He was rarely to be seen walking the streets of the city, never with more than one servant in attendance, and always quietly dressed, scrupulous in giving the wall to older citizens and ‘showing the utmost deference to the magistrates’. He left it to the scions of other rich families to play the parts of paladins: at a big tournament in the Piazza Santa Croce in 1428,9 when Lorenzo, son of the great Palla Strozzi,10 won the victor’s laurels, Cosimo was not even mentioned as having been present, nor was any other member of his family. When people came to him for help or to ask his advice about some business matter, he would listen to them carefully and quietly and then tell them what he thought in a few, short words, almost brusquely, as though unwilling to commit himself to friendship. Ordinary people liked him, though, and trusted him; and, even in later years, when age had withered his sallow features giving them a sardonic twist, when his curt and often ambiguous observations assumed an increasingly sarcastic and derisive note, there was something in his manner that commanded affection rather than awe.
He was still in his early twenties when he married Contessina de’ Bardi, eldest daughter of Giovanni de’ Bardi, one of his father’s partners in the Rome branch of their bank. The Bardi were an old Florentine family and had once been immensely rich; but, like the Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli families, they had lent far more than was ever repaid to various rulers, including King Edward III of England and Robert, the Angevin King of Naples, so that they had consequently fallen on hard times. The dowry which Contessina was able to bring to her husband was therefore not a large one, although it included the Palazzo Bardi, the family palace in the Via de’ Bardi, a street whose houses had once all belonged to her family.11 She and Cosimo moved into the palace, whose rooms were soon unobtrusively decorated with the Medici insignia; and it was here that their first child, Piero, was born – in accordance with the hopes of a well-wisher who had written to Cosimo, ‘God preserve you and arrange that the first night you sleep with your noble and illustrious wife, you may conceive a male child.’
Contessina appears to have been a rather unimaginative, fussy, managing woman. Fond of good food, fat, capable and cheerful, she was also domestic and unsociable. Far more scantily educated than her granddaughters were to be, she was, like many another Florentine wife, denied access to her husband’s study. Cosimo was quite fond of her; but he was never in the least uxorious, and bore his long partings from her with equanimity, writing to her seldom.
The first of these partings appears to have occurred in 1414 when, at the age of twenty-five, Cosimo is reported by his friend, the bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci, as having left for the Council of Constance with Pope John XXIII. He was away for two years, travelling from city to city north of the Alps after Pope John’s deposition, and visiting the various branches of the family bank in Germany, France and Flanders. He was back in Florence at the time of Pope John’s death; but soon afterwards went down to Rome as branch manager, leaving his wife behind in the Palazzo Bardi to look after their son, Piero, and Piero’s younger brother, Giovanni.
Cosimo was manager in Rome for over three years, making occasional visits to Florence but living most of the time in a house at Tivoli where he was looked after by a slave-girl whom he called Maddalena. One of his agents had bought this girl for him in Venice, having established that she was ‘a sound virgin, free from disease and aged about twenty-one’. Cosimo was attracted by her, shared his bed with her; and she bore him a son. As was usual in such unexceptional cases the son, who was christened Carlo, was brought up with Contessina’s sons and given a suitably thorough classical education. A young man of markedly Circassian appearance, he entered the Church and, through his father’s influence, became Rector of Prato and Protonotary Apostolic.12
While Cosimo remained in business at Rome, he was able to avoid arousing the jealousy of his family’s rivals and enemies in Florence; but soon after his return his obvious capacity and his supposed support of the Popolo Minuto against the Magnati reawakened the Albizzi’s suspicions of his family.
His father, always so wary and discreet, had throughout his life maintained his reputation for modesty and moderation. When the Albizzi approached him with plans to tighten the hold of the existing oligarchy on the government of the Republic, he declined to cooperate with them. But as soon as the Albizzi’s opponents, learning of this refusal, endeavoured to gain Giovanni’s support for a more positive resistance to the oligarchy, he replied that he had no intention of helping to bring about a change of government and that, in any case, he was too busy with his own business affairs. Likewise, when the Albizzi proposed to reform the iniquitous Florentine tax system by introducing a new kind of income and property tax known as the catasto, Giovanni, after greeting the proposal with the utmost caution, eventually agreed to support it but with so many conditions and reservations that his actual attitude towards it was clouded by ambiguity.
All his life he had been at pains to behave like this, never to give cause for jealousy, always to avoid commitment; and as he lay dying he urged his two sons to follow his example. Be inoffensive to the rich and strong, he advised them, while being consistently charitable to the poor and weak.
Do not appear to give advice, but put your views forward discreetly in conversation. Be wary of going to the Palazzo della Signoria; wait to be summoned, and when you are summoned, do what you are asked to do and never display any pride should you receive a lot of votes… Avoid litigation and political controversy, and always keep out of the public eye…
When the time came, Cosimo was to give his own sons similar advice; but, despite his apparent modesty and the guarded reticence of his manner, he was far more ambitious than his father and was determined to put his money to different uses. The Albizzi watched his progress with suspicion and concern.
III
ENEMIES OF THE ALBIZZI
‘He has emblazoned even the monks’ privies with his balls’
THE HEAD of the Albizzi family, Rinaldo di Messer Maso, was a haughty, proud, impulsive man, reactionary and priggish.1 He had proved his worth as a soldier and a diplomat, and was firmly resolved both to maintain the power of the oligarchy – if necessary by halving the number of the lesser guilds – and to defeat Florence’s rivals in battle. He had already pushed the Signoria into an inconclusive war with Milan; and in 1429 he urged a war with Lucca which had sided with Milan against Florence, her ancient enemy and principal competitor in the silk trade. The idea of conquering Lucca was popular in the city; and Cosimo himself was later to lament that its rich territories, stretching from the mountains to the coast, remained stubbornly independent despite all attempts to subjugate them by force. But he doubted that the moment was propitious for war; and, although he consented to serve on the emergency committee, the Ten of War, he did so with evident reluctance, hinting that under the direction of the Albizzi the Florentine army could not possibly win. His caution was justified. The Lucchesi appealed to Milan for help, and, in response to their request, Duke Filippo Maria Visconti dispatched to Lucca the great condottiere, Francesco Sforza. The Florentine mercenaries were no match for Sforza, whom the Signoria were reduced to buying off with a bribe of 50,000 florins; and when this merely led to the Duke of Milan finding another talented general for the Lucchesi – Niccolò Piccinino – the Ten of War were driven to devising a complicated plan to divert the river Serchio and thus sweep away Lucca’s ramparts by a sudden inundation of water. This plan also failed as its critics had predicted: the garrison rushed out of Lucca at night, pulled down the Florentines’ dam and sent the waters cascading into the enemy camp. By the autumn of 1430 Cosimo had decided that it would be unwise to remain associated any longer with the conduct of the disastrous and enormously expensive campaign. So, making the excuse that he wished to let others have their turn serving on the war committee, he left Florence for Verona.