Certainly Cosimo himself was far from satisfied with his new acquisition. He wanted much more than Siena. He wanted to be recognized as Grand Duke, a title for the assumption of which papal authority was required. So determined, indeed, was he to gratify this ambition that to achieve it he sought the necessary authority with a relentless persistence which on occasions seemed to assume the compulsion of a mania. And at last he had his way. Pope Pius V bestowed the title of Grand Duke upon him in 1569.
But when, in December that year, all the bells in Florence rang, bonfires raged and cannon roared in celebration of the Duke’s new title, there was, so an observer noticed, ‘little real joy to be discerned in the faces of the people’. Two years later, however, when once again the bells were tolled and celebratory fires were lit, when the Cathedral and churches of Florence rang with heartfelt Te Deums, the rejoicing was spontaneous and sincere; it was universally agreed that his Excellency, the Grand Duke, now addressed as Altezza and Serenissimo, had good reason this time to take upon himself some personal credit. For at the battle of Lepanto where the Turkish fleet was once and for all swept from the eastern Mediterranean, Florentine galleys had played an important part. And it was Cosimo who – intent upon protecting his shores from the raids of Turkish marauders and from Barbary pirates, as well as making himself and Tuscany appear more formidable in the eyes of Spain – had been responsible for the creation of Florence’s victorious navy.
‘A man is not powerful,’ he had said years before to the Venetian ambassador, ‘unless he is as powerful by sea as he is by land.’ And in pursuit of this power he had ordered galleys to be built, discussed designs with naval architects, superintended the enlistment of sailors and the purchase of foreign slaves, written out instructions for voyages, made lists of necessary armaments. He had created a new order of military knights, the Knights of Santo Stefano – admittedly in later years a less crusading than piratical order – in which were enrolled his two illegitimate sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo, and Duke Alessandro’s illegitimate son, Giulio. He had established a new naval base on the island of Elba, which had been ceded to him by the Duke of Piombino, and had fortified the capital to which he had given the name Cosmopolis.2 ‘I have devoted all my attention to naval matters,’ he assured the Venetian ambassador without undue exaggeration. ‘I have galleys finished and others being built. And so I shall continue and keep all my ships fully equipped with everything that is needed.’
He was true to his word. The first two galleys to be launched, La Saetta and La Pisana, set out on their maiden voyages in 1550; the San Giovanni soon followed them. By 1565 there were several more galleys available for the expedition to relieve the besieged Knights of St John on Malta; and by 1571, the year of Lepanto, Pope Pius V had good reason to be grateful for the Grand Duke’s now considerable fleet and for the huge sum of 60,000 scudi which his treasury contributed to the great Christian enterprise.3
Cosimo, though prone to sea-sickness, took great pleasure in sailing with his fleet himself. He would set out from Lerici and to the ‘blowing of trumpets, the firing of guns and the shouts of the people’ he would be rowed up to Sestri or down the coast to Leghorn where he would disembark for a day’s fishing or fowling or hunting.
For none of these pleasures did he ever lose his taste. Whenever he could spare the time he would leave Florence for his villa of Il Trebbio, or for Poggio a Caiano, Castello or Cafaggiolo, or for one or other of his smaller country houses, Cerreto, Lecceto or Montelupo; and in red breeches, high boots of Spanish leather, doeskin jerkin and black velvet jewelled cap, he would ride out with his huntsmen, falconers, pages, courtiers and couriers into the surrounding woods and valleys. They chased wild boars and roebuck, they galloped after greyhounds, coursing hares; they took out falcons and setters; they bagged pheasants and partridges. And ‘in the little stream of the Sieve, which flows into the valley of the Mugello,’ recorded Cabriana,
the Duke would catch various fish, such as trout, and would divide his haul among his courtiers and watch them with great delight as they ate the fish which they had cooked in the neighbouring meadows, he himself lying on the grass.
For his courtiers the days did not always pass so pleasantly. The Duke was an exacting master, critical of the slightest fault, insistent upon uniformity in all matters of procedure and dress, requiring, for example, all his pages unfailingly to wear red caps in winter, purple caps in summer. He was also as exasperatingly secretive in his private life as he was in his dealings with his ministers. His attendants never knew how many days they would be away from home or where they would be taken. As one of them reported, voicing a typical complaint, ‘We have never known one day what there would be to do the next, his Excellency being more than ever secret in the matter of whither he is riding.’ Another of his courtiers found his penchant for practical jokes quite as irritating as his secretiveness. ‘This morning,’ he grumbled, ‘the Duke went to see the nets spread for the birds, and took several and made one of them peck me, which it did really painfully. It was my right hand too. The others say it was a great favour; but to me it is great pain.’
It would all have been more bearable had the Duke been less capriciously unpredictable; but his moodiness was, in fact, notorious. On occasion he seemed to welcome friendliness, even to tolerate familiarity; at other times he would rebuff the slightest hint of disrespect. Sometimes ‘he lays aside all authority and dignity and with the utmost intimacy makes jokes with everyone and appears to want everyone to use this freedom towards him’, a Venetian envoy recorded.
But once the time for amusement is past, he recognizes no one and it is as if he had never known them. If anyone is bold enough to make the least sign of familiarity, he at once withdraws into his accustomed severity, so much so that it is said of him in Florence that he doffs and dons the Duke whenever he pleases.
Similar complaints were made about his wife.
The Duchess, Eleonora da Toledo, was quite as exacting as her husband. The letters of her attendants are replete with anxious requests for the immediate dispatch of some commodity which has not arrived on time or for the replacement of some unsatisfactory article – to ‘forward instantly the salted fish from Spain such as the Duchess likes, the present consignment being all stale and broken’, to ‘send without delay his Excellency’s cloak and doublet’, to ‘have made for his Excellency two pair of leather hose, but not miserably short and tight like the others’.
Yet however demanding, capricious and arrogant her servants and attendants found her, Eleonora was a good wife to Cosimo, who loved her as much as it was in his nature to love anyone. Soon after their marriage they moved from the Medici Palace to the Palazzo Vecchio which was transformed into the ducal palace with apartments for the Duchess on the upper floors, for the Duke on the lower, and for his mother on the floor between. Neither the Duke nor the Duchess got on very well with his mother, who had never been easy to love and who became increasingly irritating and increasingly untidy as she grew older. On one occasion at least she and her son had a blazing row when he was ill in bed and her fussy interference exasperated him even more than his doctors’ incompetence. He lost his temper with her; she left the room in tears; and the next day they declined to speak to each other. With his wife, however, Cosimo seems always to have remained on excellent terms, allowing her without complaint to indulge her passion for gambling, and never showing irritation at her exasperating changes of mind. She, for her part, put up complaisantly with his secretiveness, his outbursts of ill temper and his long periods of gloomy silence. They seem to have had differences only over the upbringing of their children.