Magnifico (60 page)

“surrounded by a crowd of children”:
Gentile Becchi to Piero de’ Medici, June 3, 1454, Trexler,
Public Life in Renaissance Florence,
429.

“Lord of the Baths”:
F. W. Kent, “The Young Lorenzo,” in
Lorenzo the Magnificent,
7.

“I do not know of riches”:
Lorenzo,
Selected Poems and Prose,
“The Supreme Good,” lines 45–51.

“some solitary and shaded place”:
Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Commento de’ Miei Sonetti,
4.

“my most dear friend”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, 4.

“who wishes to be named notary”:
Ibid., I, 5.

“to look after our affairs”:
Ibid. I, 7.

“
You have arrived at Milan later than I thought”:
Ross,
Lives,
93.

to name but one menu:
Ibid., 269.

“Yesterday after leaving Florence”:
Poliziano to Clarice de’ Medici, April 8, 1476, ibid., 178.

“I have the feeling that the days of Cicero”:
Manchester,
A World Lit only by Fire,
105.

One day it happened that Nicolao Nicoli:
da Bisticci, 310.

“Do not ask how he enjoys his present studies”:
Maguire, 201.

“Wonders are many on earth”:
Davies, 117.

“O great and wonderful happiness”:
Pico della Mirandola,
On the Dignity of Man,
5.

“The nutriment of every art is honor”:
Lorenzo to don Federigo, Ross, 88.

“Lorenzo is learning the verses”:
February 1457, ibid., 60.

“other self, both in nature and in will”:
Ficino to Giuliano de’ Medici Ficino,
Letters,
no. 61, 80.

no better or closer friend:
Rochon, 28.

“he is always wanting to win”:
F. W. Kent,
Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence,
129–30.

“thinking to achieve more”:
Ibid., 62.

“[Cosimo] was just as sharp”:
Ficino to Lorenzo, Ficino,
Letters,
no. 86, 108.

“[Lorenzo] was so devoted to religion”:
Valori, 25.

“The soul is only avid for the good”:
Lorenzo,
Selected Poems and Prose,
“The Supreme Good,” lines 79–80.

“Do not meddle with priests”:
Holmes, 19.

“Let him pass”:
Luchinat, 369.

“growing rapidly in all directions”:
Alessandro Martelli to Piero de’ Medici, May 4, 1465, Kent, “The Young Lorenzo,”
Lorenzo the Magnificent,
10.

“Our Lord the King”:
Ross,
Lives,
159.

from any hand but his:
Valori, 85.

“Lorenzo was of above average height”:
Ibid., 29.

“for this he was much obliged to nature”:
Ibid., 30.

“showed himself in a temper”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere, I
, 177.

“My dear Lorenzo”:
Braccio Martelli to Lorenzo, March 1466, in Rochon, 125.

“You don’t make your sons work in a shop”:
Rocke, 135.

“because when they are younger”:
Rochon, 127.

“going out at night wenching”:
Becchi to Lorenzo, January 29, 1471, in Rochon, 128.

“If you were with me”:
Luigi Pulci to Lorenzo, April 1465, Pulci,
Lettere,
I.

“Thus, considering both his voluptuous life”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
viii, 36.

“he who lies the best is happiest”:
Lorenzo,
Selected Poems and Prose,
“The Supreme Good,” line 64.

“Our Maeceneas”:
Benedetto Coluccio, 1468; Kent, “The Young Lorenzo,” in
Lorenzo the Magnificent,
3.

“As I have not had money to spend”:
Pulci,
Lettere,
XIV.

“Short in stature”:
Giovanni Corsi, in Ficino,
Letters,
no. 26.

“Now if you are not sorry for this”:
Lorenzo to Ficino, ibid., no. 23.

“Who would have believed it?”:
Lorenzo to Ficino, ibid., no. 28.

“I was indeed delighted with your letter”:
Lorenzo to Ficino, ibid., no 84.

“[I]n the last years of his life”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 7.

“Mourning accords not with your age”:
Ross,
Lives,
64–65.

“When we are going to our country-house”:
Maguire, 56.

“[Cosimo] began to recount all his past life”:
Ross,
Lives,
75.

“I record that on the 1st August 1464”:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo Avanti il Principato, filza 163, 2 recto.

“these were vain hopes”:
Tranchedini to Francesco Sforza, July 12, 1464, in Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
155.

CHAPTER IV: HOPE OF THE CITY

twenty-five
braccie
of cloth:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo Avanti il Principato, filza 163, 3 verso.

It details such trivial expenditures:
Ibid., filza 163.

“this death has given many of the citizens”:
Alessandra Strozzi,
Selected Letters,
no. 19, September 15, 1464.

“despite this, upon his death”:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
117.

possibly on the advice of Dietisalvi Neroni:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 10.

“to be buried without pomp or show”:
Ross,
Lives,
75.

Machiavelli later claimed that all the citizens:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 7.

On the second day of August 1464:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
57.

“[Cosimo] refused to make a will”:
Ross,
Lives,
152–53.

“the hope of the city”:
Brown,
Bartolomeo Scala
, 41.

“the absent senator”:
Ibid., 48.

“I have consulted with the citizens”:
Ross,
Lives,
94–95. May 11, 1465.

“Lorenzo was young”:
Commines, II, 393.

“youthful virtue”:
Ficino,
Letters,
no. 29.

“[H]e delighted in facetious and pungent men”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VIII, 36.

“Perhaps it is better to have a pretty wife”:
Strozzi,
Letters,
no. 44. Alessandra Strozzi to Filippo degli Strozzi, March 29, 1465.

“was worthy of being included”:
Valori, 24.

“No one even of his enemies”:
Francesco Guicciardini,
History of Florence,
IX.

“Lorenzo was endowed by nature”:
Rinuccini,
Ricardi Storici,
cxlvii.

“[T]he tyrant needs to show himself superior”:
Davie,
Half-serious Rhymes,
113.

“is not to exceed his orders in any way”: Lettere,
I, 41.

Neroni in particular was engaged:
See Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, 14–15, for a discussion of Dietisalvi Neroni’s intrigues.

“you should regard yourself”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, 15. Piero to Lorenzo, May 11, 1465.

“do not spare any expense”:
Ibid.

“very well-disposed towards our city”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, 7.

“I do not know how I can begin to thank”:
Lorenzo,
Lettere,
I, no. 10. Lorenzo to Bianca Maria and Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

CHAPTER V: DEVIL’S PARADISE

“be the death of the city”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
160.

So strong was the momentum for reform:
Ibid., 163.

“a great crowd”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 14.

“Not without cause”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
164.

“a man both proud and bold”:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
89.

“some honorable excuse”:
Clarke,
The Soderini and the Medici,
49.

“the people called down blessings”:
Landucci, 4.

“Piero di Cosimo”:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
90.

“Piero has well demonstrated”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
168.

questionable business dealings:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
90.

“Niccolò went in boldly”:
Alessandra Strozzi,
Selected Letters,
193.

“[I]n this bill”:
Rinuccini,
Ricordi Storici,
xcvi–xcvii.

“a paradise inhabited by devils”:
Rubin and Wright,
Renaissance Florence.
Agnolo Acciaiuoli to Filippo Strozzi.

“greater than any other that had been built”:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 5.

[Piero’s] reputation was much diminished:
Parenti,
Ricordi Storici,
122.

Only seven years earlier:
Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
VII, 4.

“You raise your ladder to the heavens”:
Bisticci, 225.

“a man entirely devoted to Cosimo”:
Phillips, 93.

“[a]ll the affairs of the commune”:
Rubinstein,
Government of Florence Under the Medici,
178.

“
Thinking that
Messer
Luca Pitti”:
Francesco Guicciardini,
History of Florence,
15.

“superior in prudence”:
Phillips, 101.

“Now Agnolo had been absent from Florence”:
Bisticci, 301.

“Nine fools out”:
Clarke, 87.

under six feet of water:
Parenti,
Lettere,
no. 62. Marco Parenti to Filippo Strozzi, January 25, 1466.