On the second day of our journey north from Ancona we encountered another party of honest merchants. They were southward bound, their wagons freighted with rolls of Florentine cloth. These men had from us their first word of the Pope's death, and we received from them in turn some news that my companions considered at least equally momentous. It made the good merchants of my own party look at one another grimly, and issue orders to their servants to prepare for a forced march. Cosimo de' Medici, head of the great mercantile family and the de facto ruler of the city-state of Florence, had gone to his own reward, in the manner of a stoic Christian by all reports, and just thirteen days before the passing of Pius in his lonely tent.
My traveling companions were not really surprised by the death of their master Cosimo, who had been ailing for a long time. Their concern, as we remounted and pushed on, was over what might be happening now. What was the effect going to be on business? The southbound travelers had told us that in Florence it was considered certain that Cosimo's middle-aged and eldest son Piero, called the Gouty, was going to take over his father's position as head of the family. This meant that Piero would probably also become the untitled but practically unchallenged ruler of Florence. What effect this change of leadership was going to have on the city and on the world it was difficult to say, and at the same time imperative to find out as soon as possible.
Being myself anxious to waste no time, I willingly went along with the forced march, and in a few days more had my first look at Florence. The city burst upon us as a splendid, nearby spectacle as we topped a hill. It was then one of the largest metropolises in Europe, enclosed by three miles of defensive wall, the high stonework of which was reinforced by sixty square towers. When seen as we saw it from the nearby hills, the city was truly impressive, its interior dotted thickly with church spires, with here and there the palaces of the wealthy rising amid acres of lesser construction. The Arno made a lopsided bisection of the city, and its waters, half mud, half rainbow, flowed out of it bearing all the colors of the Clothmakers' Guild, as well as the sewage of seventy thousand people. As we passed inside the walls I saw that the Guild artisans with their dyes and fabrics seemed to occupy all the banks and bridges of the river. The streets of Florence stank, like those of any city of the time; but there was also splendor in the air. The population was still much reduced from the pre-plague days of more than a century before, and considerable tracts within the walls had been denuded of buildings by fire and decay, had become gardens in which a million flowers grew along with plots of vegetables and fruit.
Just as foulness and beauty were mixed in the city's water, and stench and perfume in its air, so its mansions and hovels stood cheek by jowl in what appeared to me at first as a total confusion of society. Actually there was a logic. By tradition each Florentine family, however wealthy or poor it might become, still dwelt in its ancestral quarter. There was no enclave of the rich, no slum to confine the poor. The larger and finer houses contained within their walls their own storerooms, stables, and sometimes shops—none of this city's upper class disdained the touch of money or the business of buying and selling. These facilities would be of course on the ground floor, with gardens, halls, and courtyards added when there was room. The preferred living quarters were on the level just above. A floor or two above that dwelt poor relations, guests of secondary importance, and servants, in cramped apartments more exposed than those on the first floor to summer's heat and winter's cold. On the day of our arrival in the city the weather was still quite warm, and my companions had been wondering aloud whether the chief men of the Medici clan might not be found in one of the family villas that were scattered through the surrounding Tuscan hills, rather than in town. But as matters turned out we found them in the city palace, still working to master the turmoil of business matters brought on by the death of Cosimo.
The Medici palace was, as it is today, a massive stone building near the church of San Lorenzo, rectangular as a modern apartment block on the outside, and decorated with great art to which I at the time was almost indifferent. The outer walls of the ground floor were of simple, roughly dressed blocks of stone; the masonry of the second level followed the Doric pattern, and that of the third, the Corinthian. But as I say, such niceties were at the time quite lost on me, a rude barbarian soldier. Once inside the first courtyard, my fellow travelers dismounted and hurried at once into a private room to make a confidential business report to some official of the family bank. After I had goggled at the statuary for a while I too got off my horse and was courteously conducted to another room, where I presented to another officer my letters of introduction and credit from King Matthias. I realized that if my project was to thrive in Florence, I had best get off on the right foot with the Medici.
The preparations at Visegrad for my mission had been as thorough as they were secret and the letters were in several languages, including of course Italian. In those of that language I was named rather ambiguously as Signore Ladislao—a fair translation of my Christian name—and all the letters promised the royal gratitude for any assistance given me.
The merchants who had traveled with me had doubtless speculated among themselves about my unspecified mission for Matthias, but had accepted the letters with little open comment. Now the Medici official, after a first reading, borrowed the documents from me, politely enough, and gave orders that I should be provided with suitable refreshment after my long journey. The weather being quite warm, I was led to a shaded table set in an open courtyard.
At any given time in that house it was more likely than not that some group of folk were banqueting. And though my interest in most kinds of food has long since waned, I can still remember . . . to gorge oneself whenever it was possible to do so was then the European standard of behavior. But not in mannered Florence. It was in Florence that I, the rough soldier, first saw a table fork, though that was on a later day. On that first day I dealt forkless with sausages, slices of melon, boiled capon, and pastries of whose elegant existence I had never before dreamt. I fell to with a will.
Presently some of the men who had shared the road with me appeared, smiling, to join me at table. While they were busy answering some of my questions concerning the city's history and customs, a young man I did not know came into the courtyard. He was dressed in new, rather simple clothing, cut of the best cloth. In a grating voice, and with a sad-faced courtesy and gravity beyond his years, he addressed me as Signore Ladislao and made me welcome to the house of his family. He was introduced to me, between mouthfuls and without ceremony, by one of my former fellow travelers. This youth was of course Piero's eldest son, Lorenzo, later to be called the Magnificent; and when his own hour came for subtle rule in Florence, he would wield more power than many an anointed king, and his patronage of art would markedly surpass even that of King Matthias.
On that day in the late summer of 1464, however, Lorenzo de' Medici was only fifteen years of age—though there were moments when his swarthy face, with its grim eyes, shave-resistant stubble, and the natural beginning of a furrow in his brow, looked thirty-five. Already the elders of his family had begun to trust him with minor diplomatic work. Beside him at my table now stood his little brother Giuliano, only ten, but already an apprentice Medici and at the moment sober as a German count. In those days childhood was a rare thing, for people of any class.