754 



MEDICI. 



a footing, whirl), iiniil his death, insured to her i'uU 

 security and ample scope to extend and confirm 

 her prosperity. Great Josses induced him to give 

 up commerce, which the Medici had always car- 

 ried on, though, indeed, by agents who were fre- 

 quently treacherous or inefficient. These losses had 

 reduced him to such a want of money, that he was 

 often compelled to borrow large sums from the 

 public treasury ; yet, when he withdrew his 

 property from trade, he was sufficiently wealthy to 

 purchase princely domains, and not only to adorn 

 them with palaces of regal splendour, but also to 

 ornament Florence with elegant edifices. In the 

 long peace, which his wisdom procured for the 

 republic, he entertained the Florentines with ele- 

 gant and splendid festivals himself, with the society 

 of the most distinguished literati of his age, whom 

 (as, for instance, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Agnolo 

 da Montepulciano, Christopher Landini, and, above 

 all, the great John Pico of Mirandola) his fame and 

 his invitation had attracted to Florence, and his 

 princely munificence rewarded. He increased the 

 Medicean library, so rich in manuscripts, founded by 

 Cosmo in 1471. He also opened a school of the 

 arts of design, in a palace adorned with ancient 

 statues and excellent paintings. All, who in this 

 age had gained a reputation in Florence for great 

 talents, shared his patronage. Lorenzo was there- 

 fore surnamed the Magnificent. Honoured by all 

 the princes of Europe, beloved by his fellow-citizens, 

 he died in 1492, and with him the glory of his 

 country. See Fabroni's Vita Law. Medicis (Pisa, 

 1784, 2 vols. 4to), and William Roscoe's Life of 

 Lorenzo dtf Medici. The Opere di Lorenzo de' 

 Medici, detto il Magnifico, were published at Florence 

 in 1826, in a splendid edition, at the expense of the 

 grand duke Leopold II., and contain the first com- 

 plete collection of his poems (4 vols. quarto). 



Lorenzo left three sons, Piero, married to Alfon- 

 sina Orsini ; G iovanni, at the age of fourteen car- 

 dinal, and afterwards pope Leo X.; and Giuliano, 

 duke of Nemours. Piero, the new head oftthe state, 

 was wholly unqualified for the place. In two years, 

 he had alienated the duke of Milan and the king of 

 France from the republic, and, by his imprudence 

 and weakness, but particularly by the disgraceful 

 peace of Serezna, had made himself despised and 

 hated by the Florentines, who would willingly have 

 honoured his great father in him. He was, in conse- 

 quence, divested of the government, and banished, 

 with his whole family. After several attempts, by 

 fraud, or force, to return, Piero lost his life (1504) in 

 the battle of the Garigliano, being drowned in this 

 river, where he was with the French army. In 1513, 

 his brother, the cardinal Giovanni, by an insurrection 

 raised by the popular preacher Hieronymus Savon- 

 arola, obtained a re-establishment in his native city, 

 and when he became pope, in 1514 ; he elevated his 

 family again to its pristine splendour. Piero's son, 

 Lorenzo, created by the pope duke of Urbino, was 

 the head of the state, though always without the 

 princely title, and with the preservation of the 

 republican forms. He died in 1519. Julius, a 

 natural son of the Giuliano who was murdered in 

 1478, ascended the papal throne, in 1523, under the 

 title of Clement VII., and, in 1533, Catharine, 

 Lorenzo's daughter, became the wife of Henry II., 

 king of France ; after which events, the speedy dis- 

 solution of the semblance of liberty at Florence was 

 readily foreseen. The Florentines, indeed, seemed 

 on the point of recovering their ancient freedom, 

 when they banished, in 1527, the vicious Alessandro ; 

 but this was the last ebullition of republican spirit. 

 At the persuasion of Clement II. Charles V. besieged 

 Florence in 1531, and after its capture reinstated 



Alessandro, made him duke of Florence, and gave him 

 his natural daughter, Margaret, in marriage. At first, 

 the nation loved him for his affability ; but finally he 

 gave himself up to a licentious course of life. He 

 was the first independent duke of Florence. When 

 Alexander, the last descendant of the great Cosmo, 

 had been murdered by Lorenzo de Medici (a lineal 

 descendant from Cosmo's brother Lorenzo), in 1537, 

 the Florentines made a weak attempt to re-establish 

 the republic ; but Charles V. again attacked them, 

 and his power promoted Cosmo I. (who belonged to 

 another branch) to the dukedom of Florence. Cosmo 

 I. possessed, as did his successors, the art, but not 

 the virtues, of the great Medici to whom he owed his 

 power. To confirm hfe greatness, he. made it his 

 chief object to exterminate the Strozzi, the heredi- 

 tary enemies of his house, in 1554. To protect the 

 commerce of the Levant against the Turks, he 

 founded a new religious order, that of St Stephen. 

 He was a great amateur and collector of antiquities 

 and pictures, and founded the extensive collection of 

 statues of celebrated men, and constantly increased 

 the collection of statues in the garden of Lorenzo 

 the Magnificent. The foundation of the Florentine 

 academy, and of the academy of design, in 1562, is 

 due to him. After he had made himself master of 

 Sienna, with the assistance of Spain, in 1557, and by 

 several other acquisitions had extended the domin- 

 ions of Florence, he obtained from pope Pius V. the 

 title of grand duke of Tuscany ; but his son and suc- 

 cessor, Francis, first procured, from the emperor 

 Maximilian II., whose sister Joanna he married, the 

 confirmation of this title, in 1575, for a large sum of 

 money. Francis's second wife, the celebrated Vene- 

 tian, Bianca Capello, was declared, by the senate of 

 her country, daughter of the republic, in order to 

 make her worthy of this alliance. His daughter 

 Maria became, the wife of Henry IV. of France. 

 This branch of the Medici had not, like that which 

 became extinct with Alessandro, given up com- 

 merce ; even when princes, Cosmo I., Francis, and 

 his brother Ferdinand I. (at that time cardinal), who 

 succeeded him, likewise an ardent lover of the arts, 

 as also Cosmo II., the son of the last (who succeeded 

 in 1609), continued engaged in it, and Francis even 

 continued the retail traffic, which Ferdinand gave 

 up. Under these grand dukes the arts and sciences 

 flourished at Florence, and, in this circumstance, as 

 well as in the artful policy of the government (espe- 

 cially in the delicate situation of affairs between 

 France and Spain), was recognised the spirit of the 

 great Medici of the fifteenth century. But the state 

 of things was changed under Ferdinand II., son of 

 Cosmo II., who, in 1621, came to the government at 

 the age of eleven years. During his minority, the 

 clergy, and through it the papal see, acquired a 

 very pernicious influence in the administration and 

 persuaded him, contrary to the policy of his father, 

 to throw himself into the arms of Spain and Austria 

 an alliance made use of by these courts to drain 

 immense sums of money from the treasury of the 

 Medici, which was thought to be inexhaustible. He 

 governed forty-nine years, and his son, Cosmo III., 

 austerely brought up, and destitute of all political 

 capacity, fifty-three years, from 1670 to 1723 a 

 century in which Tuscany was reduced to the most 

 deplorable state, by an enormous national debt, and 

 by an exhaustion of all the sources of national 

 wealth. Fortunately for this country, John Gasto, 

 son of Cosmo III., was the last of his family once so 

 glorious, but now degenerated beyond hope of re- 

 covery. He died in 1737, after an inefficient reign, 

 and, in compliance with the terms of the peace of 

 Vienna (1735), left his duchy to the house of Lor- 

 raine. Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and graii'l 



