Magnifico (48 page)

Sixtus had finally had enough. Calling the Venetian alliance stupid and ill-conceived, Sixtus turned to Girolamo’s cousin Giuliano della Rovere to clean up the mess. No less ambitious than Girolamo, Giuliano’s approach to politics could not have been more different. While Riario lurched this way and that in pursuit of every short-term advantage, della Rovere believed that he and his family could prosper only by promoting the long-term interests of the Church. Despite Riario’s threat to drive his cousin from the city and set fire to his house, in December, della Rovere persuaded Sixtus to open negotiations in the northern city of Cremona with the aim of bringing the war to a speedy conclusion.

For Lorenzo this sudden about-face was a vindication of the resolute stance he had taken. He was determined to go himself to Cremona to make sure that Florentine interests were not neglected, even over the objections of those in the
reggimento
who reminded him “your presence is very necessary here.” This new proof of the fecklessness of his colleagues only confirmed Lorenzo’s belief that he could leave such an important mission to no one else.

It was at Cremona that Lorenzo cemented his reputation as a diplomat of unparalleled skill, one who combined an understanding of complex issues with an ability to persuade others of the rightness of his approach. “Various were the opinions, diverse the remedies,” wrote Valori, “and the debates were long and ill-tempered. But finally Lorenzo, with great wisdom, laid out the state of affairs in Italy, and spoke with such eloquence and with such seriousness of purpose that all came to share his point of view.” Lorenzo was always most effective in face-to-face meetings, where he could deploy his immense learning and considerable charm and where the force of his personality could disguise what was often a weak position. Lacking a significant standing army of its own, Florence could maintain its status as one of the great powers only through a delicate balance of opposing forces and interests, and in the Italian context, with its patchwork of large and small states held together by a common culture but tattered by ancient rivalries, this balance required constant attention.

In this gathering of powerful and titled men, and with the memory of the disastrous Pazzi war still fresh in his mind, Lorenzo first articulated the principles that were to govern his foreign policy for the rest of his life, principles that earned Florence, in Guicciardini’s phrase, the title the “fulcrum” of Italy. Over the course of the next decade Lorenzo came to embody the principle of a balance of power, the calm center in a world that threatened at any moment to fall into chaos. The fullest explanation of his policy comes in the opening of Guicciardini’s
History of Italy,
in which the historian paints a portrait of his native land in the last decades of Lorenzo’s life as a realm of peace and prosperity. It is true that Guicciardini imparts to these years, the years of his own childhood, a certain rosy glow not entirely justified by the facts, but this is understandable given the horrors of the intervening period in which foreign armies used the peninsula to settle their dynastic rivalries. “Italy was preserved in this happy state,” he writes

In pursuing this course Lorenzo was greatly aided by the recent governmental reforms. The establishment of the Eight gave the government, for the first time in its history, a permanent body dedicated to the conduct of foreign policy. The council’s small size allowed it to deal with delicate matters in secret and Lorenzo’s presence gave it enormous clout. It was in concert with the Eight that Lorenzo now began to organize a semiprofessional cadre of diplomats at all the major courts of Europe, a development that made him, perhaps, the best informed of European leaders.

But even with this streamlined organization there was no substitute for Lorenzo’s personal involvement in almost every important foreign policy decision. The relationships Lorenzo had built up over time with various world leaders meant that Florentine interests were taken into account even when her military forces were negligible. These relationships, which he had begun to nurture even before his first trip to Milan in 1465 as he played host to visiting dignitaries in the Via Larga or at the villa of Careggi, in turn depended on maintaining a reputation for integrity and good judgment. It is telling that when the king of France wished to test the possibility of marriage between his heir and a daughter of King Ferrante, he went first to Lorenzo. On another occasion, King Louis, hoping to obtain an ecclesiastical appointment for one of his favorites, recruited Lorenzo to plead his case. Lorenzo duly passed along the request to his ambassador in Rome, adding, “not only do I want your prompt assistance in this, but I wish it known that it was through my help that it was accomplished, since it will greatly enhance my reputation and my honor.”

Lorenzo cultivated his image assiduously. “I believe I have the reputation of being a man of integrity and good faith,” he wrote to his friend Baccio Ugolini, “and I can be believed…as much as anyone in the world, both for sincerity and for being without passion.” Here Lorenzo was not simply boasting (though it is clear he had a high opinion of his own abilities) but reminding his agent to protect his image, which was one of the few effective weapons Florence had in her arsenal.

Throughout the remaining years of his life, Lorenzo’s fame as a mediator continued to grow, but it is at Cremona that he began to stake a claim to being the foremost statesman of the age. Luca Landucci noted with evident satisfaction how at Cremona, Lorenzo was “honorably received as a man of merit,” no trivial matter in the eyes of Florentines, who were always conscious of their lowly bourgeois status in settings where dukes, cardinals, and marquises were wont to lord it over their social inferiors. But in spite of the glowing reviews for Lorenzo’s performance, he did not achieve everything he had hoped for. The assembled dignitaries were impressed by Lorenzo, but his attempts to restore some of the territory lost in the Pazzi war came to nothing. It was also clear that the negotiations could not bring about an immediate cessation of hostilities, since the Venetians, who felt they were near to achieving military success, refused to cooperate. Still, the main objective of driving a wedge between the pope and the Most Serene Republic was easily accomplished. In this case it was not so much Lorenzo’s eloquence that did the trick as fear of growing Venetian power. It was a general rule of Italian politics that when one state seemed poised to dominate the peninsula, the rest forgot their own quarrels to gang up on the pretender. This is what happened at Cremona. Sixtus, showing once again he was not a man for half measures, excommunicated the Venetians when they persisted in their attack on Ferrara and then urged his new friends, Milan, Florence, and Naples, to join him in a Holy League to punish those who had demonstrated their wickedness by ignoring him.

Even with the pope’s defection the war dragged on in desultory fashion until the Peace of Bagnolo finally brought an end to the fighting in August of 1484. Though this time Florence had not suffered the worst of the destruction, the news was received in the City of the Baptist with gratitude, because as Landucci lamented, “Many were afflicted and worn out by so many wars.” After two years of fighting the situation was pretty much as it had been before, causing many to vent their anger at those who had wasted so much blood and treasure to achieve so little. One of those most responsible for the war was now the least satisfied with the results of peace. Upon hearing the terms agreed to at Bagnolo, Sixtus complained bitterly, “Up to this time we have carried on a dangerous and difficult war, in order, by our victorious arms, to obtain an honorable Peace for the security of the Apostolic See, our own honor, and that of the League…. This peace, my beloved sons in Christ, I can neither approve nor sanction.” Fortunately for the rest of Italy, by now Sixtus’s disapproval was beside the point. These belligerent words, which at other times might have condemned Italy to further years of war, were uttered as the pope lay on his deathbed. Still raging at the perfidy of both friend and foe, the man who had sat on St. Peter’s throne for thirteen unlucky years breathed his last on the morning of August 13, 1484. According to a popular couplet it was peace itself that killed Sixtus: “Nothing could daunt the ferocious Sixtus; but as soon as he heard the word of peace, he died.”

For Lorenzo the death of Sixtus closed a particularly unhappy chapter in his life during which he had suffered severe financial reverses, years of war and tribulation, and, most painfully, the loss of his beloved brother Giuliano.
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But he was not the only one who felt relief at the pope’s passing. There were many throughout the length and breadth of the Italian peninsula who shared the feelings of the anonymous poet who rejoiced,

The crowning of a new pope on September 12, 1484—the Genoa-born Giovanni Battista Cibo, who took the name Innocent VIII—did not resolve the outstanding problems between Florence and Holy See. Florence and Rome remained natural rivals in the struggle to dominate central Italy, and Lorenzo could not single-handedly change the underlying dynamic.
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Fortunately for Lorenzo, the fifty-two-year-old Giovanni Battista Cibo was a man of vastly different temperament than his predecessor. When Francesco della Rovere had been elected in 1471, reformers rejoiced that a man of unimpeachable character had ascended the throne of St. Peter. But after more than a decade of turmoil the cardinals may perhaps have felt that they would be better served by someone whose human frailties were more apparent. Innocent, though touchy on matters of papal prerogative, proved far more easygoing than Sixtus—a man more in the mold of Paul II, who cared too much for his own comfort to pursue megalomaniacal schemes of conquest. True, Innocent’s moral weaknesses were an embarrassment to a church in need of moral regeneration, but he was a basically kindly man and his vices were garden-variety sins of a kind that threatened his own immortal soul more than the peace of Italy. Worldly, sensual, and corrupt, he had fathered so many illegitimate children that one satirist jested,

In other words this was the kind of man with whom Lorenzo might well be able to do business, given a chance. The Medici had shown themselves adept at turning Paul’s passion for jewels and antiquities to their advantage and Innocent appeared equally susceptible to the kinds of enticements the Medici could dangle. Much as he would have liked to take the measure of the man himself, however, Lorenzo was too ill to make the journey to Rome, sending in his stead the thirteen-year-old Piero. This was the first important diplomatic mission for Lorenzo’s eldest son and heir, a crucial test for a boy who was already showing signs of the arrogant, self-indulgent man he was soon to become.

Lorenzo’s intense desire to restore himself in the good graces of the pope is evident in instructions contained in a letter he sent to his son in Rome. “[Y]ou will inform His Holiness that I am firmly resolved not to transgress his commands,” he wrote to Piero, “because besides my natural devotion to the Holy See, my devotion to His Beatitude himself arises from many causes and from obligations which ever since I was a child our house has received from him. Add that I have experienced how hurtful it has been to be out of favor with the late Pontiff although, as it seems to me, I was unjustly persecuted rather for others’ sins than for any insult or offense to him of holy memory.” Though Lorenzo’s friendly words did not immediately thaw the pope’s heart, it was the beginning of a campaign that would ultimately bear fruit.

Knowing his son’s character, Lorenzo also felt it necessary to remind him, in words reminiscent of his own father’s injunctions: “Be careful not to take precedence of those who are your elders, for although you are my son, you are but a citizen of Florence, as they are.” It should have come as no surprise that Piero was spoiled. To many Florentines his flaws were carried in his mother’s blood. “What could one hope for from Piero?” asked Guicciardini rhetorically. “Not only did he not have the greatest prudence, as you know; he was also not of that good nature and sweetness [common to] his father and grandfather, and ordinary in our nation. Nor is this any wonder, for being born of a foreign mother, the Florentine blood in him was bastardized. His external comportment was degenerate, and [he was] too insolent and haughty for our way of life.” It did not help that he was a remarkably handsome youth, vain and anxious, as his father had been at his age, to cut a fine figure as he paraded about the streets of Florence. “Lorenzo declares (and it makes me laugh) that he will not have Piero bothered,” wrote Lorenzo’s intimate Matteo Franco, “the poor lad cannot go outside the door without all Florence running after him.” Such constant adulation would have gone to the head of a more sober boy, and there was no indication that Piero had the moral fiber to resist even lesser temptations.