Magnifico (52 page)
Authors: Miles J. Unger
Rinuccini’s dialogue is not too far in spirit from Lorenzo’s own writing, which makes no secret of his disdain for the corruption of city life and sings the paeans to the simple virtues of the countryside:
Lured on, escorted by the sweetest thoughts
I fled the bitter storms of civic life
to lead my soul back to a calmer port….
To free my feeble nature from the load
that wearies it and stops its flight, I left
the pretty circle of my native walls.
And having reached a pleasant, shady glen
within the shadow of that mountain which
in its old age preserves the name,
there, where a verdant laurel cast some shade
below that lovely peak, I found a seat,
my heart untrammeled by a single care.
Lorenzo’s disillusionment with politics was as profound as Rinuccini’s. A speech he places in the mouth of the Emperor Constantine in
The Martyrdom of Saints John and Paul
includes a line that may well have been his own
cri de coeur:
“To rule is wearisome, a bitter feat.” Though Rinuccini and Lorenzo disagreed about the cause of the political decline, given their disillusionment with civic life it was only natural for both to turn from an unsatisfactory world of politics toward the consolations of metaphysics. A philosophy that left the storms of daily life far behind and fled to realms eternal best expressed the mood of the times.
For Lorenzo the company of artists and writers had always been one of the antidotes to the poisonous atmosphere of Florentine politics. If no less mercenary than those seeking political office, artists and writers were usually more entertaining. Among the companions of his later years was the sculptor Giovanni di Bertoldo. Lorenzo valued Bertoldo not only for his talent as a bronze caster but for his sarcastic wit.
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Bertoldo was constantly at Lorenzo’s house and accompanied him on his travels. Bertoldo’s death in 1491 came while he was staying at Lorenzo’s villa at Poggio a Caiano, much to the grief of his master, who was said to have mourned his passing as if he had been a member of his own family.
Bertoldo was considerably older than Lorenzo (he was born c. 1430), but as Lorenzo himself grew into middle age he more often took on the role of a father figure to a younger generation of brilliant men, reinvigorated by their energy and their wit. Among the young geniuses who came into Lorenzo’s life during these latter years was the teenage Michelangelo. Condivi relates a charming story of their first encounter in the garden at San Marco, which the biographer heard from the mouth of the artist himself:
One day, [Michelangelo] was examining among these works the
Head of a Faun,
already old in appearance, with a long beard and laughing countenance, though the mouth, on account of its antiquity, could hardly be distinguished or recognized for what it was; and, as he liked it inordinately, he decided to copy it in marble…. He set about copying the
Faun
with such care and study that in a few days he had perfected it, supplying from his imagination all that was lacking in the ancient work, that is, the open mouth as of a man laughing, so that the hollow of the mouth and all the teeth could be seen. In the midst of this, the Magnificent, coming to see what point his works had reached, found the boy engaged in polishing the head and, approaching quite near, he was much amazed, considering first the excellence and then the boy’s age; and although he did praise the work, nonetheless he joked with him as with a child and said, “Oh, you have made this
Faun
old and left him all his teeth. Don’t you know that old men of that age are always missing a few?”
To Michelangelo it seemed a thousand years before the Magnificent went away so that he could correct the mistake; and, when he was alone, he removed an upper tooth from his old man, drilling the gum as if it had come out with the root, and the following day he awaited the Magnificent with eager longing. When he had come and noted the boy’s goodness and simplicity, he laughed at him very much; but then, when he weighed in his mind the perfection of the thing and the age of the boy, he, who was the father of all
virtù,
resolved to help and encourage such great genius and to take him into his household; and, learning from him whose son he was, he said, “Inform your father that I would like to speak to him.”
Thus it was that the fifteen-year-old came to live in the palace of the Via Larga, though even with the lord of the city weighing in on his behalf it took some doing to persuade the elder Buonarroti to allow his son to become an artist, a calling so far beneath him.
*
Lorenzo, in fact, seems to have had fewer of the prejudices of his class against artisans than Michelangelo’s father, a member of the impoverished nobility whose pride was in inverse proportion to the size of his bank account. There was, of course, an element of noblesse oblige in Lorenzo’s patronage of talented men he did not consider his social equal. By inviting the artist to stay in his house he was following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who had kept the painter Filippo Lippi on the premises while he was working for him in an effort to keep the lusty monk’s mind on the job.
Among the artifacts remaining from Michelangelo’s years in Lorenzo’s house is a vivid account of the informal atmosphere of the palace he recounted to his biographer:
[Lorenzo] arranged that Michelangelo be given a good room in his house, providing him with all the conveniences he desired and treating him not otherwise than as a son, both in other ways and at his table, at which, as befitted such a man, personages of the highest nobility and of great affairs were seated every day. And as it was the custom that those who were present at the first sat down near the Magnificent, each according to his rank, without changing places no matter who should arrive later, it quite often happened that Michelangelo was seated above Lorenzo’s sons and other distinguished people, the constant company in which that house flourished and abounded. By all of them Michelangelo was treated affectionately and encouraged in his honorable pursuit, but above all by the Magnificent, who would send for him many times a day and would show him his jewels, carnelions, medals and similar things of great value, as he knew the boy had high intelligence and judgment.
The casualness of dinner at the palace was confirmed by Franceschetto Cibo, Lorenzo’s future son-in-law, who complained at the undignified treatment he had received until it was explained that there was no surer sign that one was thought a part of the family than to be included in such a boisterous, informal gathering.
If Michelangelo felt the need to talk shop he could always rely on Bertoldo, who had a room on the mezzanine near the top of the stairs. Despite the fact that he was a dear friend of Lorenzo’s and someone Lorenzo trusted to oversee his collection of valuable objects, Bertoldo’s room was listed among those of the household waiters. More influential on the young sculptor’s development was another guest of the palace, Angelo Poliziano. “Recognizing in Michelangelo a superior spirit,” writes Condivi, “he loved him very much and, although there was no need, he continually urged him on his studies, always explaining to him and providing him with subjects.” The fruit of Poliziano’s teaching is visible in the relief
The Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs,
whose mythological theme was suggested by the poet. In this early work Michelangelo first explores the form of the male nude that will define his work from the
David
to the
Last Judgment
in the Sistine Chapel. Though Poliziano provided the literary background for this seminal work, Michelangelo was also inspired by his surroundings at the palace, where Donatello’s
David
stood in the courtyard and Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s
Labors of Hercules
hung in the Grand Salon.
Though Michelangelo is the most famous name on the guest list of the Medici palace, his experience was by no means unique. Three generations of discerning and profligate Medici collecting had turned the palace on the Via Larga into a museum of both ancient and modern art; under the guidance of Poliziano, Lorenzo had amassed one of the greatest collections of manuscripts in the world, turning the two hundred he had inherited to over one thousand at the time of his death. All of which made an invitation to the palace indispensable for anyone wishing to further his visual or literary education. To attract the attention and win the admiration of
il Magnifico
was the goal of any man of talent or ambition; to win his patronage was to be set out on the path to success. Not only was his patronage a good thing in itself, but to be known as a protégé of the lord of Florence was to possess currency that could purchase a place in any court of Europe where learning and cultivation were valued.
Among those drawn to Florence by Lorenzo’s reputation for enlightened patronage was the young Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, one of the most precociously gifted intellects of the age. With a command of numerous languages, ancient and modern—including those exotic acquisitions for a man of his times, Arabic and Hebrew, which he mastered in order to delve more deeply into the mystical teaching of Cabala—and talent for philosophical disputation, Pico dazzled everyone he met. Admired both for his learning and personal charm, the handsome count was immediately welcomed into Lorenzo’s circle, where his formidable erudition added to the liveliness of the discussions. A letter Poliziano wrote to Ficino from the Medici villa at Fiesole paints an idyllic portrait of the life of a scholar under Lorenzo’s aegis: “Wandering beyond the limits of his own property, Pico sometimes steals unexpectedly on my retirement, and draws me from the shade to partake of his supper. What kind of supper that is you well know; sparing indeed, but neat, and rendered graceful by the charms of conversation. But be my guest. Your supper shall be as good, and your wine perhaps better, for in the quality of wine I shall contend for superiority even with Pico himself.”
For intellectuals, particularly for those of a speculative and daring cast of mind, Lorenzo’s favor guaranteed more than just room and board. In 1486 Pico composed his famous 900 Theses, a set of philosophical and theological propositions that were a young man’s challenge to the received wisdom of the day. When a committee appointed by Pope Innocent declared seven of them to be unorthodox and a further six questionable, Pico was forced to flee to France. It was only after Lorenzo guaranteed his good behavior and placed him under his protection that Pico was allowed to return to Italy. Even then he was not free from the accusations of heresy, accusations that Lorenzo, always inclined to take the side of freethinkers rather than the clergy, vehemently denied. “The Count della Mirandola is here leading a most saintly life, like a monk,” Lorenzo wrote to his ambassador in Rome. “He has been and is now occupied in writing other admirable theological works…. He is anxious to be absolved from what little contumacy is still attributed to him by the Holy Father and to have a Brief by which His Holiness accepts him as a son and a good Christian…. I greatly desire that this satisfaction should be given to him, for there are few men I love better or esteem more.”
Not all of Lorenzo’s companions of these years were as high-minded or as erudite as Pico. Lorenzo always had a soft spot for buffoonish types whose pranks and verbal barbs could shake him from his natural tendency to melancholy. As he recast himself as a sober statesman many of the favorites from the days of his wild youth were shunted aside—including Braccio Martelli and Luigi Pulci—but he kept about him at least a couple of men who shared his taste for coarse jokes and ribald tales. When, at the urging of Ficino, Lorenzo distanced himself from Pulci—whom the philosopher regarded as an atheist and sodomite—the role of court jester was taken up by Matteo Franco. Lorenzo described him as “among the first and best-loved creatures of my house,” and his presence ensured that Lorenzo’s entourage remained lively. A typical example of this impious priest’s humor is his witticism at the expense of his disgraced rival as a “louse clinging to the Medici balls” (Pulci in Italian meaning “fleas”). So bold was Franco that not even Lorenzo’s wife escaped his sharp wit. “I should be glad not to be turned into ridicule by Franco,” Clarice wrote to her husband, “as was Luigi Pulci,” a request the not always chivalrous Lorenzo ignored. Despite his coarse humor, Clarice came to love and trust the man. “I will not allow any man to have the spending of my money but Franco,” she declared, “and I will eat nothing but what has passed through his hands.” Even the prissy Ficino enjoyed Franco’s high jinks, admitting that “were it not for Matteo Franco seasoning my dullness with his wit,” he would “lose the taste for my own company.”
For as long as he could remember, Lorenzo had struggled to emerge from beneath his grandfather’s shadow. One acute observer noted that he was driven by a desire “to achieve even more than Cosimo and Piero had ever done,” though it was less his own father than Cosimo,
Pater Patriae,
whose example he hoped to emulate and whose place in the hearts of his countrymen he hoped to supplant. Nowhere did Cosimo’s achievement loom larger than in his contributions to the urban fabric of Florence. He himself acknowledged that long after his political legacy had crumbled, monuments in brick and stone would be all that was left to remind his compatriots of what he had given to his homeland. In the ecclesiastical realm Cosimo had bettered his prospects in Purgatory by spending lavishly on the reconstruction of San Lorenzo and San Marco; the Franciscan church Santa Croce was provided with a new chapel at his expense, and both San Miniato and Santissima Annunziata received elaborate tabernacles paid for by the profits of his bank.
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Nor did he stint when it came to spending on himself; the most notable private building of the era was his palace on the Via Larga. Not only was it a handsome, imposing presence on the street, but through the elegance of its richly appointed interior that he filled with priceless works of art it set a model of gracious living for generations of Florentine patricians.