Like Poggio, Leonardo Bruni, another of Cosimo’s humanist friends, had come to Florence as a poor young boy, had studied law at the Studio Fiorentino and, having obtained employment at the Curia, had amassed a fortune. But he was far more intense and earnest than Poggio, sharp-nosed, alert, inclined to be arrogant and, so a fellow humanist said of him, ‘unbelievably eloquent’. He strongly disapproved of Niccolò Niccoli’s having a mistress; and Poggio he considered to be really depraved. He himself had abandoned the idea of a career in the Church in order to marry a respectable, and extremely rich, young woman. Thereafter he devoted himself to writing, translating, and to playing his due part in the civic life of Florence, a city which he urged men to consider as the successor of the ancient republics and of which he was to become – and tenaciously to remain – Chancellor. So exalted was his reputation that an envoy from the King of Spain was once seen to fall on his knees before his magnificently red-robed figure.
An equally honourable but far more modest and saintly man was Ambrogio Traversari, to whom Cosimo was devoted. A little monk who never ate meat, Traversari had come to Florence from the Romagna, where his family owned large estates, and had entered the austere Camaldolite Order of which he had just become Vicar-General. He was a formidable scholar who had taught himself Hebrew, and was as much at his ease in translating Greek as Latin. So rapidly, indeed, could he translate Greek into the most polished Latin that Niccolò Niccoli, who could write as quickly as any man in Florence, could not keep up with his dictation. For Cosimo, who was just three years older than he was, he translated all of Diogenes Laertius’s works overcoming his modesty to include the most impure passages with the rest. Cosimo was a frequent visitor to his rooms at Santa Maria degli Angeli, and was soon to have cause to feel deeply grateful for his firm friendship in his imminent clash with the Albizzi.
Also seen frequently at the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli was Carlo Marsuppini, a scholar from a noble family of Arezzo, who had been appointed lecturer in rhetoric and poetry at the University. At the age of thirty-two he was the youngest of Cosimo’s humanist friends; but his learning was already renowned – during the course of one single celebrated lecture he contrived to quote from every known Greek and Latin author. He was considerably less prolific than Bruni but, not as fastidious as Niccolò Niccoli, he did manage to produce one or two Latin translations from the Greek, some epigrams and poetry, and a funeral oration for Cosimo’s mother.
Marsuppini’s bitter rival at the University was a young man of his own age, Francesco Filelfo, who was born at Tolentino near Ancona where his parents, both Florentines, were then living. Before he was twenty he had already gained a reputation as a classical scholar that enabled him to obtain an important diplomatic appointment in the Venetian service at Constantinople. Here he married the pretty daughter of his Greek tutor, John Chrysoloras, whose brother, Emmanuel Chrysoloras, had been Professor of Greek at the University of Florence. Filelfo himself came to teach in Florence at the invitation of Niccolò Niccoli who was, at first, delighted by his versatility and energy. Filelfo rushed from lecture to lecture, talking from dawn to dusk and with equal facility about Cicero and Terence, Homer and Livy, Thucydides and Xenophon. He also lectured on moral philosophy, and once a week in the Cathedral gave a public discourse on Dante. In addition to these activities he found time to write numerous epigrams and odes, speeches and histories, and to undertake translations whenever these promised to be sufficiently profitable. But after a time Niccolò Niccoli began to regret ever having asked the bustling young man with the Byzantine beard to come to Florence. Filelfo proved to be vain, ill-tempered, insolent, avaricious, prodigal and spiteful. Cosimo’s friends took to avoiding him, and in his quarrels with Carlo Marsuppini they took his rival’s side. Filelfo then courted the Albizzi and offered them his services as a master of invective. Cosimo, who had greeted him warmly on his arrival in Florence and had offered to pay his rent, was to become the most virulently savaged of all his victims.
Yet so long as the other humanists in Florence remained his friends and, what was even more important, so long as Niccolò da Uzzano was alive, Cosimo had no reason to fear that the Albizzi could mobilize forces strong enough to ruin him. Even though he was generally sympathetic towards the political views of the Albizzi, Niccolò da Uzzano had always respected the Medici and had actually been moved to tears at the funeral of Cosimo’s father. But in 1432 Niccolò himself died and, thereafter, Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s anti-Medicean plot quickly matured. Malicious stories about Cosimo, many doubtless inspired by Filelfo, began to circulate in the streets of Florence: he dressed so plainly, it was said, only the more easily to avoid accusations about his ill-gotten riches; his supposed sympathy for the people was no more than the calculated duplicity of the self-seeker; had he not been heard to say that the people never did anything honest except for their own advantage or out of fear? His well-publicized donations to religious charities and building funds were utter hypocrisy, the conscience-money of a usurer, given with an eye to his family’s glory and nothing more; did he not always make sure that the Medici insignia were prominently displayed on any building that he had paid for? Why, he had emblazoned ‘even the monks’ privies with his balls’! One night in the early months of 1433 the doors of Cosimo’s palace were smeared with blood.
Once again, as in the autumn of 1430 when he had gone to Verona, Cosimo withdrew from Florence, this time to his estate il Trebbio in the Mugello where he stayed for several months.4 Meantime, he discreetly transferred huge sums of money from his bank in Florence to his branches in Rome and Naples, giving orders for bags of coins to be desposited for safe keeping with the Benedictine hermits of San Miniato al Monte and the Dominican friars of San Marco, where they would be safe from confiscation should the Albizzi move against him.
While Cosimo was away in the country, Rinaldo degli Albizzi set about manipulating the elections to the new Signoria which was due to meet in September. He completed the work with unobtrusive skill. Of the nine Priori chosen, seven were definitely prepared to support him, while only two, Bartolommeo Spini and Jacopo Ber-linghieri, were believed to be possible Medici adherents. The man elected as Gonfaloniere was Bernardo Guadagni whose debts Rinaldo had settled in order to render him eligible for office.5
During the first week in September, Cosimo who was still in the Mugello, received an urgent summons from Guadagni to return to the city immediately. There were, he was told, ‘some important decisions to be made’. He decided to face them.