Christopher - The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici

In his cell in the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, Cosimo had been allowed to see a few selected visitors, in addition to Ambrogio Traversari. He had also been permitted to have his meals brought over from the Palazzo Bardi as he was afraid of being poisoned. But the greatest care was taken to ensure that he neither received nor gave any messages, and that no communications passed between him and his bank: an official watched over the cooking, carrying and serving of his food, while a guard remained within earshot when he was talking to his visitors. But the guard, Federigo Malavolti, was sympa-pathetic: messages did pass out of the cell, and bribes were offered and accepted. The Gonfaloniere himself, the impecunious Bernardo Gua-dagni, readily pocketed a thousand florins as soon as they were offered to him – he was a feeble fellow, Cosimo afterwards commented derisively, as he could have had ten thousand or more if he had asked for them. Anyway, in return for the relatively modest bribe, Gua-dagni announced that he had suddenly been taken so ill that he could no longer participate in the council’s deliberations; he delegated his vote to another Priore , Mariotto Baldovinetti, who, equally impecunious, had also received a bribe from the Medici coffers.

As well as having to contend with former supporters who had now been suborned, with powerful foreign customers of the Medici bank, with faithful friends of the Medici family who were growing more outspoken every day, and with the gradual desertion of such influential moderates as Palla Strozzi, the Albizzi had also to face the possibility of an armed uprising. For as soon as he heard of the arrest, Cosimo’s brother, Lorenzo, and various other members of the family had rushed out to the Mugello to raise troops to release him. At the same time preparations had been made to assemble a small army of Medici adherents at Cafaggiolo; and the condottiere , Niccolò da Tolen-tino, believed to have received money through Cosimo’s friend, Neri Capponi, had moved down with a band of mercenaries from Pisa to Lastra. Niccolò da Tolentino remained at Lastra for fear that his further advance would result in a tumult in Florence during which Cosimo might be assassinated; but there could be no doubt that he played an important part in Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s ultimate decision to abandon hope of having his tiresome prisoner condemned to death.

On 28 September it was decided that Cosimo should be banished for ten years to Padua, that his wily cousin, Averardo, should be sent to Naples, also for ten years, and that his brother, Lorenzo, a quieter and less offensive figure, should be exiled for five years to Venice. All of them, together with the rest of the family, excepting only the Vieri branch, were declared to be Grandi and thus excluded from office in Florence for ever. Subsequently the leaders of their party in Florence, Puccio and Giovanni Pucci, were banished to Aquila for ten years; 6while the two Priori who had not followed the Albizzi line during the meetings of the Signoria were denied the rewards, in the way of sinecures and appointments of both profit and honour, that were given to all the rest.

When Cosimo, whose many virtues seem not to have included physical courage, was summoned before the Signoria to hear the decree of banishment read out to him, he evidently made a rather abject reply. He protested that he had never frequented the Palazzo della Signoria except when summoned, that he had ‘always declined to be nominated an official’, that far from inciting any Tuscan city to rebel against the government of Florence he had helped to buy several by providing loans to raise troops to conquer them. However, he declared,

As you have decided I am to go to Padua, I declare that I am content to go, and to stay wherever you command, not only in the Trevisian state, but should you send me to live among the Arabs, or any other people alien to our customs, I would go most willingly. As disaster comes to me by your orders, I accept it as a boon, and as a benefit to me and my belongings… Every trouble will be easy to bear as long as I know that my adversity will bring peace and happiness to the city… One thing I beg of you, O Signori, that seeing you intend to preserve my life you take care that it should not be taken by wicked citizens, and thus you be put to shame… Have a care that those who stand outside in the Piazza with arms in their hands anxiously desiring my blood, should not have their way with me. My pain would be small, but you would earn perpetual infamy.

Anxious as he was himself that there should be no uncontrollable violence, the Signoria gave orders that their prisoner should be spirited from Florence under cover of night through the Porta San Gallo. He was to be escorted by armed guard to the frontier, and there left to make his own way to Padua by way of Ferrara.

ON HIS journey into exile, Cosimo was met with compliments rather than reproach. At Ferrara he was warmly welcomed and splendidly entertained by the Marquis; at Padua he was greeted as an honoured guest by the authorities who were obviously delighted to have so distinguished and so rich an exile amongst them. For rich he still certainly was, all the attempts of Rinaldo degli Albizzi to bankrupt him while in prison having failed. ‘One should either not lift a finger against the mighty,’ Rinaldo commented gloomily to his friends, ‘or, if one does, one must do it thoroughly.’ He was forced to recognize that, although he had succeeded in temporarily removing his enemy from Florence, his own position in the city was now far from secure.

After spending two months in Padua, Cosimo secured permission to join his brother in Venice where he was offered rooms in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. Here he settled down comfortably and, no doubt influenced by the knowledge that it was a monastery for which Pope Eugenius – having once been a friar there – had much affection, he announced that he would pay for a much-needed new library. 1He commissioned a design from the young Florentine architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi, who had accompanied him to Venice, the buildings in Florence on which he was working for Cosimo having been brought to a temporary halt.

While in Venice, Cosimo was kept fully and regularly informed of the changing situation in Florence where his supporters were continually plotting the downfall of the Albizzi. At the beginning of February 1434, the eloquent and highly cultivated Agnolo Acciaiuoli, 2who had criticized the Albizzi’s dictatorial methods, was arrested and sentenced to ten years’ banishment to Cosenza. A few weeks later a distant relative of Cosimo, Mario Bartolommeo de’ Medici, who was suspected of trying to undermine the Albizzi’s foreign policy, was also arrested and banished for ten years.

Cosimo himself warily avoided implication in these conspiracies. He knew that every month the Albizzi were becoming more and more unpopular in Florence and that both Venice and Rome favoured the return of the Medici. He was comforted to learn that since the Medici’s departure no other bankers could be found to supply the government ‘with so much as a pistachio nut’. By the late summer of 1434, after a decisive defeat by Milanese mercenaries of Florentine troops at Imola, feelings against the government had run so high that a majority of known Medici supporters were elected to the Signoria . One of these, Niccolò di Cocco, became Gonfaloniere .

Had it not been for the objections of the immensely rich Palla Strozzi, who, since the death of Niccolò da Uzzano, had been the most respected and influential of the moderates in the oligarchy, Rinaldo would have used violence to prevent this new Signoria meeting; but he was persuaded to allow the members to enter into office on the understanding that they would be forcibly ejected from the Palazzo della Signoria at the first suggestion that the Medici should be asked to return. Determined not to be browbeaten, the Signoria took advantage of Rinaldo’s temporary absence from Florence in September to issue the invitation which he dreaded; and, upon his return to the city, they summoned him to their Palazzo. Suspecting that he would be arrested and thrown into the Alberghettino as Cosimo had been, and believing that he had the support of several prominent citizens – including Palla Strozzi, Giovanni Guicciardini, 3Ridolfo Peruzzi 4and Niccolò Barbardori 5– Rinaldo ignored the summons, hurried to his palace, called his remaining adherents to arms and gave orders to the captain of his five-hundred-strong bodyguard to occupy the church of San Pier Scheraggio 6opposite the Palazzo della Signoria and to prepare to take possession of the Palazzo itself The guard on the door of the Palazzo was offered as many ducats as would fill his helmet to open the door for Rinaldo’s men should the Signoria instruct him to lock it.