Magnifico (56 page)

The result was that while Savonarola hurled abuse upon the world, Lorenzo regarded its defects with ironic detachment. In fact they were a source of amusement; the shortcomings of men became so much grist for the literary mill. It is obvious from works like
The Symposium,
a mock epic in which the heroes are all drunken louts, and his erotic novella “Giacoppo,” that Lorenzo’s opinion of his fellow man was no higher than Savonarola’s, but his response was to poke fun rather than to scold. With his easy tolerance of the vices of men, and his tendency to indulge in many of them himself, he was less virtuous than the preacher but also more humane. His writings show an appreciation for the rich comedy of the human animal and little interest in forcing him to mend his ways. Savonarola, by contrast, believes in human perfectibility while making too little allowance for human frailty. Both approaches had their virtues and their limitations: Savonarola was genuinely concerned with the plight of the poor and labored to address the inequalities that led to so much suffering; Lorenzo, while spending enormous sums on charity, never believed that he or anyone else could make fundamental changes to the way things were. Lorenzo took things pretty much as he found them and was happy to exploit weak men and venal institutions for his own advantage; Savonarola cared too much for his own purity ever to engage in corrupt compromises with the world. When Lorenzo wrote to his son Giovanni, bound for Rome to take up his post, that “at present one sees such a lack of virtue in the College [of Cardinals],” he echoed the substance, if not the rhetorical style, of Savonarola. But instead of calling for divine retribution on “that sink of iniquities,” Lorenzo advised his son merely to make sure “not to slide into the same ditch into which [your colleagues] have fallen.”

Lorenzo was inclined to tolerate Savonarola’s excesses, and even to express a certain sympathy with his goals if not his means. These benign feelings, however, were not shared by the monk, who was becoming with each passing day more intemperate and more certain of his own infallibility. When Lorenzo stopped by the monastery, Savonarola made it a point to be away from his cell, and when he was named prior of San Marco he did not conceal his scorn for the man whose family had patronized the institution for generations, failing to pay the customary visit of respect to Lorenzo’s palace. “Here is a stranger come into my house who will not even deign to visit me,” Lorenzo remarked, more in sadness than in anger.

Despite repeated snubs, Lorenzo tried hard to placate the monk, even inviting him to preach in the chapel of his own palace. If Lorenzo hoped that his courtesy would take the sting out of Savonarola he was mistaken. The sermon he preached in Lorenzo’s house was, if anything, more insulting to the lord of the city than usual. Surrounded by Gozzoli’s opulent frescoes, which embodied everything he loathed, Savonarola delivered a message as notable for its courage as for its tactlessness. “I know a city,” he rumbled,

According to one account, when the friar departed, Lorenzo turned to Poliziano and remarked, “There goes a brave man…and an honest one. But he must be broken.” The words, like so many of the tales surrounding their confrontation, may well be apocryphal. If Lorenzo had really wanted to break Savonarola he could have done so easily enough. Instead he showed his displeasure indirectly by offering his support to a preacher much more to his taste—the learned Augustinian monk Fra Mariano da Gennazzano. Poliziano’s description of Mariano explains why he appealed to Lorenzo. “I have met Fra Mariano repeatedly,” wrote the poet,

This “man of moderation,” probably with the encouragement of Lorenzo and his friends, took it upon himself to rebut the apocalyptic visions of Savonarola. In dueling sermons, Fra Mariano’s before a packed house at San Gallo and Savonarola’s given before 15,000 worshippers in the
Duomo,
they tussled over the souls of the Florentine people. In the building Lorenzo had constructed as a tribute to his learned friend, Fra Mariano chastised the Dominican monk for presuming to know the mind of God, quoting Jesus’ reminder, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has placed in his own power.” Across town, Savonarola struck back, accusing the Augustinian of hypocrisy and berating him for spouting elegant phrases that meant nothing. “He preaches from Cicero and the poets and not from Holy Writ,” scoffed Savonarola.

But in the contest between fanaticism and moderation, fanaticism has certain built-in advantages. While Lorenzo’s tolerant worldview could accommodate the fanatical friar, Savonarola’s more constricted view could find no place for the worldly, easygoing Lorenzo. It is often forgotten that it was Lorenzo and his cultivated friends who first invited the Dominican friar to come to Florence. And while in retrospect it seems as if Savonarola was determined to destroy the world that Lorenzo and his friends had done so much to build, as long as Lorenzo lived the battle lines were not yet so clearly drawn. The gulf that divided the “Preacher of the Despairing” from the urbane, hedonistic First Citizen was immense, but Lorenzo, now in failing health and focused on family matters, seemed to lack the stomach for an all-out war. The best he could do was to take some of the sting out of the preacher’s harangues. Even in his current diminished state Lorenzo’s generous spirit continued to exert a moderating effect, ensuring that the city did not fall completely under the spell of the hypnotic friar.

Ultimately the future belonged, if only briefly, to Savonarola. Had Lorenzo lived a few years longer it is possible he would have been able to prevent, or at least temper, some of the worst excesses of the coming age. But the vitality that had characterized the greatest decades of the Florentine Renaissance was already ebbing, in no small part because the man who had ruled the city during some of its most creative years was dying. Savonarola’s success was abetted by Lorenzo’s debility. By the time the preacher had found his voice, Lorenzo was beginning to withdraw from the public stage he had dominated for so long. His bouts of illness grew more frequent and more intense, and he knew death could not be long delayed. During those rare moments of relief he preferred to pursue his own private interests rather than dwell on matters of state. Much of his time was now spent at home, with friends or alone in his library, where he buried himself in books or pored over his collection of gems and cameos. When he was well enough to travel his greatest satisfaction was to supervise construction on his villas. He more often socialized with his children and with artists and writers than diplomats and politicians; those who came to see him on such matters were often turned away disappointed.

And when he did turn his mind to politics it was not to dwell on large issues of state but rather to reinforce those alliances that would secure his family’s future. On this front he had good reason to be pleased. He had been assured by his colleagues in government that, despite reservations about his suitability for the job, Piero would be recognized as his successor. Equally important, Giovanni’s elevation to the College of Cardinals meant that the Medici would have a strong presence in the curia to serve as a bulwark against possible discontent at home.

The celebrations marking Giovanni’s elevation were among the few bright moments in the gathering darkness of his final days. Giovanni received the cardinal’s hat from the pope on March 10, 1492, in the
Balìa
of Fiesole, after spending the night alone in the monastery deep in silent prayer. Lorenzo was too ill to attend, nor was he able to be there the following day when Giovanni celebrated High Mass in the cathedral. Following Mass, the sixteen-year-old cardinal paid a call on the
Signoria
, where he was showered with gifts amounting, according to Luca Landucci, who had difficulty believing it himself, to thirty loads of silver and household items valued at 20,000 florins. Hauling this load back to the Via Larga, Giovanni hosted a splendid feast for foreign dignitaries and leading citizens of the city. Here Lorenzo, stooped and in great pain, received the congratulations of the people, though his appearance was anything but reassuring. His guests were dismayed by his gaunt and ravaged frame, and word spread through the city that
il padrone
was dying. This was, in fact, to be Lorenzo’s final public appearance.

The following day Giovanni departed for Rome. Lorenzo, his mind still sharp, composed for his second son a long letter in which he tried to distill the wisdom gained in many years of public service. “
Messer
Giovanni,” he wrote,

Lorenzo had come a long way from the young man whose indiscretions threatened to embarrass his parents. Now he was the one dispensing advice, no doubt comforted by the thought that Giovanni was far more likely to toe the line than he had been at the same age. Warning his son that he was about to enter a “sink of all iniquities,” he admonished him to choose his friends wisely and to cultivate habits of modesty and sobriety:

Some have interpreted this letter as Lorenzo’s last will and testament, the summation of the wisdom he accrued in his many years of service to the republic. If so it is a rather disappointing document, filled with practical tidbits but lacking any hint of a larger vision. But Lorenzo’s letter is most revealing for what it does not say. Written by a man who knew he was dying, the letter eschews rhetorical flourish. The advice he offers is sensible but conventional, the insights commonplace; the underlying message is one of wariness. He tells his son not to be carried away by the euphoria of the moment, reminding him that even at this moment of apparent triumph he should be on his guard against those who, inevitably, will seek to tear him down. Keep your eyes open, he urges, not only for false friends but for those tendencies in yourself that can do as much harm as the most treacherous enemy. It is a cramped, cautious vision of the world that has often been compared to Polonius’s famous speech to his son in
Hamlet.
But if there are no great pearls or flights of eloquence in this letter it is because Lorenzo has seen too much of sorrow and felt the sting of betrayal too often to indulge in grandiose visions. Take this happy event in stride, he seems to say, for the road of life traverses as many valleys as peaks, and only he who accepts this can move forward with a fair chance of success. Lorenzo is more eloquent, if not more uplifting, in a speech he places in the mouth of the dying Emperor Constantine in his play
The Martyrdom of Saints John and Paul:

Lorenzo’s pragmatism is a far cry from Savonarola’s Manichaean vision of the world as a battleground between the forces of good and evil. It more closely resembles that of their younger contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, eschewing grandiose pronouncements in favor of astute observations intended to serve immediate objectives. Neither Lorenzo nor Machiavelli sought to depict men as better or worse than they were, knowing that only by seeing the world as it really was could they hope to achieve anything at all.