Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent. Alfred von Reumont
be chastised. But division arose in his own party; Niccolò da Uzzano, Palla Strozzi, Agnolo Pandolfini, and others, opposed him. The attitude of Cosimo de’ Medici was ambiguous. The reproach of having agreed to the plan of war in order to ruin the hopes of his rival, cleaves to him in spite of its being contradicted.[65] The war party, supported by Neri Capponi, one of the most influential burghers, and son of him who had taken Pisa, prevailed. In the Council the opponents were scarcely allowed to speak; a pretext was easily found, and the determination was taken at the end of 1429. Rinaldo degli Albizzi undertook the guidance of affairs as Commissary of the Republic, with extensive authority.
It was an undertaking as unsuccessful as it was unjust, notwithstanding the guilt of the Lucchese. The Florentines accomplished nothing from a military point of view; their great architect, Filippo Brunellesco, forfeited his fame as an engineer; the land was as cruelly as uselessly desolated; and the Duke of Milan was drawn into the war. Venice, Genoa, even Siena, took sides for or against; and after the leadership of Guinigi, by no means to the advantage of the Lucchese, had been lost by it, a peace was concluded in April, 1433, which was to restore every one his own—in what condition no one ventured to ask. The unsuccessful campaign had already caused much disturbance in Florence from the beginning, and given abundant material for evil speaking. Rinaldo degli Albizzi had returned from the camp without leave of absence: he was accused of having acted as a trader, and employed rations and booty for his villa of Montefalcone. His successor, Messer Giovanni Guicciardini, did not fare much better; the least offence he was accused of was, that he had sold the bread intended for the camp to the Lucchese.[66] Every one was in an ill-humour and at enmity when the costly and fruitless war was ended. Rinaldo could not conceal from himself the fact that his authority had suffered a dangerous blow. He thought to re-establish it more firmly by drawing the reins tighter. The one man of his party who had always dissuaded him most decidedly from this was no more: Niccolò da Uzzano had died during the war, in 1432. The void created by his death was soon visible to all.
The bitter enmity between Cosimo and Rinaldo seems first to have arisen at this time, for the two men do not appear to have been personal opponents till then. In the autumn of 1430 Cosimo had repaired to Verona on account of a sickness prevailing in Florence; at Ostiglia, on the Po, he heard of the loss suffered before Lucca. Appointed with Francesco Tornabuoni as ambassador at Venice, he had, on what grounds is unknown, declined the commission, but had gone, in March 1432, with Palla Strozzi to Ferrara, to make an agreement with Milan in the affair of Lucca, which, however, as we have said, was not carried out till a year later.[67] What had kindled such irreconcilable hatred between Rinaldo and Cosimo—who, hitherto, whatever might be their private feelings, had frequently worked together—is not known. The rival party reproached both Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo, who had for some time resided at Milan as Florentine ambassador, with having taken part in intrigues against the State, in order to prolong the war. But accusations of this kind usually rest on one-sided testimony, and it is much more likely that both the Medici quietly waited for a change at home, which public discontent, and the loss of reputation to the reigning party in consequence of the failure in war, seemed to announce. Cosimo did not deceive himself respecting the prevailing opinion against him. He kept himself aloof from the eminent men of the ruling faction, and appeared seldom in the palace; but it availed him little, for it was said he wished to lull the suspicions of the rulers, and his relations to the lower orders, which he could not, and perhaps would not, conceal, were made out a crime. The large loans which at different times he had been making to the public finances, as well as those to private citizens for whom he procured access to office by paying their arrears of taxes, had made him a popular favourite, but at the same time had increased the number of his political adversaries. It became more and more plain that things could not remain as they were. Rinaldo had tried, through Niccolò Barbadore, to persuade Niccolò da Uzzano to mediate shortly before his death, but had been repulsed. He now determined to act. He could reckon all the more on support because Cosimo, if he relied on popular favour, was suspected by the decided Guelphs from his connections with the old nobility—being a brother-in-law of the Bardi and Pannocchieschi, and through his brother Lorenzo related to the Cavalcanti and Malaspina, families of the Lunigiana; while he was united by friendship to the Buondelmonti and other nobles. Rinaldo had attempted to secure the consent of many partisans to violent measures against Cosimo and his adherents, when the election of a Signoria decidedly favourable to his plans, which entered on office with the gonfaloniere Bernardo Guadagni on September 1, 1433, seemed to offer the favourable moment. Bernardo Guadagni belonged to a distinguished family, the name of which occurs in various offices since the beginning of the thirteenth century; he was opposed to the Albizzi in the political movements of 1378, but afterwards became attached to them. Bernardo had not been eligible because he owed taxes, but Rinaldo cancelled the debt, and made him his tool.[68]
On September 7 Cosimo de’ Medici was summoned before the Signoria.[69] He had been at his villa in Mugello, from whence he was recalled to town under the pretext that his counsel was desired, and he was in fact appointed a member of a commission (pratica) for affairs of the commonwealth. As he passed the Or San Michele, Alamanno Salviati warned him that evil was intended, but he replied that he must obey the Signoria. Arrived at the palace, he was confined as a prisoner in a chamber of the upper storey called La Berberia. The principal accusation concerned treasonable machinations in the Lucchese war. That his life was aimed at is scarcely to be supposed, though certainly possible: that the prisoner feared it, is certain. The waves of party feeling ran so high, tongues were so sharp, and even the assemblies held in churches, ostensibly for purposes of Divine worship, were so openly employed for political ends, and for manœuvring against the Government, that it was not difficult by inquisitorial proceedings to justify the severest measures. The city was in the power of the opponents of the Medici; Lorenzo, his brother, who was in the country, seems to have tried in vain to bring about a rising. Niccolò da Tolentino, the general of the Republic, and a friend of Cosimo’s, rode with a squadron from Pisa to the village of Lastra, on the Arno, seven miles from the city, but hesitated to proceed farther, and declared that he appeared in support of the public peace. It was an anxious time of suspense.
The Signoria summoned the people to a parliament on the Piazza, surrounded by armed friends of the Albizzi. The result at first was favourable; but when the newly-appointed Balia had to decide on Cosimo’s fate, the differences of opinion showed themselves. The prisoner had found means to employ his money, and had bribed the Gonfaloniere, among others, with 1,000 gold florins. He has himself remarked that the people did not understand their own advantages; if they had wished for 10,000 gold florins, he would have paid the sum to save himself from the danger. There was no lack of representations of many kinds, even from foreign countries. The end was, that all the Medici, with the exception of Vieri’s descendants, were excluded from office. Cosimo was banished on September 29 to Padua for ten years, his brother for five years to Venice, and others of the family to Naples, Rimini, Ancona, and other towns. On the evening of October 3, as Ormanno degli Albizzi held the Piazza, guarded with his people, and an attack upon Cosimo was feared if the latter left his prison in the palace, the Gonfaloniere caused him, after the penalty had been announced to him, to be brought into his own lodgings under a safe-guard. Here he partook of some supper, left the city by the Porta San Gallo, and rode through Pistoja to the village of Cutigliano, on the road leading over the Apennines to Modena, where he arrived on October 4, the day of St. Francis d’Assisi. ‘On the 11th,’ so he relates, ‘I reached Venice, where many nobles with Lorenzo came to meet me, and I was not received like an exile, but as an ambassador. On the following day I visited the Signoria, to thank them for their influential mediation in my favour. The Signoria received me with kindness and honour, expressed regret at what had happened to me, offered residence and money supplies to whatever extent I wished. Many nobles came to visit me. On the 13th I repaired to Padua, as I had been enjoined, accompanied by Messer Jacopo Donato, who placed his beautiful house, provided with everything, at my disposal.’
While Cosimo de’ Medici thus resided, partly in Padua and partly in Venice, where he was allowed to go, honoured and loved for his well-calculated liberality, in personal connection with some of his friends and in correspondence with others, affairs in Florence rapidly approached another crisis. Other banishments had followed: that of the brothers Pucci, the eldest of whom, Puccio, was one of the most eager adherents of Cosimo, and one who had circulated the gold florins of his patron,