Magnifico (29 page)

IN THE SHORT TERM THE VICTORY OVER VOLTERRA
helped Lorenzo cement his position as the leader of the
reggimento
. Florentines liked nothing better than to put their uppity neighbors in their place, as long as this could be accomplished with a minimum of Florentine blood and treasure. Dino Compagni described his native city as “proud and combative, and rich with unlawful profits, distrusted and feared for its greatness by the nearby cities, rather than loved.” And while Compagni was probably more reflective than most, his fellow citizens would have agreed that there was nothing like good old-fashioned terror to suppress any thoughts of rebellion.

Crowned with the victor’s laurels, Lorenzo’s popularity forced potential rivals underground and persuaded the ambitious that their best hope for advancement was to hitch their wagon to the rising star of Florentine politics. It was around this time that Lorenzo first came to be named in documents as “the first citizen of the republic,” while the Milanese ambassador noted that he was “thinking to achieve more than even Cosimo and Piero had ever done, so far as I understand him.”

But despite his success in the political arena, Lorenzo remained ambivalent about his role as a statesman. Politics took time away not only from more pleasurable pursuits but from areas of life he could ill afford to neglect. For both Cosimo and Piero, political power had been a natural outgrowth of their business activities. Wealth was the key to power in Florence and, conversely, political power was wielded largely in order to protect one’s fortune. Giovanni Rucellai, whose son Bernardo was married to Lorenzo’s sister Nannina, wrote in a revealing passage of his memoirs, “and it seems to me very helpful to remember that in our city of Florence one doesn’t hold on to one’s riches with little difficulty but with very great difficulty. And this because of the many wars of the commune, which requires them to make great expenditures which cause them to demand from her citizens much by way of taxation and frequent loans…. I have found no other way to defend myself than not to make any enemies, because a single enemy can do more harm than four friends can do good; thus, to be on good terms with one’s relatives and in-laws and neighbors and the rest of the citizens of your
gonfalone
.”

Lorenzo was candid about his own motives for accepting the role of first citizen, for, as he explained in his memoirs, “it is ill living in Florence for the rich unless they rule the state.” The cost of public service could prove ruinous. Looking back over his father’s and grandfather’s account books, Lorenzo was astonished to learn that they had expended over 650,000 florins on charitable donations, building projects, and in taxes. It was money well spent, since it contributed to the family’s popularity in the city, but such expenditures could be sustained only as long as the bank upon which the family fortune was built continued to thrive.

The health of the bank, however, was something Lorenzo found difficult to maintain, since the more deeply he delved into politics the less time he had to attend to the minutiae of the family business. Though Lorenzo has long been criticized for his poor management, the bank’s declining fortunes during the years he was at the helm were not entirely his fault. Each local branch—in Rome, Bruges, Venice, London, Lyons, Geneva, Florence, and Naples—was a separate enterprise under the control of a manager whose honesty and ability were essential to success but difficult to judge from the central office in the Via Larga. Communication was slow and incomplete, and Lorenzo was too preoccupied to micromanage his scattered enterprises. In 1470, Lorenzo complained to Tommaso Portinari, manager of the Medici bank in the commercial center of Bruges:

His concerns turned out to be well founded. Left largely to his own devices, Portinari would eventually cost the bank huge losses through his ill-conceived loans.
*

Part of the problem was that, unlike his grandfather, Lorenzo was reluctant to fire those who had proved themselves inept or dishonest. His patience with subordinates was due both to a misplaced sense of loyalty and simple inattentiveness. While the Lyons branch was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in the 1480s, Lorenzo dragged his feet for years before calling to account its manager, his brother-in-law Lionetto Rossi, a delay that shook public confidence in the firm. The sureness of touch and ability to judge character in political matters seemed to desert Lorenzo when it came to business. One on one his ability to bully, cajole, or simply to charm a potential opponent into seeing things his way was a powerful weapon, but he had far less success when forced to operate at a distance as he was compelled to do in managing his far-flung business empire. Junior partners in the various branches, knowing his reluctance to pore through the details of the secret account books, took advantage of him, running up huge debts that they concealed in an avalanche of spurious numbers.

Lorenzo was in many ways less modern in his economic views than his forebears; while Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo, and even Piero had understood that wealth could be created by manipulating numbers on a piece of paper, Lorenzo possessed an old-fashioned prejudice in favor of tangible wealth in the form of real estate. After four generations of prosperity the Medici under Lorenzo were slowly transforming themselves from merchants to landed gentry. Even as his profit margins sank and his debts rose, he continued to purchase additional properties throughout Tuscany. And having become one of the greatest landholders in Italy, he devoted increasing amounts of time to managing his estates. In fact he much preferred the science of agronomy and animal husbandry to the abstract world of accounting. He could size up the quality of a racehorse in an instant—a talent more typical of a feudal knight than an urban merchant—but even hours spent poring over an account book yielded little useful information. He had a depth of feeling for the natural world, conveyed in the vivid descriptions of fields and forests that cause his poems to pulse with life, but little understanding of market conditions. He was rarely bold in seizing a business opportunity and, even more critical, was slow to cut his losses in adverse conditions. In short, the most famous banker in Europe was not much of a businessman.

It must be said in Lorenzo’s defense that the business climate in Florence was less favorable in the second half of the fifteenth century than in the first half. The Medici bank was but one of many struggling to keep its head above water during a period of slow economic decline. By 1495, banking had reached such a low ebb in Florence that the guild of money changers
(l’Arte del Cambio)
, once an economic engine of the city, was forced to close its doors due to dwindling membership. Perhaps most important, Lorenzo was in an impossible bind, forced to neglect his financial affairs in ordert to hold on to the political power that offered the only real means to protect his fortune.

Despite his recent political successes, Lorenzo was always on guard against a reemergence of potential rivals. Francesco Guicciardini spells out some of the “divide and conquer” methods Lorenzo used to ensure that no organized opposition to his rule arose:

This shrewd political operator was a far cry from the young man who, only three years earlier, had ridden into power on the shoulders of the
principali
. Then, these commanding figures were confident they could master the inexperienced youth for their own ends. Now, most had reconciled themselves to a secondary role and faithfully served the young man they thought would serve them.

Lorenzo had matured in other ways, too. In August 1470, Clarice gave birth to their first child, Lucrezia, a happy event that gave Lorenzo a certain gravitas in the eyes of his fellow citizens. For Florentines, nothing defined a man of substance as surely as fathering a child in wedlock. The responsibilities of citizenship were inextricably bound up in the role of fatherhood, the two linked by a shared impulse to make one’s mark in the civic arena. “There are two principal things that men do in this world,” Giovanni Rucellai declared in his memoirs. “The first is to procreate, the second is to build.” In the first of these roles Lorenzo was precocious by Florentine standards; in the second, while never equaling the achievements of his grandfather, he would eventually come into his own, leaving a permanent mark on the city.

By the end of 1473, still a young man of twenty-four, Lorenzo had fathered five children. In addition to Lucrezia, Clarice had delivered twin boys in 1471; born prematurely, they lived only long enough to be baptized. Fortune was kinder when on February 15, 1472, Clarice delivered a healthy boy, Piero, who would ultimately succeed his father as first citizen of Florence. Piero was followed in July of 1473 by a second healthy daughter, Maddalena.

Clarice, clearly, was fulfulling the role assigned to her by nature and by the Medici. It was assumed that after this initial—and admittedly essential—biological contribution, however, she would play only a secondary role in shaping her children’s development. In this patriarchal society the moral and intellectual education of the young was largely left to the head of the household. This was especially true in the case of sons, who were molded by their fathers for the parts they would play in the civic arena. Leon Battista Alberti in his book
On the Family
relegates a mother’s contribution to the first years of life. In reality, busy men like Lorenzo relied heavily on the good sense and nurturing instincts of their wives, while reserving for themselves the right to make all important decisions in shaping their sons’ futures. Fortunately, Clarice was both a loving wife and mother, and Lorenzo knew he could safely entrust the children to her care.

Indeed he had little choice in the matter. Even while he was preoccupied by affairs of state, he insisted on being kept informed of the daily routine he could rarely share. The numerous letters that provide an intimate portrait of Lorenzo’s household were prompted by his frequent absences. They attest to his deep affection for his children, and to his regret at not being able to spend as much time with them as he wished. Among the topics that appear most frequently in these letters—after the necessary reassurances as to everyone’s health—are those that concern the children’s education. Lorenzo was not far removed from his own days of wrestling with Greek and Latin grammars and he insisted that his own children receive an equally solid grounding in the classics. All of his children, but especially Piero, were anxious to impress their father with what they had learned. In 1478, the six-year-old Piero sent the following report to his father: “I write this letter to tell you that we are well. Although I do not yet know how to write well, I will do my best for the present. I will try and do better in future. I have already learnt many verses of Virgil, and I know nearly all the first book of Theodoro [a book of Greek grammar by Theodoro of Faza] by heart, and I think I understand it. The Master makes me decline and examines me every day. Giovanni sometimes comes to Mass with the Master.”

Frequent and prolonged absences did not prevent Lorenzo from making the most of his time with Clarice. By the end of 1479 he had conceived seven healthy children: following Maddalena came his second son, Giovanni, born in 1475; Luigia and Contessina, both in 1478; and, finally, Giuliano in 1479. An engaging family portrait from the year of Giuliano’s birth is provided in a letter from Piero’s hand, written from the rustic retreat at Cafaggiolo: