A History of the Medici Popes

Herbert Vaughan

• Publisher: Ozymandias Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781531277130
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

IN our efforts to realise the leading events of our own history we experience no small difficulty from the fact that so much of the face of England has completely altered its outward appearance under the stress of modern development, so that we find it particularly hard to picture to ourselves their original setting. Our overgrown yet ever-spreading capital owns scarcely a feature to-day in common with the London of the Tudors or Plantagenets; the relentless pushing of industrial enterprise has turned whole shires from green to black, from verdant countryside to smoke-grimed scenes of commerce. It is therefore well-nigh impossible for us in many cases to conjure up the old-world conditions of Merrie England. But in writing of Italian annals we are confronted by no such problem: altered to a certain extent no doubt is the pres­ent aspect of Italy, yet in Florence, Venice, Siena and most of her cities we still possess the empty stages of the pageants and deeds of long ago, all ready prepared for us to people with the famous figures of the historic past...

THE COURT OF LEO X

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IT WAS THE BOAST OF succeeding ages that the first Medicean Pope in his reign revived the sunken glories of classical Rome and made the Eternal City once more the true intellectual and artistic centre of the western world, attracting thither every poet and scholar, every painter and sculptor, every scientist and traveller to receive a warm welcome and a due reward for his talents or his services to mankind at the hands of the Supreme Pontiff. Certain it is that the court of the Vatican under Leo X. was in reality the most brilliant, the most cultured, and withal the most extravagant that Europe had beheld since the days of Imperial Rome, and that Leo himself moved perpetually in an atmosphere of flattery and splendour such as no Pontiff had hitherto experienced. The accession indeed of this Medicean prince, in whom past years of indigence and obscurity had only served to inflame a natural taste for art, literature, amusement and magnificence in every form, opened a new era in the annals of Rome; an era which later writers have not without reason christened the Leonine Age; whilst the city itself, named by contemporaries “the Light and the Stage of the World,” became at once the chosen seat of fashion and of learning, the home of the courtier no less than the haunt of the poet. Thus was Rome under Leo X. able to foreshadow the position held by Paris during the most splendid years of the Roi Soleil, whose personality has not a few points in common with that of the first Medicean Pope. Unfortunately, magnificence can only be obtained by reckless profusion, and a brilliant court has ever been shown to be a corrupt one; indeed, the patronage of Leo X. and the majesty of Louis XIV. proved in each case a fore-runner of disaster and humiliation at no distant date.

Leo may almost be described as having breathed a literary and artistic atmosphere from his cradle. The erstwhile pupil of the versatile Politian and the erudite Demetrius of Chalcedon, and the son of a poet, Giovanni de Medici had not only been at an early age accounted a perfect Latin scholar, but also an enthusiastic student of Greek letters; whilst inherited tastes led him to appreciate the various writings in the Italian vernacular, which the classical pedants of that age affected to despise. He had a passion for all books and manuscripts, both in the dead and living languages, and these he devoured with avidity, remembering and quoting their contents out of an excellent memory. In Rome he had long been recognised as a generous patron of literature in every form, and many a needy scholar had received a warm welcome at the Florentine cardinal’s palace, which latterly contained the glorious library collected by his own ancestors, but later confiscated by the Florentine Republic. This unique library the Cardinal had by some means contrived to repurchase in 1508, in which year its valuable contents, twice paid for by succeeding Medici, were brought to Rome and later were removed to the Vatican. This historic collection, one of the most important and interesting in the world, was again removed by Clement VII. back to Florence and placed in a building near the church of San Lorenzo, specially designed for its reception by Michelangelo and celebrated to-day as the Laurentian Library. But Leo in his youth had aspired to become something more than a mere patron, for he actually attempted to compose music and also to produce Latin verses, which were loudly applauded by the partakers of his bounty, although the only existing specimen of his Muse does not offer much either of originality of thought or charm of diction. Indeed, the poem in question—an ode in the Iambic metre upon an antique statue of Lucretia, excavated in some Roman ruins—has only drawn the faintest of praise from Leo’s enthusiastic English biographer, who criticises his hero’s attempt “as affording a sufficient proof, that if he had devoted a greater share of his attention to the cultivation of this department of letters, he might not wholly have despaired of success “, But the worst poet often makes the best of patrons; and the election of Leo X. at once aroused the warmest speculation in the minds of the learned world of Rome, of Italy, and even of Europe. Nor were these eager hopes doomed to disappointment, for that ideal reign of Minerva, for which poets and scholars had long been sighing, became under Leo a reality that surpassed the wildest dreams of the Humanists who applauded the Conclave’s choice. For the pontificate of Leo X. was in very truth the golden age of classical learning; an age wherein scribblers of choice Latin odes or composers of fulsome epigrams gained such rewards as satisfied the most conceited; an age of generous, if indiscriminate and undiscriminating patronage; an elaborate orgy of learning and pseudo-learning; a millenium of poets and poetasters, of triflers, play-writers, musicians, singers, pedants and of every sort of personage who could amuse. Real native genius alone suffered the danger of neglect in this ecclesiastical Parnassus, so that men are nowadays only too apt to remember that the three chief contemporary writers in Italy—Ludovico Ariosto the poet, Francesco Guicciardini the historian, and Niccolo Machiavelli the unrivalled statesman—obtained but a scanty share of that golden stream of patronage which flowed like a veritable Pactolus from its fount of honour at the Vatican. Yet Leo’s love for learning was deep and sincere, nor was his liberality, although it failed to reach Ariosto, wholly confined to those mediocrities, the Neo-Latinists, whose output of graceful Latin verse actually exceeded in the few years of his reign the total surviving mass of genuine classical literature. For it was Leo who called the great Greek professor Lascaris to Rome, and gave every opportunity for the editing and printing of the masterpieces of ancient Greece. He protected the Roman Academy and revived its sunken glories; he reorganised the University of Rome, and conferred such benefits upon it that his name and memory were annually kept green by a special service held within its precincts for nearly four centuries; a pious practice which only ceased in modern times with the annexation of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy.

Almost the first act of Leo, dating from the Conclave which elected him, was the appointment of Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto as papal secretaries-of-state. These two writers, both favourable specimens of the scholar-ecclesiastic, who adorned the court of the cultured Leo, were selected for this high position on account of their ripe learning and elegant Latin rather than of their piety or attention to duty. But though guilty of moral failings, which the age laughed at rather than condemned in the case of a court prelate, the names of Bembo and Sadoleto undoubtedly shed a lustre on the reign of their master, whom they served well and faithfully on many diplomatic missions, and whose letters and despatches they composed in the choicest of Ciceronian Latin. The high favour shown to Bembo and Sadoleto not unnaturally aroused the envy of other aspiring Neo-Latinists, who in their turn easily obtained offices and preferment by reason of their learned or witty conversation and their capacity to produce poems and treatises in the dead languages. Thus there rose to fame and affluence a host of persons whose names alone would fill many pages, amongst them being the Neapolitan poets, Tebaldeo and the more famous Sannazzaro, who rated himself a second and superior Vergil; Vida, the author of the Christiad; the elegant Molza of Modena; Fracastoro, the bard-physician, who chose a most unpleasant theme for his principal poem: that conceited but inferior genius, Bernardo Accolti of Arezzo, “ the Only Aretine “—l’ Unico Aretino,—as Ariosto styled him at a court which would have considered crazy anyone daring to prefer his own impassioned cantos to the vapid productions of Accolti. This last was perhaps the favourite, the primus inter pares, of that band of fawning Neo-Latinists on whom Leo was wont to shower bishoprics, canonries, governorships and public offices of all kinds; the lucky members of which sometimes received a purse of five hundred pieces of gold in return for a flattering epigram, or an abbey for a poem in the manner of Horace or Vergil to celebrate a day’s hunting in the Campagna. It was an age that mistook the glitter of tinsel for pure gold, that deliberately preferred the frigid and artificial productions of an Accolti or a Bembo to the immortal stanzas of an Ariosto. For in spite of natural talents, which the harshest critic has never dared to impugn, Leo in his pronounced partiality for the Latin tongue—that bond of the literary brotherhood of all Europe—failed to distinguish between the excellent and the mediocre; he could pass by Ariosto’s appeals with benevolent but condescending praise, yet in Accolti’s case he must needs fling open the doors of the Vatican to the crowd and proclaim a general holiday, in order that the citizens of Rome might not lose an opportunity of hearing the recitations of one who surpassed all the poets of antiquity; he could bestow a friendly kiss on the cheek of the court-bard of Ferrara, but the gold and the public appreciation were reserved for a pompous pedant such as “the Only Aretine “. And in this case Leo’s neglect of his old friend Ariosto must be adjudged ungrateful as well as ungenerous;—"until the time when he went to Rome to be made a leo,” writes the poet with suppressed bitterness in his Fourth Satire, “ I was always agreeable to him, and he himself apparently loved few better than myself. . . . Whilst the Lion was a whelp, he fondled his playmate the spaniel, but when he arrived at lion’s estate, he found so many foxes and wolves about his den, that he cared little for his former playfellow.” Various theories have been propounded to account for the Pope’s coldness towards the first Italian poet of his age, and certain writers have affected to find its true explanation in Ariosto’s political attachment to the House of Este rather than in an obvious lack of understanding of the merits of the Orlando Furioso. But whatever the cause, it remains an indisputable fact, that whilst the Vidas, the Beroaldos and the Accoltis found ample encouragement and wealth at Leo’s court, the great poet of Ferrara was soon made to realise that his presence in Rome was superfluous, if not irksome to the Papal Maecenas. With regard to Guicciardini, as a prominent compatriot and a supporter of the Medici, the Florentine Livy obtained high diplomatic posts, although his talents as a historian were ignored. Concerning Leo’s recognition of Machiavelli’s unique genius, we have only to record that such little attention as he received proceeded from the Cardinal Giulio de Medici rather than from the Pope. And the same want of sympathy is to be observed in the case of the leading scholar outside Italy, for notwithstanding the court paid him by Erasmus, who dedicated his famous Greek Testament to the Pontiff, Leo ever refrained from inviting the greatest of the Humanists to Rome; in spite too of the latter’s unmistakable hints for such a favour. For in April, 1515, Erasmus had written a long letter to the Pontiff, first excusing himself for his assurance in addressing “one who is as high above Mankind, as is Mankind above the brutes “ ; and concluding with the words, “ Oh, that it were granted me to throw myself at your most holy feet and imprint a kiss thereon!” But although Erasmus was obviously so anxious to visit Rome and often spoke of his longing to return thither, his desiderium Romae, His Holiness did little for him beyond accepting graciously the dedication of Erasmus’ Testament and giving him a letter to Henry VIII. of England. Even granting, therefore, that Leo’s indifference to the claims of Erasmus, Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Ariosto has been unfairly pressed by some modern critics, the simple fact remains that the four leading men of letters of that age received scant attention and less recompense in the golden days of Pope Leo X.

Ranking below the classical scholars and literary prelates of the court, but almost equally favoured by this Papal Maecenas, were the musicians, buffoons and improvvisatori. “It is difficult to judge,” remarks the satirist, Pietro Aretino, who accepted Leo’s bounty for some years, “whether the merits of the learned or the tricks of the fools afforded most delight to His Holiness.” In the science of music Leo, who possessed a correct ear as well as a pleasing voice, displayed an intense interest, sometimes even himself condescending to take part in ditties, on which occasions he used invariably to bestow purses of gold upon his lucky fellow-performers;—"when he sings with anyone, he presents him with 200 ducats and even more”; so writes the Venetian ambassador to his government. But usually Leo preferred to listen in a state of dreamy rapture, softly humming the melody to himself and gently waving a white be-jewelled hand in response to the rhythm of the song or to the delicate strains of Brandolini’s violin. For Raffaele Brandolini, the blind musician and improvvisatore, was a particular favourite with Leo —"he was the apple of the Pope’s eye"—and it was one of the patron’s delights to arrange friendly contests between Brandolini and another violin-player, Marone of Brescia, whose interesting face is so well known to us from Raphael’s beautiful portrait. Both these musicians ranked likewise as the leading improvvisatori of the court, where, they were wont to practise that art of giving expression to poetical feeling in impromptu verse which is peculiar to Italy, and was at that date especially appreciated by the Florentines. Leo, like his father before him, loved these duels of wit and poetry, which sometimes took the form of spoken arguments in Latin elegiacs; indeed, the Pontiff himself on more than one occasion proved himself as skilful in these contests as any professional member of his court. This curious Italian art probably reached its height of elegance, and also of abuse, at the gay court of Leo, who not only applauded the choice extemporary verses and sweet melodies of Marone and Brandolini, but loved likewise to extract uproarious fun from the efforts of their feebler and less refined imitators. An unfortunate creature, Camillo Querno by name, but universally termed the Arch-Poet, who had composed a ridiculous epic of twenty thousand lines and had been formally crowned in derision by the wits of the Roman Academy with a wreath of laurel, cabbage and vine leaves in allusion to his bad verses and his drunken habits, was occasionally invited to improvise at the Pope’s table. Plied with strong wines till he could scarce stand upright and besought to spout his halting hexameters, the poor wretch was continually insulted and quizzed in the presence of His Holiness, who even stooped on one occasion to bandy repartee with Querno. Turning towards the Arch-Poet, already hopelessly intoxicated, the Pontiff in his blandest manner begged him to repeat an impromptu hexameter.

“ Archipoeta facit versus pro mille poetis,”

(Worthy a thousand poets thine Arch-Bard,)

hiccoughed Querno in reply to the Pope’s challenge; whereupon Leo at once observed with mock severity—

“ Et pro mille aliis Archipoeta bibit.”

(Of all the poets none e’er drank so hard.)

With throat parched from his recent recitation, the Arch-Poet next addressed his host thus:—

“ Porrige quod faciat mihi carmina docta Falernum “ ;

(Grant me good wine to make my songs more sweet;)

to which sentiment Leo retorted in tones of solemn warning :—

“ Hoc enim enervat debilitatque pedes.”

(Wine enervates the brain and clogs the feet.)

This spectacle of the tipsy Arch-Poet being chaffed by “the Jupiter of Earth,” “the Thunderer of the Vatican,” “the Thirteenth Apostle” (as one clerical flatterer did not scruple to address the first Medicean Pope), does not afford us an edifying picture of the Roman court; but that love of low buffoonery and insatiable craving for amusement, which seem to have been innate both in Lorenzo the Magnificent and in his second son, were destined to lead the Pontiff into yet more outrageous follies. A certain Baraballo, a priest of Gaeta and a man of good family and reputation, was unhappily for his own peace of mind an indifferent spinner of rhymes, who fancied his own feeble compositions fully equal to those of Petrarch, and therefore worthy of special recognition from the Supreme Pontiff.

Arrived in Rome, the foolish Baraballo openly announced the true cause of his visit, whereupon the courtiers, scenting the possibility of a merry escapade at the expense of the poet’s conceit and incapacity, at once set to flatter the vain aspirant to the top of their bent. A public coronation on the Roman Capitol, argued they, such as Petrarch had once received, could scarcely afford sufficient recompense to such a Heaven-sent genius, and the foolish old fellow swallowed all this nonsense without for a moment perceiving how the whole court from the Pope downward was giggling with suppressed mirth at the crude and inane verses he was made daily to recite. Finally, Leo himself with honeyed words of encouragement persuaded the conceited poet to demand a coronation on the Capitol, such as had been conceded to his master, or rather fore-runner, the divine Petrarch. In spite of the entreaties of his horrified family, who saw with shame and indignation the mean trick that was being played on their elderly relative, Baraballo’s self-sufficiency was so boundless that he fell easily into the cruel trap prepared for him. He even listened to the Pope’s suggestion that the elephant, which King Manuel I. of Portugal had recently sent as a present to His Holiness and the like of which had not been seen in Rome since the days of the Empire, should be gorgeously caparisoned for this very purpose, so that the unique bard might ride on the unique quadruped from the Vatican to the Capitol, where the coveted laurel wreath awaited him. All Rome hastened to be present at so strange an exhibition; the windows and terraces of the Vatican were filled with cardinals, nobles and prelates, all striving to conceal their pent-up mirth; whilst “ the Jupiter of Earth “ himself, seated in a convenient balcony, smilingly surveyed the animated scene through his spy-glass. With some difficulty the latter-day Petrarch, clad in a scarlet toga fringed with gold, was lifted into a richly decorated saddle on the animal’s back, and his sandalled feet thrust into a pair of gilded stirrups. The merriment of court and populace alike was now at its height; the affair was, in fact, the extreme triumph of Renaissance practical joking. “I could never have believed,” writes Paolo Giovio, who was an eye-witness both of the splendours and the follies of the Leonine Age as well as of the horrors of the sack of Rome which succeeded them, —” I could never have believed in such an incident, if I had not seen it myself and actually laughed at it: the spectacle of an old man of sixty bearing an honoured name, stately and venerable in appearance, hoary-headed, riding upon an elephant to the sound of trumpets ! “ For to the accompaniment of music and the now unrestrained laughter of the whole assembly, this strange procession with Baraballo in antique festal robes, perched proudly aloft on an Indian elephant led by its impassive oriental keeper, began its progress towards the Capitol, where the eager poet looked to receive the expected crown of merit. But the shouts of the populace, the braying of the trumpets, and the general absurdity of the whole proceeding so alarmed the sagacious beast, which certainly owned more sense than the rider on its back, that it positively refused to cross the bridge at Sant’ Angelo, whereupon Baraballo was forced to dismount amidst roars of laughter from the Pope to the meanest street-urchin. So tickled with this feat was the merry Pope, that he at once commissioned Gian Barile, who was then engaged in carving the beautiful doors and shutters in the Vatican, to introduce the elephant’s picture into the cornice he was at that moment designing, and even the Prince of Painters was requested to confer immortality by his brush upon Baraballo’s steed. It is not surprising, however, to learn that graver men in Rome, particularly foreign ambassadors and chance visitors, were not a little scandalised by this elaborately planned and unfeeling jest, as well as at the plain circumstance that the most august personage in Christendom could obtain satisfaction out of such frivolity. Yet Leo was a true Florentine, and this disagreeable type of practical joking was prevalent in his native city, where even at the present day a carefully prepared hoax at the expense of a conceited compatriot is reckoned as the highest form of human wit; nor are recent instances of this antiquated form of elaborate and heartless merriment wanting in the provincial town which was once the capital of Tuscany.

Another markedly Florentine trait in the Pope’s character was his intense and never-failing delight in the antics and jests of dwarfs and buffoons, numbers of whom haunted the Vatican, where every description of silly prank was played upon human beings who are nowadays regarded as the objects of pity rather than of sport. Taste in viands and in amusement has changed so completely, that it is difficult to realise that in Leo’s days the presence of the half-crazy or the deformed at the banquet was reckoned fully as essential as the strange indigestible dishes that no modern palate would tolerate. Many and many a time was the Pope’s table set in a roar by the sight of these hungry sycophants greedily devouring carrion that had been disguised in rich sauces under the impression they were eating choice meats daintily prepared; or by the dexterity of some brutal courtier, who had contrived to hit one of these poor creatures full in the face with a bone or a hot batter pudding; even the very lacqueys were permitted to pander to their masters’ perverted sense of the ridiculous by teasing and bullying these papal parasites.

On a higher plane than these buffoons was the arch-jester of the court, the redoubtable Fra Mariano Fetti, a personage of some distinction, since he had succeeded the great arc...