Magnifico (26 page)

Sforza must have been deeply disappointed that the man for whom he had done so much now proved himself unable or unwilling to fight for his interests. The
Pratica
of May 5 was a grave embarrassment for Lorenzo, who had been outflanked by an old hand at the political game. It also proved to be his wake-up call. When Sacramoro relayed the duke’s displeasure at the course Florence was taking, Lorenzo and Luigi Guicciardini became “upset and desperate, feeling that they have been reduced to an extremity, as they see their reputation has been placed in serious danger.”

The first sign that Lorenzo had found his stride came late in May of 1470. Ferrante, hoping to prod Florence into committing to the Neapolitan side, demanded that she openly declare her intentions without consulting her northern ally. Not wishing to offend Ferrante, still one of the pillars of the triple alliance, but now certain that he must defend the duke’s interests at any cost, Lorenzo deftly played for time. Without dismissing the king’s offer, he convinced the government of Florence that it should accept no deal from Naples until
after
it had heard from the duke. This was a critical step since the king and his Florentine supporters—among whom Soderini was now a leading exponent—hoped they could commit Florence to the Neapolitan side before Milan could respond, thus placing Sforza in the difficult position of reentering the alliance on their terms or risk being left out altogether.

The delay was a tactical victory for Lorenzo and the duke, one that halted the momentum that had been building in favor of Naples. The critical showdown came the following month. By this time Soderini had publicly committed himself to the king. Indeed rumors were rife that his newfound allegiance to Ferrante had been helped along by generous donations to Soderini’s bank account.

But Sacramoro had been busy as well, urging his usually tight-fisted boss to match the king bribe for bribe. If ducats in the pockets of his partisans was the carrot, the Milanese ambassador also wielded a heavy stick, threatening that the duke would withdraw his ambassador should Florence cut a separate deal with Naples. In this charged atmosphere another
Pratica
was called for June 27. Lorenzo now showed that he had learned a thing or two since the council held the previous month. This time Lorenzo made sure that the meeting was dominated by
his
men, who now succeeded in shouting down their rivals. The demonstration of vigor and purpose by the newly minted Medici patriarch was enough to convince many fence-sitters to leap into the fray on Lorenzo’s side. By the end of the tempestuous meeting Soderini and his followers, seeing that the winds had suddenly shifted, reluctantly agreed to instruct Otto Niccolini not to conclude a separate treaty with Naples. The pro-Naples faction was dealt another blow when it was discovered that Venice had rejected King Ferrante’s terms for an alliance, paving the way for an eventual restoration of the league on its original terms. Lorenzo could thus plausibly declare that through delay he had salvaged the triple alliance and secured the peace of Italy. In Sacramoro’s account, Soderini and the pro-Naples faction were “white” with shock over the sudden turn of events.

On the twelfth of July Lorenzo reported the happy news that Naples had agreed to rejoin the league. So overjoyed were Florentines at the restoration of the old league, Lorenzo reported to his ambassador in Milan, that church bells pealed throughout the city and at night the streets were illuminated by dozens of bonfires. Much of the credit went to Lorenzo himself, who now emerged from the shadow of the men who had raised him to power. Soderini, by contrast, had been knocked down a peg or two. He had faltered because he forgot the lesson he seemed to have absorbed in December—that is, how difficult it was to go toe-to-toe against a Medici, even one as inexperienced as Lorenzo, because however much the ruling family was resented, most of the
principali
preferred to take their business to the Via Larga rather than to try their luck on someone else’s doorstep. Now properly chastened, Soderini returned to the fold. Throughout the remainder of his political career he would serve as a diligent, if by no means uncritical, servant of the Medici regime.

Lorenzo’s triumph was marked by a visit in March 1471 by the duke and duchess of Milan, accompanied by 1,500 mounts and four hundred footmen, “all lords and worthy persons and…all in courtly style, with pomp and without arms.” The official reason given for the trip was to visit the church of Santissima Annunziata, whose miracle-working image of the Virgin was the destination of many a pilgrim, but it was also a public affirmation of the ties of friendship binding the two cities and the two leaders. As on his earlier trip to Florence, Galeazzo Maria Sforza was put up in Lorenzo’s palace on the Via Larga. Florentines were both fascinated and scandalized by the splendor of the Milanese: there were men to tend the hawks, others to keep the hounds, liveried grooms and liveried servants, trumpeters and fife players, along with assorted courtiers, cooks, jesters, and bodyguards—not to mention a separate suite to attend to the needs of the duchess. It was said that the cost of furnishing them all with mounts and wardrobes of silk and gold amounted to no less than 200,000 florins. For Lorenzo the visit provided both an opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of his princely friend and to demonstrate, by way of contrast, the relative sobriety of his own lifestyle.

In the end, the carefully orchestrated visit was less than a resounding success. Many Florentines resented the burden of putting up such a vast and hungry horde and were offended by their self-indulgent guests, who would not even forgo eating meat during Lent. It was as punishment for such impiety that, according to popular opinion, the church of Santo Spirito caught fire during a spectacle staged in honor of the duke. While Sforza offered to pay for repairs, for many Florentines, including no doubt Lorenzo himself, the visit could not end soon enough.

Though Lorenzo had won a decisive victory over his domestic rivals, the divisions and political infighting that marked his first months as leader illustrated the inadequacy of the ad hoc electoral controls that served as the basis of Medici power. The council of One Hundred
(il Cento)
—a body created in 1458 that had co-opted much of the authority of the older, more democratic councils of the people and of the commune—had become a club of powerful and ambitious men who were as likely to oppose as to support the head of the Medici household. Most of the opposition to Lorenzo came, in fact, from those who served on this elite council, just as it was members of the inner circle who almost succeeded in overthrowing Piero’s regime in 1466. According to Francesco Guicciardini, whose grandfather and great-uncle were both frequent members, it was not uncommon for the One Hundred to reject a slate of candidates proposed by Lorenzo and his friends.

How could Lorenzo guarantee that the vast majority of the
reggimento
would consist of Medici loyalists?—something that neither he nor his predecessors had been able to achieve with any consistency. The
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia
himself, Carlo Pandolfini, had been among those who conspired with Tommaso in the
Pratica
of March to ensure that Lorenzo and his partisans were shut out. The key was the committee of the
Accoppiatori
, usually five in number, whose job it was to screen the names that were to fill the various electoral bags used when selecting men for the
Tre Maggiori,
that is, the three highest offices of the land (the
Signoria
, which included at its head the
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia,
the
Dodici Buonuomini,
and the
Sedici Gonfalonieri
).
*
“If I understand matters correctly,” wrote the somewhat befuddled ambassador from Milan, “whether or not Lorenzo will preserve his ascendancy depends on the reforms of the
Accoppiatori.
” The
Accoppiatori
effectively managed the electoral process but the system was only as reliable as the men who comprised it.

Over the next months Lorenzo employed all his diplomatic skills and powers of persuasion, as well as the usual arm-twisting and bribery, to reform the
Accoppiatori
. His opportunity finally came when, with his staunch ally Agnolo della Stufa occupying the
Gonfaloniere
’s seat, he rammed through a bill that went a long way toward removing the One Hundred from the electoral process. Prospects for victory were greatly enhanced when the
Signoria
, following della Stufa’s lead, declared that the reforms need only be passed by a bare majority in the One Hundred, rather than the usual two-thirds. Even so, the new legislation was approved by a margin of only two votes.

In the new system the
Accoppiatori
were to be selected each year by the outgoing members and the current
Signoria
. Since the
Accoppiatori
were in turn responsible for electing the
Signoria
, the whole electoral system became a kind of closed loop from which the majority of Florentine citizens was effectively excluded. As the Milanese ambassador commented, “In this way the
Signoria
will always be that which [Lorenzo] wishes.”

Having achieved a greater degree of control over the electoral process than either Cosimo or Piero, Lorenzo used the momentum to push through other initiatives. The close vote within the One Hundred over the reform of the
Accoppiatori
revealed the extent of opposition to his rule. In July 1471, with a friendly
Signoria
again seated, he called a special council (a
Balìa
) to enact a series of new measures to “arrange and correct many things in the city, where are born continuously many harmful sentiments.”
*

The oligarchic nature of the One Hundred was diluted by opening up membership to those from outside the ruling clique, a liberalization that allowed Lorenzo to bring in favorites who were personally dependent on his favor.
†
But the most important reform to emerge from the
Balìa
of 1471 was the creation of a permanent steering committee within the council of the One Hundred. The newly minted council of the Forty, as it was called—a permanent core within the One Hundred, largely made up of Lorenzo’s closest friends and supporters and given the critical responsibility of co-opting the others—became the most effective instrument for imposing his will on the direction and composition of the government.

After little more than a year and a half in power Lorenzo had succeeded where both Cosimo and Piero had failed, providing the Medici regime an efficient and streamlined structure without destroying the republican framework that Florentines cherished. By December of 1471, Sacramoro could write, not without some concern, that “things have come to such a pass in this city that nothing is decided without Lorenzo’s approval, and it is thought that no one else is worth a zero.”

To what extent, then, had the republic under Lorenzo become a despotism in all but name? While old-line republicans like Marco Parenti and Alamanno Rinuccini—not to mention the exiles of 1466—certainly felt that the ancient institutions had become so corrupted as to reduce Florentines to the status of slaves, Lorenzo and his partisans regarded the changes as necessary modifications to a constitution that was woefully deficient. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. After 1471 the government was in the hands of a narrow directorate that Lorenzo had fashioned into an efficient instrument of his will. But because the outward forms of a republic endured and the ancient councils continued to meet and to debate, much of the lively civic atmosphere of earlier decades was preserved. Indeed, criticism of Lorenzo and his methods was common enough to dispel any notion that Florentines had grown too fearful to speak their minds. Lorenzo also continued to live the life of a private citizen, conducting business from his home and mingling with the people in the streets and squares of the city. All of this fostered a climate that was far different from the absolutist states elsewhere in Italy and beyond. It should be remembered as well that what people like Parenti and Rinuccini were advocating as an alternative to Lorenzo’s despotism was not anything we would now recognize as democracy. The genius of Lorenzo’s system, inherited from his forebears and refined over time, was to balance oligarchical elements with democratic forms, to pay homage to time-honored customs while pruning their worst excesses. There is no doubt that, as many of his contemporaries recognized and some bitterly decried, the vast majority of citizens no longer had a say in the daily operations of their own government. But it is also difficult to imagine, given the limitations of bureaucratic structures and the rudimentary understanding of political philosophy at the time, that a better alternative could have been found. It is striking that when Florentines finally rose up against Medici “tyranny” and attempted to institute a more democratic system, they quickly reverted to form and placed in the hands of a single man powers Lorenzo never sought.