secure position than most of his compeers because he showed himself a manageable and useful tool. Bartolommeo Scala,[57]born about 1430 at Colle in the valley of the Elsa, has himself described his origin and the commencement of his fortunes in a letter to Poliziano, and he deserves at least some credit for avowing so openly what it is true everybody already knew. ‘Deprived of all worldly goods, poor, and born of parents of low degree, I came here, without means, without claims, without protectors, without relations. Cosimo, the father of the country, took me up, and I rose in the service of his family.’[58]His father was a miller, and the youth’s first years in Florence were passed in bitter want, as we know from the letters of Cardinal Ammanati, who was there in not very brilliant circumstances. As in the case of otherprotégés, Cosimo’s favour was continued by his heirs. This only will account for the fact that, after the death of Benedetto Accolti, Scala received the office of chancellor.[59]Although by no means without cultivation and practice in business, Scala stood far below those who had preceded him with so much distinction in the chancellorship, since the days of Coluccio Salutati to the time of the man whom he replaced. For Benedetto Accolti, who died in the prime of manhood, did honour to the name which his family had already acquired in the field of learning, and united sound knowledge of law with unusual elegance of expression; whilehis eloquence and excellent memory rendered him peculiarly fit for the various solemnities at which addresses and replies had to be made without long preparation. His Latin history of the first Crusade, founded on French materials, and dedicated to Piero de’ Medici, is valuable as the source whence Torquato Tasso drew the subject of his ‘Gerusalemme.’
Fortune continued to favour Bartolommeo Scala, and even in the great commotion of 1494 he was not overthrown. Posts of honour, embassies, knighthood, riches, fell to his share. He was Lorenzo’s confidant, and in constant correspondence with him on civil and political affairs. In the storms of 1478 and the following years he was of no small use to him, and it was chiefly through him that Lorenzo always kept the Signoria well in hand. Scala had a pretty villa—which afterwards passed to the Guadagni[60]—on the slope of the hill at Fiesole, and his town house (now belonging, with its beautiful gardens, to the Count della Gherardesca) still bears on its walls the coat of arms which he adopted in allusion to his name. As two of his predecessors had written a history of Florence, he thought it needful to do the same. His work, which comes down to Charles of Anjou, has no intrinsic value; and his other writings are even more utterly forgotten than those of the obscurest among his contemporaries. That he was most anxious to give no ground of displeasure to foreign princes on whose relations to Florence he was obliged to touch in his history is shown by his oft-repeated request to the Ferrarese ambassador for information about the Este family, ‘because he wished to write in praise of that illustrious house.’[61]
Bartolommeo Scala’s position made him boastful. His letters to Poliziano are full of the most ridiculous conceit.[62]‘Thou wilt hardly venture to compete with my honours.The Florentine people have raised me first to the Priorship, then to the Gonfaloniership, and now to the rank of senator and knight, with such unanimity that many were of opinion there had never been a more popular act; besides which I have the brilliant testimony of Lorenzo de’ Medici that distinction was never conferred on one more worthy.’ Whereupon Poliziano did not fail to pay him back with an abusive answer. His boast of praise from Cosimo and Lorenzo was a lie; the latter had often said that in advancing him he was influenced by other considerations, not by his own opinion, and had often given Poliziano Scala’s official papers to correct, as the latter must have known very well. Lorenzo had prevented the former from destroying the mocking iambics on Scala,[63]saying it was a pity to sacrifice such good verses. Lorenzo de’ Medici was dead when the two became involved in that violent strife which gave rise to accusations as passionate, coarse, and spiteful as those flung about by Filelfo, Poggio, and Valla. But in the lifetime of Lorenzo a quarrel broke out between the two men, who emulated each other in abasing the moral dignity of scholarship.
There seems to have been another cause of strife besides literary rivalry—Scala’s beautiful and accomplished daughter Alessandra. Like many other women of her day, she devoted herself in her youth to the study of Greek, and her teachers were Demetrius Chalcondylas and Johannes Lascaris. That Poliziano was inspired with a violent passion for her is shown by his Greek epigrams.[64]
‘Now at last have I found the object I long have been seeking,
Object of loving desire, present in all my dreams.’
But Alessandra, though she exchanged Greek verses with her admirer, and sent him flowers and received small presents, seems to have been very far from returning his affection. She tells him plainly that he has not found what hesought; paying him at the same time compliments on his learning and fame, which do not seem to have consoled him much. When the disdainful beauty gave her hand to Michael Marullus Tarcagnota, a Greek established in Italy early in life, jealousy made Poliziano pour forth a torrent of abuse, which provoked corresponding replies. Time had been when verses addressed by Poliziano to Lorenzo, son of Pier Francesco de’ Medici, the patron of Marullus, overflowed with praises of the Greek, who was pronounced superior to Catullus.[65]Now just as immoderate in the opposite sense, Angelo’s invectives were most extravagant against the man who had become his happy rival. Under the name of Mabilius, he satirised his person and writings, heaping upon him all the abuse that could be raked out of the poems of antiquity.[66]
Personalities of every kind, moral and physical, are flung backwards and forwardsusque ad nauseam. Poliziano’s hooked nose and crooked neck, and the supposed infidelity of both combatants are mutually held up to contempt. Well-turned though the epigrams may be, they were better absent from the works of a great poet. Alessandra, the innocent cause of strife, having become a widow, withdrew to the convent of San Pier Maggiore, and died there in 1506.
Among those who rivalled the professed men of learning while taking an active part in public affairs, Alamanno Rinuccini holds a foremost place.[67]He was descended from an old noble family, whose castle near San Donato alla Collina, on the road which leads from Florence to Arezzo, along the left bank of the Arno, still keeps much of its mediæval character. Born in 1419, he was a pupil of Poggio and Argyropulos; in his translations from the Greek andhis original Latin writings he displayed a perfect command of both tongues, and his house was a place where his friends met for learned discourse. He rose to the highest offices in the city, and fulfilled with equal zeal the chancellorship of the Universities of Florence and Pisa, various diplomatic embassies, and a post in the war department conferred on him in 1495, three years before his death. Like his father Filippo and his brother Neri, he left valuable notes on contemporary events. Although an old partisan of the Medici, he nevertheless, while fully admitting Lorenzo’s intellectual gifts, passes on him a severe judgment, showing how the spirit of independence still survived among the aristocracy, and how hard it was for the Medici to secure their support, even by raising them to office. At the same time the virulent attacks on Lorenzo’s government throw a strange light on the character of the writer, who never failed to profit by the favours bestowed on him. It was much the same with Bernardo Rucellai, one of the most esteemed members of the Medicean circle. He controlled his ambition during the life of his brother-in-law Lorenzo; but when that firm hand was gone and personal considerations no longer restrained him, he took his own course. He had early distinguished himself in his classical and philosophical studies, and while scarcely more than a youth was a professor at the University of Pisa. Of his Latin historical writings, that on the war of Pisa is founded on the narratives of Gino and Neri Capponi; that on the wars of Charles VIII. of France possesses some intrinsic value as the narrative and judgment of a contemporary whose high position opened to him trustworthy sources of information. Both display his command of style; and his topography of ancient Rome shows how well versed he was in ancient literature.[68]The first principle of this work isa mistake, because it rests on the so-calledregionarii, that arbitrarily interpolated version of the old topographical texts; but Rucellai surpassed all his predecessors in thoroughness of learning. At Lorenzo’s death he entered upon a new phase, not merely in political life. It was he who, after the storms which burst over Florence in 1494, received into his new house, with its large and beautiful gardens in the Via della Scala, the Platonic Academy, then in danger of sharing the ruin of the Medici. In these ‘Orti Oricellari’ the Academy was kept alive through the brilliant but unquiet times that followed.[69]Here, where Bernardo Rucellai brought together some of the sculptures scattered at the plundering of the Medici palaces, Niccolò Machiavelli read his book on the art of war; here in 1516 Leo X. was present at a representation of the tragedy of ‘Rosmonda,’ written by Bernardo’s son Giovanni; and here in 1522 was laid the plot against Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici which put an end to the Academy for ever.