Magnifico (19 page)

It was during his teenage years that he began to write poetry. Lorenzo spent many of his happiest hours among artists and poets, and under the influence of Luigi Pulci he now tried his hand composing his own verses, a pursuit that cleared his head as effectively as the country air and provided an outlet for his creative energies. His admiration for Pulci’s talents did not prevent Lorenzo from poking fun at his absentminded ways in his own verses. These lines from his “Partridge Hunt” evoke pleasant days spent hunting in the woods where poetic inspiration was pursued as vigorously as bird or beast:

Breaking with tradition, Lorenzo wrote in his native Tuscan dialect, rather than the more elevated Latin, “to prove the dignity of our language” by demonstrating that it can “easily express any concept of our minds.”
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His preferred idiom was the sonnet, a form perfected more than a century earlier by his illustrious compatriot Petrarch, because, Lorenzo explained, “honor, according to the philosophers, is attached to that which is difficult.” There was nothing he liked better than a challenge, and the rigid structure of the sonnet constituted a formidable literary bastion whose conquest could only impart added luster to he who conquered it.

Once he began to write in earnest, poetry was not simply a pastime to fill up the dull hours but an integral part of Lorenzo’s self-conception and self-presentation. Sometime around 1467 or 1468, he sent to don Federigo—the younger son of King Ferrante, whom he’d befriended during the wedding of Ippolita Sforza to his older brother Alfonso—a compilation of poems by famous Tuscans, along with a spirited defense of the vernacular in which they were written. “At the end of the volume (as seemed to be your request),” wrote Lorenzo to the prince, “we have copied a few of our own sonnets and songs, so that when reading them you can remember my loyalty and affection…. Receive, therefore, Illustrious Lord, this volume and myself, not only in your house, but in your heart and soul, as you have a blithe and enduring abode in ours.”

Poetry was a calling card Lorenzo could use to gain entry to the great courts of Europe. Throughout his life he deployed the cultural assets of Florenceas kings and princes deployed their armies, marshaling a glittering array of talent to impress outsiders with the glory and majesty of the republic. For the Medici, as for other Florentine patricians, art and literature were the great equalizers in the competition for honor and prestige. A mere banker’s son he may have been, but his literary flair, his erudition, and his cultivation were the factors that, along with his fabled wealth, allowed him to treat with kings and princes on a level playing field. It is difficult to imagine the Neapolitan prince writing in a similar vein; while Lorenzo strove by every means to show himself worthy of a place among the great don Federigo, secure in his titles, was encouraged in a life of intellectual laziness.

This letter reflects the two most significant elements of Lorenzo’s contribution to the culture of the Florentine Renaissance—his role as patron and as a creative figure in his own right. Lorenzo’s closeness to and active collaboration with some of the most creative spirits of the age—artists like Botticelli, Verrocchio, Leonardo, and Michelangelo and writers like Luigi Pulci, Angelo Poliziano, and Pico della Mirandola, who regarded him as a colleague as well as a patron—gave to the Lorenzan age its aura of a golden moment for the arts, and his role as arbiter of taste on all matters artistic increased with each passing year. His influence grew to the point where no major artistic project went forward in Tuscany without at least his tacit approval. When the city of Pistoia commissioned an important tomb for its cathedral in 1477, the city fathers sent the competing models to Lorenzo for adjudication “because you have a quite complete understanding of such things, and of everything else.” Angelo Poliziano, who had experienced Lorenzo’s generosity firsthand, penned numerous tributes to his friend and patron:

In assuming the role of artistic arbiter, Lorenzo was following in the footsteps of Piero and Cosimo (though his fame as a man of sound aesthetic judgment ultimately exceeded theirs). But by plunging into the literary fray, and staking his reputation on his talent, Lorenzo was departing from the time-tested path of the Florentine patrician whose dignity permitted him to pay for creativity in others but not to have more intimate intercourse with the muses. The explanation for this transformation from patron to artist is complex, involving factors that were both personal and political. In writing poetry, Lorenzo not only gave vent to his most private thoughts but also constructed his public persona; however much his poetry seems to offer an intimate autobiography of a private man, it was also an important factor in shaping his public image.

In its apparently confessional tone, Lorenzo’s poetry marks a profound shift from the more reticent generation of his father. In fact Lorenzo may well have been motivated in part by a fear of repeating his father’s mistakes; if Piero was cold and aloof, Lorenzo would be warmly human and accessible. His verses collapsed the psychological distance between the ruler and the ruled, giving the Florentine people the sense, real or illusory, that they knew the man who held their fate in his hands.
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His sonnets include numerous admissions of weakness and personal torment almost without precedent for a public figure:

Such apparently heartfelt verses softened the harsh edges of his rule, helping to perpetuate the myth that he was merely a private citizen rather than the de facto tyrant of the city.

Lorenzo was defensive about his literary endeavors. He tried to forestall criticism that writing poetry about affairs of the heart was a trivial occupation for someone engaged in affairs of state: “I could easily be thought to possess poor judgment, having consumed so much time in composing verses and commenting upon them, the material and subject of which are in large part an amorous passion; and this being much more reprehensible given the constant affairs, both public and private, which ought rather to turn me away from such thoughts, thoughts that, according to some, are not only frivolous and of little weight, but are even pernicious and as prejudicial to our souls as to our worldly honor.”

Indeed it would be a mistake to view Lorenzo’s poetry—or his artistic patronage, for that matter—simply as an extension of his statecraft, wholly calculated and cynical in its motives. Writing seemed to fill for Lorenzo a deep psychological need and it is certainly more than mere coincidence that his initial plunge into poetry corresponded with a time of political turmoil. “[H]aving in my youth been much persecuted by men and by fortune,” he wrote, “some little comfort ought not to be denied me, and this I have found only in loving fervently and in composing and commenting upon my verses.”
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Creative work was a response to stress; he found emotional release from the pressure of his position through his amorous pursuits, while love, in turn, repaid him by providing the material he needed for his poetry.

The self-pitying tone of the passage reveals another aspect of both the man and the artist—his tendency to succumb to melancholy. “He seemed to be two men, not one,” wrote one of his servants during a particularly difficult moment of his life. “During the day he appeared perfectly easy, restful, cheerful, and confident. But at night he grieved bitterly about his own ill fortune and that of Florence.” This observation from one who knew him well finds an eerie echo in Machiavelli’s famous judgment that “one might see in him two different persons, joined in an almost impossible conjunction.” Of course Machiavelli was referring not to his moods but to the mix of high-minded purpose and irresponsibility he exhibited throughout his life, but the two are closely related. His tendency to engage in “childish games” and to take delight in “facetious and pungent men” was a form of self-medication, a means of fending off the darker demons of his soul through a frenetic plunge into wine, women, and song. Francesco Guicciardini, writing in the decades following his death when tales of his exploits were still fresh in people’s minds, concluded: “He was libidinous, amorous and faithful in his loves, which would last for a number of years. In the opinion of many he was so weakened by his amorous excesses that he died relatively young.”

Making love and writing poetry both helped to alleviate his natural moodiness. Often these two passions were combined in bawdy verses that more prudish generations tried to expunge from the record. Typical of this genre is his “Song of the Village Lasses,” an extended double entrendre in which a chorus of neglected wives have found substitutes for their absent husbands in their own gardens:

It is hard to think of anything less becoming to a traditional head of state than such sophomoric jests, but with Lorenzo the political is never far removed from the personal, and even the most apparently trivial verses could be exploited for propogandistic effect. Like most of Lorenzo’s earthier productions, these lines were meant to be sung in Carnival celebrations. Belted out by raucous celebrants parading through the streets of the city, they formed yet another link between the leader and his people, most of whom no doubt preferred this rude humor to his more philosophical digressions.

If Lorenzo seemed like a young man intent on getting as much out of life as possible, his irresponsible behavior could be excused—or so he told himself—by the knowledge that he would soon enough be forced to shoulder the burdens of adulthood. The hedonism of his poetry is always given a desperate edge by the sense of life’s fleeting passage:

If old age quickly consumed the young maid’s carefree life, how much sooner would adult responsibilities descend upon the Medici heir? Later in life Lorenzo felt he had been robbed of part of his childhood and looked back on these years with nostalgia and regret.

The most obvious sign that he would soon be forced to put aside childish things were the plans now underway to find him a suitable bride. Florentine men tended not to marry before the age of about thirty, but Piero’s ill health made it urgent that Lorenzo be wed as soon as possible. It was a matter upon which Piero and Lucrezia had already devoted much deep thought. There was so much riding on the outcome, not only for the Medici themselves but for all their peers, that it became a matter for much public speculation. Popular gossip linked Lorenzo to the beautiful Lucrezia Donati, but among her other deficits as a potential mate was the inconvenient fact that she was already married to Niccolò Ardinghelli.

In fact whatever hopes those Florentine families with eligible daughters may have cherished, Piero and Lucrezia were already looking in another direction for Lorenzo’s bride. With the family preeminent in its native land following the crisis of 1466, Florencebegan to seem too small a pond in which to fish. Rome offered richer prizes. Here in the capital of Christendom the Medici had vital business interests, and in forging an alliance with one of Rome’s powerful feudal clans they would go a long way to securing permanent access to that lucrative market.

In seeking a foreign bride for his son, Piero was breaking with Florentine custom and with the methods that had brought his family to prominence. Cosimo and Piero, as well as their brothers, had all married into distinguished Florentine families—Cosimo into the ancient Bardi clan, Piero into the equally distinguished Tornabuoni (formerly the Tornaquinci).
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These alliances promoted collegial feeling among the
principali
; it was gratifying to their fellow citizens to see that for all their wealth and international renown the Medici continued to view themselves merely as members of the Florentine ruling class. Piero had conformed to those time-honored customs in seeking husbands for his daughters: the illegitimate Maria was given to the Rossi; Bianca to the Pazzi; and Nannina, just a year earlier, to the Rucellai. But with no serious internal rivals, Piero concluded that he could no longer advance his family’s fortunes by wedding his son to a daughter of Florence.