12 December 1479
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My name is Lorenzo, Lorenzo de Medici. And this might well be the last you will ever read of me. I am on my way to Naples to put my life and the fate of the entire city of Florence, my beloved hometown, into the hands of the unpredictable and powerful King Ferrante of Arragon.But I am jumping ahead of things. Let me first tell you a bit more about myself:
I come from a very wealthy and influential family. My great grandfather Giovanni de Medici established the families banking business in 1397 and my famous grandfather Cosimo acquired unbelievable wealth and power. Although Florence was officially a proud republic with an elected council called the Signoria, my grandfather pulled all the strings behind the scenes and was in fact the undisputed ruler of the city. This is the legacy that my father Piero took over, and when he died 10 years ago, I was burdened to carry on.
I was born in 1449 to Piero and Lucrezia de Medici. I was my grandfather Cosimo’s favourite grandson. My mother Lucrezia Tornabuoni was a well educated and talented writer, and had a great influence on me. She made sure that I received the finest humanist education available at my time. I studied Latin under Gentile Becchi, Greek under the great Marsilio Ficino, who introduced me to the works of Plato in his famous Platonic Academy which my grandfather Cosimo had helped to establish. Besides Greek philosophy and Latin rhetoric I also received a sound physical education. I learned horse riding, falconry, and hunting and enjoyed playing a game you would call football. I also loved poetry and music. My father thought I was so talented with words that, even as a teenager, he sent me on diplomatic missions to Bologna, Ferrara, Venice and to see Pope Paul II in Rome. Well, fact is, he was too sick to travel at that stage, suffering from a severe case of "gout" just like his father and brother before him, who both had died from it. I guess he wanted to prepare me for when he was gone. If only he hadn’t insisted on me taking care of the family business! While in Rome, he sent me to my uncle Giovanni Tornambuoni , the manager of our Rome branch (We were the papal bankers), to undertake a crash course in banking. I couldn't imagine a more boring subject, and to this day I have trouble with it!
I much prefer Art. It's a family tradition. The Medici have always supported artists, architects, painters and sculptors, but also poets and philosophers. For example, my great grandfather Giovanni sponsored the painter Masaccio and commissioned the great engineer, architect and sculptor Brunelleschi for the reconstruction of the Basilica di San Lorenzo. Brunelleschi went on to built the Dome for the Cathedral of Florence, his most famous achievement, an architectual wonder and the largest dome in the World!
My grandfather Cosimo was amongst others, a friend and sponsor of the painter Fra Angelico and especially the sculptor Donatello, who's most famous work, a bronze sculpture of "David" was commissioned by him. Cosimo founded the extensive Medici library, on which the Vatican library is based. He also supported Marsilio Ficino, the most influential humanist philosopher of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer and reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of our days, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin. His Platonic Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's school, had enormous influence on the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.
My father Piero commissioned artists such as Benozzo Gozzoli, who painted the fabulous frescos at our chapel in the Medici Palace, or the painter Fra Filippo Lippi, who was a pretty crazy character and who became a good friend of mine. I also became a great friend and sponsor of the famous painter Boticelli ,who was taken in as a member of our family and ate at the table with us ever since I was little.
Another member of our household was the incredibly talented Leonardo da Vinci. I took him in only a few years ago, sponsored and nurtured him and got him out of all sorts of trouble. He was charged for sodomy 3 years ago and had to lay low for a while. I truly believe he is a genius and will be remembered long after I am forgotten!
As I mentioned before, I am also very fond of poetry and philosophy. One of my best friends is the exceptional poet Angelo Poliziano. We spend a lot of time debating with our friends, such as the famous philosopher Pico della Mirandola, at Ficcino's Platonic Academy. I made Angelo the teacher of my children, and right now he is safe with my family at our country estate in Cafaggiolo for the winter. However, as I can see from his letters, he is more than unhappy and constantly fighting with my wife Clarice. But I am jumping ahead of things again.
While I was at my uncles place in Rome, being tortured with the basics of banking, I received bad news. My grandfather Cosimo had died. I immediately went home to Florence.
Since my grandfather was such an important person, his death meant a great imbalance in power. The people of Florence assumed that, just like royalty, my father Piero would follow in his footsteps and become the inofficial ruler of the city. But not everybody was happy about it. Even amongst our own friends and business partners, there was disapprovement. Many did not hold my father capable of following in the "Pater Patriae" Cosimo's footsteps. They tried to make him loose power every way they could. Some gave him bad advise in regards to the family business, others spoke openly against him and called for a revolt. Especially the Pitti family, the Neroni and Acciaiuoli, felt very hostile against the Medici regime under my father Piero and wanted the power for themselves, which in 1466 resulted in the Pitti conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow my father and put and end to Medici rule. The plot was unsuccessful and the Medici came out unharmed and just as powerful. I will tell you another time more about it.
Three years later, in 1469, my father decided that it was time for me to marry. Having learned from the Pazzi conspiracy not to trust anybody, he went against all Florentine tradition to marry amongst the powerful families, and send my mother to Rome to look for a suitable wife. Her name was Clarice Orsini, and she came from an old, aristocratic and powerful family, that had strong bonds to the papacy and even their own private army. We got married in March the same year in a glorious ceremony, of which I will tell you another time more. However, sad news were not far away, within month of the wedding, my father passed away. I was 22 years old and destined not only to take over the Medici fortune and business, but also the political power in Florence!
Of course, trouble was not long in coming. One of the conspirators who had been banished by my father had launched an invasion in 1470, which was luckily put down with the help of the major of Prato, Cesare Petrucci, whom I later helped to become "Gonfaloniere" (Lord Major) of Florence, shich in hindsight was a very good move.
Then we ran into political problems at elections some time later, which deminished the power of the Medici for a while. Luckily I was able to install a more Medici friendly government soon after, which granted me even more power than before.
In 1471 I invited Galeazzo Sforza, powerful Duke of Milan and our longtime ally to Florence. It was a spectacular state visit and I will tell you more about it another time. Only so much, this visit and the celebration that we bestowed on Galeazzo really upset another very powerful ruler in the South: Ferrante, King of Naples.
This same year, Pope Paul II died and was succeeded by the more difficult Sixtus IV. We stayed papal bankers for a while, but when the Pope was unhappy about a loan that we could not grant him, he switched quite happily to our archenemies, the Pazzi.
Soon after these events, a riot broke out in the City of Volterra over a very lucrative alum mine that was under Florentine management. We hired our longtime ally, the condottiere Montefeltro, Lord of Urbino, who marched out with his armee. Facing this overpowering threat, the City of Volterra surrendered. But Montefeltro lost control of his soldiers, or at least that is what he said, and they raided and sacked the City instead. It was a great tragedy and I tried everything to make ammends, handing out money to the distressed citizens of Volterra myself. But nothing could disolve the bitter hatred it had caused against Florence and my own person.
In 1476, our great friend and ally, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, was stabbed to death by three nobleman while attending a church service in the Cathedral of Milan on the day after Christmas. The conspirators were punished within days and Galeazzo's 6 year old son Gian Galeazzo Sforza followed him to the thrown. Cicco Simonetta, secretary to Galeazzo Maria, Medici friendly, capable and clever statesman, reigned in his stead for the last 3 years.It was Cicco who repeatedly warned me about an upcoming and inevitable conspiracy and murder plot. But my own intelligence had supplied me with the very same information for years and I did not take his well meant advice too much to heart. It should not take long for me to see what a leathal mistake that was.
The Pazzi were the second wealthiest family in Florence. My sister Bianca was married to Guglielmo de Pazzi, and our two families maintained a friendly rivalry. But underneath all this, Francesco de Pazzi harboured a bitter grudge against my family. He approached other enemies of the Medici, and together with King Ferrante of Naples, Federigo da Montefeltro and Pope Sixtus IV, they secretly plotted a conspiracy to get rid of us for good. The plan was to kill myself and my brother Giuliano at the same time, so there was no chance that one Medici brother would succeed the other. I will talk about the events in more detail later. Let me just tell you this much: My poor brother was brutally murdered during mass in the Cathedral of Florence, and I myself only barely escaped the same fate. With the help of most citizens of Florence and many close Medici supporters, amongst them Gonfaloniere Petrucci, the conspirators were defeated and killed. Because amongst those conspirators were actually relatives of the Pope, Sixtus IV were furious and excommunicated first myself and then the entire City of Florence. He summoned the papal forces under ederigo da Montefeltro and marched against Florence, supported by the troops of King Ferrante of Naples under the Duke of Calabria. At the beginning of Winter most troops retired home as was the tradition, but the city of Florence was still besieged and the population suffered greatly from hunger, unrest and the resulting spread of deseases such as the plague.
This is why at the end of December 1479 I decided to set sail to Naples at once. I was convinced that the action of our enemies is mainly directed by hatred against me, and that by giving myself up to them, I may be able to restore peace to our City.....
