The Ugly Renaissance (34 page)

This, indeed, was the essence of the “art of dissimulation.” However strong the impulse toward magnificence may have been, Renaissance merchant bankers knew that too overt a display of political influence was bad for business. Carefully managed, patronage of a skillful artist allowed them to represent and create networks of power on a canvas or in a fresco in such a way that an individual could project an aura of prominence yet still remain among the crowd.

Quite apart from the artistic achievements that this form of patronage generated, the beauty of the “art of dissimulation” was that it proclaimed and concealed the dodgy practices that had allowed merchant bankers to dominate the urban politics of the Renaissance. In revealing the networks that controlled government, it highlighted the incestuous relationship between business and politics. In doing so, it also discreetly hinted at the role that debt had played in handing near-absolute power to the individuals who stood at the center of those networks. And in emphasizing such networks over individual status, the “art of dissimulation” discreetly acknowledged the moral stain that accrued to those who had bought their way to the top. Like Mafia consiglieri, bankers like Tornabuoni and the embarrassingly ambitious Lama showed off that they were “made men” by signaling their ties to their Medici
bosses, while the Medici themselves—the
capi dei tutti capi
—ensured that there was always a raft of dependent “friends” between them and the public gaze.

Although he could not entirely overlook the broader message he was intended to derive from the
Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem
, Galeazzo Maria Sforza would have recognized in the portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici a neat encapsulation of the evolution of the merchant banker’s craft, and of the manner in which merchant bankers had adapted their patronage of the arts to address the moral challenges they faced.

In Cosimo’s portrait was inscribed the path that had led the Medici from humble beginnings as money changers to an unrivaled position as bankers to the papacy, and thence to the mastery of Florence. At the same time, his portrait was also testimony to the tremendous guilt of usury, the embarrassment of riches, the allure of ostentation, and the annexation of government to business interests. But most of all, the different layers of meaning embedded in the wizened old man’s painted figure showed that merchant bankers like Cosimo knew how to use the arts to craft a public image far removed from the seamy realities of life.

As Gozzoli’s frescoes show, nothing was quite what it seemed. The more powerful the penitence written into a piece of art, the more greedily the patron had exploited, extorted, and embezzled the money of his clients; the more magnificent the decoration of a chapel or altarpiece, the more prominently bribery and coercion had underpinned profit-making schemes; and the more determinedly a patron hid among his friends and associates, the more certainly had he used his wealth to buy into government itself.

8

M
ERCENARIES AND
M
ADMEN

T
URNING FROM THE
portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici, Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s eyes would have fallen on a proud figure on the far left of Gozzoli’s
Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem
whom he would have recognized immediately as
Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the “Wolf of Rimini.” Riding a tough chestnut steed bred for war, he was every inch the battle-hardened soldier. His chest—puffed out with pride—was broader than any other, his neck was thick as a bull’s, and his handsome jaw was set into a look of hardy resolve. Pointedly hatless, he looked ready for action, positively itching to snatch his sword from its scabbard and have at the enemy. But at the same time, he had a certain panache about him. His clothing was of the highest quality, and his whole bearing radiated a sense of taste and muscular refinement.

Galeazzo Maria would have been compelled to admit that it was a good likeness. He would already have had the opportunity to study Sigismondo at close quarters. Only a few years earlier, the Wolf had sold his services to Duke Francesco of Milan and had often been to the court for councils of war. What was more, Sigismondo had a reputation that preceded him. Not only was he famed as a brave, fearless warrior with an almost unparalleled gift for strategy, but he was also known for his humanistic tastes and had become famous for his patronage of the arts. Indeed, Galeazzo Maria would have found it difficult to disagree with
Pope Pius II’s contention that “
in both mind and body, he was exceedingly powerful, gifted with eloquence, and great military skill, a profound knowledge of history and more than a passing knowledge of philosophy.” As the pontiff opined, “Whatever he attempted, he seemed born to do.”

But what Gozzoli’s portrait didn’t show—at least not directly—was that there was another, much darker side to the Wolf of Rimini. For all of Sigismondo’s merits, “
the evil side of his character had the upper
hand.” This, in fact, was something of an understatement. Despite praising him for his courage and learning, Pius II was in no doubt that he was “
the worst of all men who have ever lived or ever will live, the shame of Italy, the disgrace of our age.”

Sigismondo’s portrait in Gozzoli’s frescoes presented something of a paradox. On the one hand, here was a man who was famous—or, rather, infamous—for having “
no tolerance for peace” and for being “a devotee of pleasure, patient of any hardship, [and] eager for war.” And yet he was evidently a man of culture and refinement. Sigismondo was well-known for his lavish patronage of the arts, and Cosimo de’ Medici—no mean judge of men—thought sufficiently highly of him to include his portrait among the most eminent and learned men of the day.

The paradox went deeper still. Sigismondo was, in many senses, typical of a very particular—but often overlooked—breed of Renaissance patrons, and his portrait was just a tiny snapshot of the world they inhabited. However much Pius II liked to disparage him as the “worst of all men,” Sigismondo was the embodiment of the condottieri of the period, the very archetype of the new mercenary generals who had come to dominate the art of war and who held the fate of Italy in their hands. Violent, brutal, and brilliant men, they raped, pillaged, and murdered their way across the peninsula, earning the disdain of the powerful and casting a shadow of fear wherever they went. Yet, at the same time as their stature and importance grew, they came to play an increasingly important role in the arts, first as the objects of a cult of civic commemoration and later as patrons in their own right. Indeed, they were almost obsessed with the arts. Though their hands were stained with blood, they commissioned paintings, sculptures, churches, and palaces of unparalleled beauty, and their patronage served to elevate artists like
Piero della Francesca to the pantheon of European culture.

If Sigismondo’s apparently perplexing appearance in Gozzoli’s
Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem
and his bewildering obsession with the arts are to be understood, it’s necessary to look behind his portrait and uncover the strange story of the condottieri’s preoccupation with culture, from its origins in the confused warfare of the early Renaissance to its ultimate and terrifying refinement in the mid-fifteenth century. It’s a tale far removed from familiar conceptions of Renaissance patronage: a drama of war and betrayal in which the stars were little more
than hired thugs who teetered constantly on the edge of madness, and who rampaged ruthlessly around Italy with bad attitude and seriously good taste. Indeed, the story is much like a good old shoot-’em-up Western, except that the good aren’t so great, the bad are a lot worse, and the ugly really, really like art.

T
HE
A
RT OF
W
AR

The Renaissance was the golden age of mercenaries. From the very beginning of the period, condottieri dominated the political and military life of Italy and had a stranglehold on the states of the peninsula. Although mercenaries had been commonplace since antiquity, their position in Renaissance Italy was without precedence, and they owed their frightening preeminence to the progressive evolution of warfare from the end of the Middle Ages onward.

By the dawn of the fourteenth century, it was clear not only that the anarchically fragmented states of Italy were doomed to exist in a condition of near-perpetual conflict, but also that war itself was becoming more technologically advanced. Although it was painted in the early fifteenth century,
Paolo Uccello’s three-part
Battle of San Romano
(Uffizi, Florence; National Gallery, London; Louvre, Paris) vividly illustrates the growing complexities of warfare (
Figs. 23
–
25
). Commemorating a battle between Florence and Siena in 1432, Uccello’s scene is a powerful evocation of the violent chaos of war, and the sheer, bloody confusion of it all almost defies the artist’s desperate attempt to use perspective to introduce a measure of order. But among the vicious disorder of the fighting, Uccello also included representations of two of the most important technological developments in early
Renaissance warfare in the background to the first two panels (
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano
;
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino Unseats Bernardino della Ciarda at the Battle of San Romano
). Here, in the fields, a number of armored men are either drawing or firing
crossbows (
balestieri
), and it was the crossbow that was the key to everything. Along with the
longbow, it had transformed the whole nature of armed conflict. With a greater range, impact, and accuracy than anything seen before, the crossbow and the longbow were far superior to the bows and arrows of the Middle Ages, and—as the
Battle of Agincourt was to show—could lead to whole-scale slaughter if properly used.

This had serious implications for the way armies fought. Most obviously, it changed the nature of
armor. The crossbow and the longbow rendered the chain-mail armor previously favored by infantrymen and knights almost useless, and demanded the introduction of heavier plate armor and—in some cases—protection for horses. It is for this reason that in Uccello’s scenes all of the
cavalrymen wear complete suits of armor and even the infantrymen in the background are shown wearing metal cuirasses. These technological shifts also changed the way the all-important cavalry fought. At risk from being shot by crossbow bolts or longbowmen (note the toppled horse in the second of Uccello’s panels), knights could no longer expect to function alone: they needed a horse or two in reserve and a team of supporting infantry to provide suppressing fire and additional protection. The fighting unit of a knight and two or three foot soldiers became known as a lance.

These technological changes made warfare a more professional affair. Crossbows and longbows required a good deal of practice if they were to be used properly, while a lance needed to train together for some time to be fully effective. What was more, plate armor, replacement horses, and even crossbows were expensive, highly specialized items. This posed something of a problem. Even the wealthiest citizens could not be expected to possess such equipment or expertise as a matter of course, and the growing ferocity of the Italian arms race made it impractical for any state to pin its hopes on the meager capabilities of a homegrown volunteer force. Compelled to fight ever-longer and more demanding campaigns, Italian city-states and
signori
were obliged to look elsewhere. If they were to have any success in war, they needed to be able to employ complete units of fully equipped, well-drilled professionals and had to be prepared to use some of their newfound wealth in arming themselves as well as they could.
Mercenaries were the only solution.
From around 1300, “professional mercenaries” hired in large companies “replaced largely native troops as the main components of Italian armies,” while their leaders—the earliest condottieri—replaced indigenous generals as the strategic masterminds of each campaigning season. In fact, the three commanders depicted in
The Battle of San Romano
—
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino,
Micheletto Attendolo, and
Bernardino Ubaldini della Carda—were all condottieri.

During the fourteenth century, the immediate need for sizable numbers of highly skilled mercenaries was met by the sudden and rather
unexpected influx of foreign soldiers into Italy. They came to Italy from all over the continent and by a variety of different routes. Some, especially Germans and Englishmen like
Sir John Hawkwood, were looking for employment after serving in campaigns elsewhere in Europe. Others, mostly Hungarians, Frenchmen, and Catalans, had originally come to the peninsula on invasions launched by foreign rulers such as Louis the Great of Hungary and the Avignon popes, and had stayed behind in the hope of earning a living from their fighting skills. The “foreignness” of these companies was, from the very beginning, a distinct advantage. Nonnatives were unlikely to take sides on “ideological” grounds and hence could be swayed by cash, and at the same time they allowed Italian states access to the very latest military technology (crossbows, longbows, and so on), the masters of which were, by common consent, largely from northern Europe.