Magnifico (59 page)

CHAPTER I: THE ROAD FROM CAREGGI

“There is in my opinion”:
Brucker,
Florence: The Golden Age,
10–11.

“nature had been a step-mother to him”:
Valori, 30–31.

“cold men”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
155.

“did not have much confidence”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories
,VII, 5, 281.

“those who have”:
Filarete, XXV.

“First stop”:
Chamberlin, “Everyday Life in Renaissance Times,” p. 71.

rare gemstones:
Filarete, XXV, 319–21.

“[E]very day seems a year”:
Ross,
Lives of the Early Medici
(hereafter
Lives
), 108.

“with infinite longing”:
Ibid., 119.

“You will have received my letter of the 4th”:
Ibid., 94.

“I wrote to you two days ago”:
Lorenzo de’ Medici (hereafter Lorenzo),
Lettere,
I, no. 7, 15.

“Piero was dismayed”
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories
,VII, 13, 291–92.

“with whom I spoke”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, no. 9, 19.

“Three times I read this”:
Trexler,
Public Life in Renaissance Florence
, 431.

charismatic center:
Ibid., 419ff.

“Thus it was arranged”:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
123.

“And returning to the arrival of Lorenzo”:
Rochon, 108.

“[Piero] did not, to be sure”:
Francesco Guicciardini,
History of Florence,
13.

lessening the chances of a violent clash breaking out between their armed supporters:
Phillips, 246.

on the rebound:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 15.

“[I]n order to better conceal”:
Ibid.

his onetime colleague had at least flirted with the opposition:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
163.

“great goodwill among the people”:
Ibid., 107.

“the citizenry would like greater liberty”:
Ibid., 161.

“Cosimo and his men”:
Ibid., 152.

“[s]ince his own ambition”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 11; Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
159.

“[It was] caused in large part”:
Francesco Guicciardini,
History of Florence,
15.

“Yesterday I went to my estate at Careggi”:
Ficino,
Letters,
I, 1.

“received letters from the regime in Bologna”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
184–85.

“every day meets
M.
Luca”:
Ibid., 177.

“man of fine physique”:
Pius II, 114.

“Piero be removed from the city.”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
184.

“the marquis of Ferrara”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 15.

he dashed off an urgent letter to Sforza:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
184–85.

“upon receiving this”:
Black, “Piero de’ Medici and Arezzo,”
Piero de’ Medici,
“il Gottoso,”(1416–1469), 26.

It is a puzzle:
Andre Rochon is among those who doubt that Lorenzo played a prominent role in saving his father’s life (see
La Jeunesse de Laurent des Medicis,
especially 82–84), arguing that Medici propagandists would surely have played it up. Their reticence, however, is understandable, since Lorenzo’s glory was won at the expense of his father.

[I]t was through the sound judgment of Lorenzo:
Valori, 31.

“[W]hen Piero went off to Careggi”:
Francesco Guicciardini,
History of Florence,
17. Marco Parenti, who believed the whole incident was an elaborate deception, confirms that whatever took place occurred at “Sto. Antonio del Vescovo.” Phillips, 192.

“and thanks to God”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
II, 413.

“new Dietisalvis”:
Ibid., 276.

I was approaching town along the road:
Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Selected Poems and Prose,
43–44.

“Above all else”:
Dale Kent,
The Rise of the Medici Faction,
17.

CHAPTER II: FAMILY PORTRAIT

Accompanying the proud father:
For a complete list of those in attendance, see Trexler, “Lorenzo de’ Medici and Savonarola, Martyrs for Florence,”
Renaissance Quarterly,
especially Appendix 1.

“are mean in giving alms”:
Lowe, “A Matter of Piety or of Family Tradition and Custom?”
Piero de’ Medici, “Il Gottoso,”
(1416–1469), 56.

“the reputation of the said Mag.co Lorenzo”:
Ferrarese ambassador, December 1482, Bullard, 46.

“Thus, while still only a youth”:
Valori, 27.

“Be chary of frequenting the Palace”:
Ross,
Lives,
6.

“the first palace”:
Vasari, I, 379.

more than twenty buildings were razed:
Goldthwaite,
The Building of Renaissance Florence,
16.

“Spending a lot and making a big impression”:
Ibid., 77.

“affords an opportunity for the exercise of virtue”:
Gage, 55.

“everyone [in Florence] seems bred to the cultivation of profit”:
Alberti,
The Family in Renaissance Florence,
I, 56–57.

over thirty fine palaces:
Dei, 35r.

“[T]he
popolani
of the quarter of San Giovanni:”
Villani,
Nuova Cronica,
XIII, xxi.

“Such was our greatness”:
Ross,
Lives,
3.

tax roll of 1427:
Herlihy, Klapisch-Zuber, Litchfield, and Molho,
Online Catasto of 1427.
Version 1.3 (www.stg.brown.edu/projects/catasto/main.php). This database, compiled from information contained in the 1427 tax roll and maintained by Brown University, is an invaluable resource for those interested in fifteenth-century Florence, as is the related
Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282–1532,
which contains a searchable database of officeholders for those years.

“he would make no will”:
Ross,
Lives,
74.

“There are fifty mouths to feed”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
319.

“So much a slave was he”:
Vasari, I, 437.

“If I do not frequent your house”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
24.

“Cosimo de’ Medici”:
Rochon, 48.

“This evening I received your letter”:
Maguire, 66–7.

A letter from Contessina to Giovanni:
Ibid., 50.

“seem too good for Cafaggiuolo”:
Ibid., 57.

The wolf retreated to its wilderness: Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Selected Poems and Prose,
“The Partridge Hunt,” 31.

“Honor does not reside in the woods”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
92.

moved probably sometime in 1458:
F. W. Kent,
Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence,
27.

“Too large a house”:
Ross Williamson, 59.

“obliged to leave”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
306.

He has himself carried into a studio:
Filarete, XXV, 319–21.

“[T]he aforesaid count”:
Niccolò de’ Carissimi da Parma, in Hatfield, “Some Unknown Descriptions of the
Palazzo Medici
,”
Art Bulletin,
Appendix 2, 246.

“nothing in the world”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
240.

smeared with blood:
Guido Cavalcanti,
Istorie Fiorentine,
in ibid., 223.

“This morning I had a letter”:
Chambers, 96.

“The beauty and grace of objects”:
Pier Paolo Vergerio,
On Noble Behavior,
1404, in Baxandall, 34.

“Although we do not have the expertise”:
Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance,
279.

Luca Pitti, Niccolò Soderini, and Dietisalvi Neroni:
See Acidini Luchinat,
The Chapel of the Magi: Benozzo Gozzoli’s Frescoes in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence,
for the identification of portraits in the Medici chapel.

the Dodici Buonuomini:
For a searchable database of the offices held by various members of the Medici family, see the
Online Tratte of Office Holders, 1282–1532.

“When you are made uncomfortable by the heat”:
Ackerman, 76–77.

“to make him suck well”:
Maguire, 37.

“[A]s God created Cosimo”:
Ficino,
Letters,
86, 108.

“Be old beyond your years”:
Ross,
Lives,
103.

“My Lord and Master”:
Maguire, 63.

“I write to you several letters”:
Ibid., 68–69.

“Have faith and obey the doctors”:
Ibid., 82.

“You are well read”:
Rochon, 23–24.

“[e]verywhere you could hear instruments”:
Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici, “The Story of Queen Esther,”
Sacred Narratives,
173.

“reduced Florence to the lowest level of repute”:
Ibid., 35.

What part of the state:
Ibid., 32.

CHAPTER III: MASTER OF CEREMONY

“[s]ixty young Florentine gentlemen”:
Ross,
Lives,
62.

“The preparations had been great”:
Pius II, 109.

“They spent very little”:
Ibid., 109–10.

“Every warrior wears a helmet”:
Luchinat, 126.

“He for many reasons has great power”:
Trexler,
Public Life in Renaissance Florence,
227.

“In Florence the citizens love equality”:
Reumont, 241.