MEDICI, FAMILY OF. 



MEDICI, GUN GIACOMO. 



178 



to assassinate Lorenzo and his brother. Giuliano was killed, but 

 Lorenzo escaped. The people, who were attached to the Medici, 

 collecting in great numbers, put to death or apprehended the assassins. 

 Salviati, archbishop of Pisa, was hung through the windows of the 

 palace, and was not allowed to divest himself even of his robes ; and 

 Jacopo de' Pazzi, with one of his nephews, shared the same fate. 

 The name and arms of the Pazzi family were suppressed, its members 

 were banished, and Lorenzo rose still higher in the regard of his 

 fellow-citizens. 



Sixtus IV., who was a party to this conspiracy, excommunicated 

 Lorenzo and the magistrates of Florence, laid an interdict upon the 

 whole territory, and, forming a league with the king of Naples, pre- 

 pared to invade the Florentine dominions. Lorenzo appealed to all 

 the surrounding potentates, and he was zealously supported by his 

 fellow-citizens. Hostilities were commenced, and carried on for two 

 campaigns. At the close of 1479, Lorenzo took the bold resolution of 

 paying a visit to the king of Naples, and, without obtaining any pre- 

 vious promise of security, trusted himself to the mercy of his enemy. 

 The result of this confidence was a treaty of mutual defence and 

 friendship between the king of Naples and Florence, and Sixtus after- 

 wards consented to a peace. The death of Sixtus IV. freed Lorenzo 

 from a dangerous enemy, and he found a friend in his successor Inno- 

 cent VIII. Lorenzo now secured to the republic of Florence a degree 

 of tranquillity and prosperity which it had scarcely ever known before ; 

 and by procuring the institution of a deliberative body, of the nature 

 of a senat", he corrected the democratic*! part of its constitution. 



Lorenzo distinguished himself above all his predecessors by the 

 encouragement of literature and the arts. His own productions are 

 eonnets, canzoni, and other lyric pieces ; some longer works in stanzas, 

 some comic satires, carnival songs, and various sacred poems. Many 

 of the lighter kind were popular in their day. Although the ancestors 

 of Lorenzo laid the foundation of the immense collection of manuscripts 

 contained in the Laurentian library, Lorenzo has the credit of adding 

 most largely to the stock. For the purpose of enriching his collection 

 of books and antiquities, he employed learned men in different parts 

 of Italy, and especially his intimate friend I'olitian, who made several 

 journeys in order to discover and purchase the valuable remains of 

 antiquity. Two journeys were undertaken at the request of Lorenzo 

 into the East by John LascarU, and the result was the acquisition of 

 a great number of manuscripts. On his return from his second expe- 

 dition, Laacaris brought two hundred manuscript*, many of which he 

 had procured from a monastery at Mount Athos; but this treasure did 

 not arrive till after the death of Lorenzo, who in his last momenta 

 expressed to Politian and Pico of Mirandola his regret that he could 

 not live to complete the collection which he was forming. On the 

 discovery of the art of printing, Lorenzo quickly saw and appreciated 

 its importance. At his suggestion, several Italian scholars devoted 

 their attention to collating the manuscripts of the ancient authors, for 

 the purpose of having them accurately printed. On the capture of 

 Constantinople by the Turks, many learned Greeks took refuge in 

 Italy ; and an academy was established at Florence for the purpose of 

 cultivating the Greek language, partly under the direction of native 

 Greeks, and partly under native Italians. The services of these 

 learned men were procured by Lorenzo, and were amply rewarded by 

 his bounty. " Hence," as Iloscoe observes, " succeeding scholars have 

 been profuse of their acknowledgments to their great patron, who 

 first formed that establishment, from which (to use their own scholastic 

 figure), as from the Trojan horse, so many illustrious champions have 

 sprung, and by means of which the knowledge of the Greek tongue 

 was extended, not only through Italy, but through France, Spain, 

 Germany, and England, from all which countries numerous pupils 

 attended at Florence, who diffused the learning they had there acquired 

 throughout the rest of Europe." 



Lorenzo also augmented his father's collection of the remains of 

 ancient art. He appropriated his gardens in Florence to the purpose 

 of an academy for the study of the antique, which he furnished with 

 statues, busts, and other works of art, the best in their kind that he 

 could procure. The higher claas of his fellow-citizens were incited to 

 these pursuits by the example of Lorenzo ; and the lower class by 

 IIH liberality. To the latter he not only allowed competent stipends 

 while they attended to their studies, but gave considerable premiums 

 as rewards of their proficiency. To this institution, more than to 

 any other circumstance, Roacoe ascribes the sudden and astonishing 

 advance which, toward the cldse of the 15th century, was evidently 

 made in the arts, and which, commencing at Florence, extended 

 iteelf to the rest of Europe. In 1488 Lorenzo lost his wife; and on 

 the 8th of April 1492 he sunk under a slow fever, and expired in the 

 forty-fourth year of his age. Leoni of Spoleto, his physician, a person 

 of great eminence in hu profession, is said to have hastened his death 

 by mistaking his case. 



By his wife, Clarice Orsini, Lorenzo had a numerous family : three 

 ions (Piero, Giovanni, and Giuliano) and four daughters arrived at the 

 age of maturity. Piero was born February 15th, 1471, Giovanni in 

 1475, and Giuliano in 1478. Giovanni was afterward known under the 

 name of Leo X. ; and Giuliano, having allied himself by marriage to 

 the royal houie of France, became Duke of Nemoura. 



Of Giuliano, the brother of Lorenzo, Iloscoo preserves an interesting 

 anecdote. Shortly after the attempt at assassination, he says, " Lorenzo 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. IT. 



received a visit from Antonio da San Gallo, who informed him that 

 the untimely death of Giuliano had prevented his disclosing, to 

 Lorenzo a circumstance with which it was now become necessary that 

 he should be acquainted : this was the birth of a son, whom a lady 

 of the family of Gorini had borne to Giuliano about twelve mouths 

 before his death, and whom Antonio had held over the baptismal 

 font, where he received the name of Giulio. Lorenzo immediately 

 repaired to the place of the infant's residence, and, taking him under 

 his protection, delivered him to Antonio, with whom he remained 

 until he had arrived at the seventh year of his age. This concealed 

 offspring of illicit love, to whom the kindness of Lorenzo supplied the 

 untimely loss of a father, was destined to act an important part in the 

 affairs of Europe. The final extinction of the liberties of Florence, 

 the alliance of the family of Medici with the royal house of France, 

 the expulsion of Henry VIII. of England from the bosom of the 

 Roman church, and the consequent establishment of the doctrines of 

 the reformers in this island, are principally to be referred to this 

 illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, who through various vicissi- 

 tudes of fortune at length obtained the supreme direction of the 

 Roman see, and under the name of Clement VII. guided the bark of 

 St. Peter through a succession, of the severest storms which it has 

 ever experienced." 



PIERO, the eldest son of Lorenzo, succeeded him in the adminis- 

 tration of Florence. Politian said that his father had a favourable 

 opinion of his capacity, but it soon appeared that he was unequal to 

 the task of government With the view of obtaining the sovereign, 

 power at Florence, he formed a more intimate connection with the 

 pope and the king of Naples. On the entrance of the French into 

 Italy under Charles VIII. he deserted his allies. As soon as the 

 French king reached the confines of the Florentine state, Piero had a 

 secret interview with him, in which he was lavish in his offers to 

 promote the interest of the king, and as a pledge of his fidelity sur- 

 rendered to him the important fortress of Sarzaua, with the town of 

 Pietra Santa, and the cities of Pisa and Leghorn. Charles undertook 

 to restore these places as soon as he had accomplished the conquest 

 of the kingdom of Naples. On his return to Florence after this dis- 

 graceful compromise, Piero was refused admittance into the palace 

 of the magistrates, and, finding the people were so highly exasperated 

 against him as to endanger his personal safety, he hastily withdrew 

 himself from his native place to Venice. The miseries which the 

 inhabitants of Italy experienced in consequence of the French 

 invasion belong to the general history of Italy. The plundering of 

 the palace of the Medici, and the dispersion of tbat invaluable library 

 which had been collected by the care of the Medici, were among the 

 misfortunes that befel Florence. The French troops, which had 

 entered the city without opposition, led the way to this act of 

 barbarism, in which they were joined by the Florentines themselves, 

 who openly carried off or purloined whatever they could discover that 

 was rare or valuable. Besides the numerous manuscripts, the plun- 

 derers carried off the inestimable specimens of the arts which the 

 palace of the Medici contained, and which had long made it the admi- 

 ration of strangers and the chief ornament of the city. Exquisite 

 pieces of ancient sculpture, vases, cameos, and gems of various kinds, 

 were lost amidst the indiscriminate plunder, and the rich accumula- 

 tions of half a century were destroyed or dispersed in a single day. 



The subsequent history of Piero was a continual succession of mor- 

 tifications and disappointments. In 1504, when Italy was invaded by 

 Louis XII., Piero entered into the service of the French, and was 

 present at the engagement in which they were defeated by the 

 Spaniards with great loss, upon the banks of the Garigliano. 1 In 

 effecting his escape he attempted to pass the river ; but the boat in 

 which he, with several other men of rank, had embarked, being 

 laden with heavy cannon, sunk in the stream. 



Of the subsequent restoration of the Medici to Florence, an account is 

 given in the life of LEO X., as well as, under COSMO I., of the assassina- 

 tion of Alessandro, and the final extinction of the republic, when Cosmo 

 was elevated to the rank of duke of Florence, and afterwards to that 

 of grand-duke of Tuscany. For more minute details of the house of 

 Medici, the several works may bo consulted from which this notice 

 has been chiefly derived. 



The genealogy of the Medici to the present time is given in a 

 aplendid work but little known, entitled ' Famiglie celebri Italiane,' 

 di P. Litta. The Medici and their descendants are comprised in 

 ' Fascicolo XVII.,' in seven parts, folio, Milan, 1827-30. 



(Modern Universal Hiitory, 8vo, voL xxxvi. ; Noble, Memoirs of 

 the Howe, of Medici, illustrated with genealogical tables ; Teuhove, 

 Memoirs of the House of Medici, translated from the French by Sir R. 

 Clayton, X vols. 4to, Bath, 1797; Iloscoe, Life of Lorenzo de Medici, 

 2 vols. 4to, Lond., 1796 ; and his Life and Pontificate of Leo X,, 

 4 vols.1lto, Liverp., 1805.) 



ME'DICI, GIA'N GIA'COMO, Marquis of Marignano, bora at Milan 

 in 1495, was the son of a steward of the Duke of Milan. He entered 

 early the military profession, in which he showed great courage, accom- 

 panied with a want of all principle. In the war between the Italian 

 powers and the French, for the disputed possession of Lombardy, 

 Medici took the part of his countrymen, and served under Pescara in 

 the campaign of 1522, in which the French were driven out of 

 Lombardy. He acquired the confidence of the Duke Francis Sforza 



N 



