pageant had been displayed here. Tournaments were in vogue then and at a much later period. And though they were mostly free from danger, they yet afforded opportunity to exhibit and to try knightly skill, while they led to a not ignoble expenditure of money, to the display of costly weapons and beautiful horses, and to an ingenious though sometimes affected invention of devices and emblems. Numerous were the distinguished young men who took part in the chivalrous games. Besides two stranger knights, Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Guglielmo Pazzi, and his brother Francesco, two Pitti, Donigi Pucci, Salvestro Benci, Benedetto Salutati, Braccio de’ Medici, Carlo Borromeo, Piero Vespucci, and Jacopo Bracciolini, figured there. Who could have dreamed then that more than one of the combatants would be victims to a plot against that very Medici with whom all seemed to be at peace!
The costumes and state of all who took part in this tournament were exceedingly splendid, and especially gorgeous was the array of Lorenzo himself.[159] Before him rode nine trumpeters, and a page bearing a red and white banner, and accompanied by two others. Next came two squires in full armour, whom the Count of Urbino and Roberto Sanseverino had placed at Lorenzo’s disposition; twelve young noblemen on horseback, Giuliano de’ Medici in a tabard of silver brocade with a silk doublet embroidered in pearls and silver, and a black velvet baret cap, adorned with three feathers made of gold thread, set with large pearls and rubies. The youth’s attire was estimated at eight thousand ducats. Now came five mounted pages with fifers and drummers, and then Lorenzo himself. He wore a surcoat with a shoulder-piece of red and white silk, and across it a silk scarf embroidered with fresh and withered roses, and the device ‘Le temps revient’ in large pearls. On the velvet baret cap, adorned with a great number of pearls, he wore a feather made of gold thread, set with rubies and diamonds, and having in the centre a pearl of five hundred ducats value. The diamond on his shield, called ‘Il Libro,’ was estimated at more than two thousand ducats. The horse, a present of King Ferrante, which he afterwards exchanged for one sent him by Borso d’Este, wore red and white velvet housings, embroidered with pearls. When the tournament began he laid aside the velvet surcoat, and attired himself in another of Alexandrian velvet with gold fringes, and the golden lilies of France in an azure field, which he wore also on the shield; while he put on a helmet with three blue feathers, instead of the baret cap. Ten young men on horseback and sixty-four on foot, armed and helmeted, concluded the splendid procession, which, as we need not say, formed the climax of this brilliant tournament. Lorenzo has made the following note of the festivity and its result: ‘In order to do as others, I appointed a tournament on the Piazza Santa Croce, with great splendour and at great expense, so that it cost about ten thousand gold florins. Although I was young and of no great skill, the first prize was awarded to me, namely, a helmet inlaid with silver and surmounted by a figure of Mars.’ We see that it was only a step from citizen to prince. The court poet was not wanting. A long poem in eight-lined stanzas describes the festival and those who took part in it, with all the details and profuse display of mythological learning, and not without allusions to a yet more glorious future. Whether it is by Luca Pulci or by his more famous and talented brother, the poet of the Morgante, remains undecided. It is hardly worthy of the latter, although it is not wanting in poetical beauty; its chief fault lies, not in the poverty of separate parts, but in the trivial subject and the fulsome multiplication of details. Comparison with a later poem on a similar subject throws into relief the deficiencies of this.[160]
Long after the tournament at Sta. Croce had taken place, poets continued to celebrate the love of Lorenzo for Lucrezia Donati, and Lorenzo did not cease to record his feelings of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, as they rose and fell, in a series of sonnets and canzonets which have procured one of the foremost and honoured places among the poets of the fifteenth century for him in whose hand the fate of his native country lay for years. But while the poet occupied himself thus with the lady of his thoughts, the fortune of the man who was to be the head of his family and his state took a decisive turn. When he held the tournament he had been already betrothed for some time; indeed, the tournament was intended to celebrate his betrothal! Piero de’ Medici did not follow Cosimo’s principle of choosing for his son and heir a bride among the daughters of the land. He seems to have been indifferent to the aversion with which intermarriages with foreign baronial families were generally regarded at Florence. Corso Donati, the brother of Piccarda, had once aroused a rebellion against himself which cost him his life, by proposing to offer his hand to a daughter of Uguccione della Fagginola, the powerful partisan and friend of Dante. The news that Lorenzo de’ Medici intended to enter into an alliance with one of Rome’s oldest and greatest families was heard with displeasure at Florence, because the people suspected that the object was to raise himself above the ordinary position of a citizen, and to seek foreign support. Clarice degli Orsini[161] was the daughter of Jacopo, lord of Monterondo, and of his second wife, Maddalena, daughter of Carlo, lord of Bracciano, and sister of Napoleon, who gave this castle its present grand form, and of Latino, one of the most influential cardinals of his time, whom Pope Nicholas V. adorned with the purple. Orso, Clarice’s grandfather, had met his death at the battle of Zagonara, 1424, which was so disastrous for the Florentines, and in which he had fought under Carlo Malatesta for the Republic against the Visconti. Of her father, who possessed in common with a brother the castle of Monte Rotondo, which stands on a low hill, fifteen miles from Rome, commanding the Salarian road leading to the Sabine hills, there is little to tell, except that he founded a Minorite convent at this place, in Pope Nicholas V.’s reign. In the beginning of 1467, when Lorenzo was only eighteen years old, the negotiations had already begun between the two families; after the youth had seen Clarice, probably on the occasion of the journey to Naples as his father’s representative, and, apparently, without her or her mother’s previous knowledge. The plan of the union had undoubtedly originated with a maternal uncle of the bride, Roberto, who took part in the Colleonic war, and fought at La Molinella. In March of the same year, Lucrezia de’ Medici repaired to Rome, to conclude the affair with her brother Giovanni Tornabuoni, who seems to have conducted the preliminary proceedings. The letter which she addressed to her husband on her first meeting with her future daughter-in-law and her family[162] is a characteristic example of the manners of the time, as well as of the views of a family which combined the positions of citizen and prince in so exceptional a manner:
‘I have repeatedly written to you on my way, and informed you of the state of the roads. On Thursday I arrived here, and was received by Giovanni with a joy which you may imagine. I have received your letter of the 21st, and it made me happy to learn your pain has entirely ceased. But each day seems a year to me till I am again with you, to your joy and mine.
‘As I was going to St. Peter’s on Thursday, I met Madonna Maddalena Orsini, the cardinal’s sister, with her daughter, fifteen or sixteen years old. The latter was attired in the Roman style, with the handkerchief on her head, and appeared to me very beautiful in this costume, of fair complexion and tall; but as she was veiled, I could not see her so well as I wished. Yesterday I went to see the aforesaid Monsignore Orsini, who was at his sister’s house, adjoining his own. When I had spoken to him in your name, his sister entered with the daughter, who wore a closely-fitting dress, such as the Roman women wear, and was without kerchief on the head. Our conversation lasted for some time, so that I had opportunity of looking at her. The girl is, as I have said, above the middle height, of fair complexion and pleasant manners, and, if less beautiful than our daughters, of great modesty; so that it will be easy to teach her our manners. She is not blonde, for no one is so here, and her thick hair has a reddish tinge. Her face is round in shape, but does not displease me. The neck is beautiful, but rather thin, or, more properly, delicately shaped: the bosom I could not see, as they cover it entirely here, but it seems to me well-formed. She does not bear her head so proudly as our girls do, but inclining a little forwards, which I ascribe to the timidity that seems to predominate in her. Her hands are long and delicate. On the whole, the girl seems to be far above the ordinary type, but she is not to be compared to Maria, Lucrezia, and Bianca. Lorenzo has seen her himself, and you can hear from him whether she pleases him. I am sure that whatever he and you decide will be good. May God rule it for the best.
‘The girl’s father is Signor Jacopo Orsini of Monterotondo, her mother the cardinal’s sister. She has two brothers: one has devoted himself to arms, and stands in good repute with the lord Orso; the other is priest and Papal sub-deacon. They possess the half of Monterotondo, the other half of which belongs to their uncle, who has two sons