The History of Florence from the domination of the Medici to the fall of the Republic ... Translated ... by Hannah Lynch

Preface

. From 1877 to 1S83 I published six volumes comprising the history of Florence from its origin to the rise of the Medici. This long work was not on the whole badly received. It obtained the grand prize Jean Reynaud, from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, and soon after opened the doors of the Institute to its author. In Italy it was also crowned with academical honours and honorary distinctions, as may be gathered from the current criticism of the Italians : " It is, to our shame, the best history of Florence known." ** To-day, I undertake the publication of three new volumes, now finished, which present the continuation of this history during its most celebrated period, represented by the name and vicissitudes of the first Medici. From Cosimo de' Medicis' return to his country in 1434, to the suppression of liberty and the Bepublic by the armies of Charles V. in 1531, a century of ambitions, intrigues, and tragic changes of fortune unrolled, of which the ominous conclusion marks the natural, and even necessary, end of this vast subject.

Indeed, I could not extend it to the years and centuries following without beginning another work, which, according to the laws of com position, could not be joined to this. I have already said, and repeat it here as a truth insuf ficiently known : when Florence ceased to be a free town, a republic, a state, she ceased to have a history. The prey of 1 See principally Agnolo Pandolfini ell Governo della Famig/ia. Notizie e Con siderazioni, by the Doctor and Professor F. C. Pellegrini. Extract from the Gior nale Storico, vol. viii. fase. 22. b

PREFACE.

. VI a family, subject to masters who bore the new title of dukes and grand-dukes, to some extent lost and submerged in the Grand-duchy of Tuscany, she became simply a municipal town like the others ; and if she had a place apart from them, it is because of her glorious past, and because she was the home of the Medici. But I ask, would history have been changed had they chosen instead Bisa, Arezzo, Empoli, or even Poppi ? Throughout the country the fortunes of which they adminis tered so badly, nothing was thought of but themselves and their adventures, their vices, and their crimes. This may be seen upon the last pages of the third of these volumes, wherein I briefly summarise what I did not think fit to develop at length. The curious work of M. Ferdinando Sbigoli, the substance of which I have given in an article in Revue des Beux Mondes (January I, 1885), enables us to take the measure, without recourse to chronicles that may almost be described as scandalous, of the representatives of this race of usurpers in their premature decline, when they were forced to yield their place to others.

It may also be seen in this work and in that article how little Maria Theresa's colourless hus band, the first prince of the Lorraine dynasty, did for Tuscany, a sovereign who only interested himself in the people confided to his care by Europe as a leech is interested in the body whose blood it sucks. As for making this the subject of a new and detailed work, I dare neither promise it to myself nor to others ; I am past the age for planting and building. He who has but a few days to live is wise not to consume them in thankless labour. The chief interest of a book upon the grand-dukes of both dynasties would be to show how an absolute monarchv rushes to its ruin, which fact history in all times and in all countries sufficiently teaches us. Perhaps it was more useful to show the democracy, by a memorable example, how its faults carve a path for monarchical ambition, and how it digs its own grave.

PREFACE.

. VII This merciless and unabated struggle between two irreconcilable principles — for I imagine that what we have agreed to call imperial democracy will not be considered as conciliatory ground or as a serious middle term — is the subject of these three volumes which I offer to the public. The interest is poignant even when the scenes are not dramatic, especially for us who are forced to link in our mind the cruel destiny of Florence with the obscure and uncertain destiny of modern democracy. The starting-point is the moment when Cosimo de' Medicis, exiled for some time, returns from Venice to his country, recalled thither by his fellow-countrymen, who were weary of the Albizzi oligarchy, and yearned for the return of the wealthy exile so lavish with his gold. Though not yet resigned to the rule of a prince, they murmured under their breath, that, if they must have one, Cosimo would be preferable to any other.1 We shall see the progress the line of Medici made upon ground prepared for them by the slow and progressive evolu tion of ideas as well as by the intrigues and liberality of a single family.

My judgment differs somewhat from that passed by flattering courtiers, sacred to historians in no wise critical, and to a posterity that for three centuries has accepted their views with docility. Let me hasten to aver that I am glad of the difference now that reflection and exhaustive study have confirmed the instinct of a first reading ; that having already taken my stand, I am strengthened in it, thanks to added illumination. Our National Library has recently acquired from the Marquis Costa de Beauregard, in his lifetime a senator of the kingdom of Italy, thirty manuscript volumes, some containing the minutes and others the copies of the de spatches addressed to their master, the Duke of Milan, by the ambassadors of Lombardy officially sent to the Florentine Signory, and, in fact, to the chief of the Medici. In the four- 1 See our sixth volume, and our article published May 15, 1887, in the Nouvelk Revue, under the title La Genise a'une Monarchic.

PREFACE.

. VIII teen original volumes, the most important passages are in cipher ; but the key has been found, the translation made, and this precious scrawl contains no further secrets for us. As the policy of the first Medici was to make a support of Milan, these ambassadors, one after the other, became their confidants and their followers. In transmitting to their Duke the per sonal effusions, and adding their own impressions, they rob the new and real masters of Florence of the pleasing halo in which history envelops them. We must not doubt that in these despatches we see the true Medici. They prove history in her rare severities to be right. They help us to understand how Florence so speedily wearied of a family which she had lifted to a pinnacle, and which at first, by underhand means, and afterwards audaciously, imposed its domination, and finally how, led by a monk, the people attempted a theocratic democracy.

More than thirty years ago, in a monograph in two volumes, corroborated by unpublished documents, I treated of this new period, wherein the chief figure is the original and striking personality of Savonarola. The Italians since have found so many other papers, that there is still scope for fruitful study of his curious history. Happily the wider knowledge of the relations between the Holy See and the Florentine Bepublic has made it possible for us to pronounce upon the trial which to the subsequent Popes appeared so hopelessly entangled. The sentence will differ somewhat from that which I passed, at my risk and peril, in 1853, and still more from that which ten years later M. Pasquale Villari passed in judgment upon the cause for which he had pleaded as advocate. Quite different, but not less tragic, are the vicissitudes of the latter period, between Savonarola's fall and that of the Bepublic.

The tide brought back the Medici, and the ebb carried them away, until what time the spirit of liberty ceased to repel them, and they definitely took root upon this tortured around, in the shadow of the imperial pikes and guns. Here again documents abound for a long while past. It was, in

PREFACE.

. IX fact, through this final crisis that the Florentines began to despoil their rich archives, until the fortunate foundation of the Archivio Storico Italiano allowed them to bring to light the materials for their history, for the temptation and support of the historians. We cannot but approve them for haying gone back with the centuries instead of forward. For the more modern times — I mean the last period of the Bepublic — there were quantities of references, correspondence, and writings, one more important than another, while this wealth diminishes more and more as we penetrate further back into the Middle Ages. This is what makes, if I may say it, the first volumes of my history a creation, the difficulty being to discover and expound the true though rare and mutilated documents, while the difficulty in the latter was to choose in the daily increasing wave of the sources that threaten to submerge the writer whose duty it is to clip into them.

It is for the reader to say if I have succeeded or not in keeping upon the surface ; if I have seen clearly, and distin guished truth from flattery and convention. The learned, I dare hope, will not deny such merit to this new and last series. If I am not mistaken, they will find the facts better established and the personages more faithfully presented than they have hitherto been. As for those readers who seek above everything in history teachings applicable to policy, they will find the comparisons I have not thought wise to make at the bottom of all things. In M. Thiers, it was the politician, and not the historian, who was tempted by the history of Florence. On the contrary, I have undertaken it solely as a historian, having nothing more to do with politics than a simple citizen in a country of universal suffrage.

I may be permitted to remind my readers, as a justification or an excuse, that I did not undertake so heavy a task until I had seen this retired statesman, beneath the weight of years, charged by an entire nation to save our unhappy country at a time when an old man only looks forward to repose. With courage, but without

PREFACE.

. X any illusions, I willingly returned to Florentine studies, which for fifteen years I had put aside through prudence and respect. The place was empty, and it seemed to me useful that it should be filled, well or good. Discerning judges have decided that I was not mistaken. Once at work, by their encouragement have they given me the strength to pursue it. I thank them with all my heart, and now that my work is finished, I have only one more wish to express, and it is that these three last volumes receive at their hands such kindness and goodwill as the six preceding ones. CONTENTS. PAGE

PREFACE.

v -Book I. THE DOMINATION OF COSIMO DE' MEDICIS.