Between 1512 and 1527 the republic’s uncertain future prompted an unprecedented outpouring of political ideas. Reflecting the underlying triangulation of Florentine politics were three main directions of thought: aristocratic and popular republicanisms and the nascent principate. Ottimati saw themselves caught between the Scylla of popular republicanism and the Charybdis of Medici autocracy. In the Discorso di Logrogno, written in 1512 as the Soderini republic was collapsing, Guicciardini worried that Florence could slide either into “tyranny” on the one side or “popular anarchy” on the other. Although he advised keeping both the Great Council and the lifetime head of state, he wanted power to legislate and direct foreign policy entrusted to a smaller council of “wise men,” the “best of the city”: all former Standardbearers of Justice, those who had served on the Ten at least twice, former ambassadors and commissioners-general, all appointed for life. “The entire weight of government ultimately rests on the shoulders of very few,” as “has always been the case in every republic, ancient or modern.”676 By 1516 Guicciardini
Saw the Medici as the chief obstacle to the realization of balanced aristocratic government. Prudently framing his protest against excessive Medici power as a “discourse on how to consolidate” their regime, he lamented their disinclination to share power with the ottimati. Those “young men” who support Lorenzo’s ambitions (but this seems to refer to Lorenzo himself) “have been raised outside the city and are not accustomed to our ways.... Lacking knowledge of the things that pertain to the good governance of the city, they often make decisions and issue commands that bring harm and disorder.” To let the regime rest on the family’s power in Rome was a great error, because the pope would not live forever; without a solid alliance with the ottimati, the regime lacked internal support. Guicciardini acknowledged that the ottimati were politically weak, but without them the regime itself would be weak. There are “those who believe, and perhaps have made efforts to persuade” Lorenzo that the “greater security” of the Medici lay in “seizing absolute dominion of the city” both de facto and de jure, Guicciardini wrote, but although “I do not intend to discuss the issue, my judgment is that they could not make a decision more pernicious either for them or for us and that such a step would with time prove to be full of difficulties, suspicions, and ultimately cruelties.”677 This came from the man who, two decades later, would be the major voice for the continuity and permanence of the principate.
Guicciardini’s nephew Niccolo was barely eighteen in 1519 when he composed a “discourse on the methods of the Medici” just before Lorenzo died, which echoed, in even stronger terms, Francesco’s criticisms of 1516. After Giovanni’s election to the papacy, he argued, the Medici had so much power and so little to fear that it was expected they would “govern the city more civilmente and with greater moderation. . . . But the exact opposite happened.” Niccolo recalls the prediction of a “wise citizen” that Leo’s election would bring more harm than honor or utility to the city, because with such power they would presume without fear to issue commands, appoint officeholders, help themselves to public funds, and generally govern the city in such a way as to be its unmasked “princes and lords.” Lorenzo’s appointment as Captain-General “deprived the city of all its remaining authority and power.” Since it was now impossible to oppose the desires of one who controlled the armed forces, much of which consisted of mercenaries loyal to him rather than to the government, “there is nothing that can prevent it if this Captain hungers for the lordship” of Florence. “One can conclude that he is the author and prince of all things and could be called aperto Signore,'" a prince who no longer hides behind the old fictions. But Niccolo’s recommendation is limited to naively encouraging Lorenzo to secure his control by inducing all to become his “friends” and treasure his rule as a “just prince,” by maintaining a citizen militia rather than an army of foreigners, and by gaining the love of his subjects through virtue and humility: on all points, as Niccolo himself admits, the opposite of Lorenzo’s actual behavior. The explanation for this timidity emerges in his fear that, once the protection afforded by papal power is no more, the people’s anger against the regime would erupt in rage and produce a “government so popular that it would be worse than the current one.”54 This was the dilemma of the ottimati: much as they resented the Medici lording it over them, they needed these haughty lords with their military power and foreign connections to protect them against what would have been, and always had been in their eyes, the infinitely worse alternative of a radically popular government.
Once Lorenzo was dead, the ottimati were freer to contemplate constitutional change. Francesco Guicciardini wrote the Dialogue on the Government of Florence in the early 1520s but situated the fictional dialogue at the end of 1494, when the emergence of the Great Council scuttled ottimati hopes for an aristocratic republic. The speakers include Piero Capponi, a spokesman for the aristocratic republicans; Paolantonio Soderini, who defends the popular turn the revolution took; the author’s father Piero, who remains cautiously neutral in the discussion of whether the Medici were tyrants or provided good government; and the principal speaker, Bernardo del Nero, the Medici client who rose to great power under the elder Lorenzo and was executed for his silence about the 1497 plot to reinstate Piero. In the preface, and thus in his own voice, Guicciardini acknowledges his discomfort in theorizing what might replace the Medici regime, given his “deep, indeed extraordinary, debt to the Medici family, having been employed and excessively honoured by two popes from that family. . . . In view of these obligations, to nourish thoughts against the position of their family seems unfitting.” Most intriguing and curious is the selection of the non-ottimate Medicean Bernardo del Nero as the apparent voice of Guicciardini’s own views. In the debate over the merits and abuses of the fallen Medici regime, Del Nero acknowledges that it was indeed a tyranny but argues that good government should be measured by its effects, not its constitutional legitimacy or the degree to which it protects a fictitious liberty, and that from this angle the Medici gave Florence the best government of which the city was capable. In book two, which turns to the future, Del Nero outlines a plan for a mixed constitution ultimately controlled by a senate with lifetime tenure, a solution not essentially different from that of the Discorso di
54
Text in Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato, pp. 365-75.
Logrogno. It is difficult to reconcile Del Nero’s praise of the Medici with his advocacy of a mixed constitution controlled by the ottimati, and there is no evidence that the historical Del Nero ever entertained the ideas attributed to him in book two. Perhaps Guicciardini was dramatizing the contradictions of his class’s relationship to the Medici: on the one hand regularly supporting Medici “tyranny” for protection against the popolo, on the other advancing their claims to a preponderant role in government in a classically mixed constitution.678
Imprudent as it was in these years to advocate openly republican solutions, such ideas generally adopted a historical frame of reference that camouflaged their implicit commentary on contemporary problems. In his Discourses on Livy (c.1515-18) Machiavelli explored the foundations of the Roman republic’s greatness in its army, religion, and institutionalized political conflict of the plebs and the senatorial aristocracy. Praise of Roman republicanism, and especially the argument (I.4) that Rome’s liberty was protected by the discord between the people and the grandi, constituted a sustained polemic against the ottimati’s myth of peaceful Venice with its hegemonic aristocracy. Machiavelli’s insistence that Rome’s decline began when private wealth, patronage, and factions engulfed public authority and powerful citizens increasingly had recourse to “private methods” to advance their interests and punish their enemies (e. g., I.37) carried a not-so-veiled subtext of criticism of the Medici, who had perfected the “private” politics of patronage and factionalism. Machiavelli wrote the Discourses while still politically ostracized by the Medici, but after Lorenzo died Cardinal Giulio let the ice thaw and in late 1520 approved the commission from the Florentine Studio for the Florentine Histories, completed in 1525 and presented to Giulio, now Clement VII. Much of the second half of the book, from the political rise of Cosimo to the elder Lorenzo’s death in 1492, highlights the corrosive effect of Medici wealth, patronage, and private power in conceptual terms borrowed from the Discourses but now elaborated with direct reference to them. It was Cosimo who first, and fatally, merged private methods and public institutions and who used his wealth to build a powerful faction that undermined the republic. Clement never reacted to Machiavelli’s deconstruction of the old Medici regime; he either had no time for reading or was not a careful reader.679
But Machiavelli knew that Giulio, or those around him, would certainly read his contribution to the discussions on constitutional reform, the 1520
Discourse on Florentine Affairs After the Death of Lorenzo, and this called for a more cautious approach. Reviewing the three “stati” that had governed Florence from 1393 (that of the ottimati until 1434, “lo stato di Cosimo” and his successors from 1434 to 1494, and the republic of 1494-1512), Machiavelli concluded that none had been a true republic, or in the case of the Medici regime a true princedom, because each served the interests of a faction or party or class rather than the common good, causing the excluded and discontented to become destabilizing enemies of these regimes. Machiavelli deemed it unwise and actually impossible to reinstate the old Medici system, as many were counseling, because such a regime would now face the hostility of the people, for whom the republic swept away in 1512 had been the most “civile” they had ever known. Moreover, whereas the elder Medici had governed within the bounds of “familiarity” and “citizen ways,” the younger ones had become “grandi” and exceeded “all civilta.” The people and the Medici had thus moved in opposite directions, and the old hybrid solutions were no longer workable: a stable government in Florence must be either a true republic or a true princedom. Machiavelli dismisses the princedom because, with Lorenzo gone, there was no one around whom to build it and because Florence lacked the titled and feudal aristocracy that (as he had already theorized in Discourses I.55) was the indispensable foundation of a princely order. In fact, the city’s history, customs, and social organization all required a republican form of government. “So I will leave aside further discussion of a princedom and speak of a republic, because Florence is a subject most suitable for assuming this form.”
In the rest of the discourse Machiavelli outlines a constitution that he thinks can satisfy “the three kinds of men” found in all cities: the “primi” or leading citizens whose ambition must find some outlet, the “mezzani,” or next tier of important citizens, and the “universalita dei cittadini,” or rest of the citizenry. To the first group he conceded permanent status as a recognized governing elite and recommended that the Medici select sixty-five “amici e confidenti,” one as Standardbearer of Justice for two or three years, and the others to be divided into groups of eight who would take turns staffing the Signoria. For the second group Machiavelli proposed a council of 200 members, appointed (again by the Medici) for life, to replace all the old legislative councils. Thus far his proposal aimed at “consolidating the authority” of the Medici and their friends. But the third group of citizens also had to be “satisfied,” and this could never be achieved (“anyone who thinks otherwise is not wise”) unless “their authority is restored” by reopening the Great Council with 1,000, or at least 600, members. Machiavelli acknowledged that it might have to be done slowly and in stages, but eventually the council should once again have the power to elect all officials, except the 65 and the 200, who would be appointed by Leo and Giulio for as long as they lived (the first hint that after their deaths matters should be handled differently). Machiavelli then lectured Leo and Giulio on the absolute necessity of the Great Council, advising them to reopen it themselves, on their own terms, before their enemies did so in opposition to them: “No stable republic was ever instituted that did not satisfy the whole body of citizens. And never will the whole body of Florentine citizens be satisfied without reopening the hall [of the Great Council]. Thus, to institute a republic in Florence, it is essential to reopen this hall and give back to the universale the power of assigning offices. And Your Holiness should know that anyone who plans to remove the government from your hands will plan first and foremost to reopen the council. And thus the better choice is for you to open it on your own secure terms and methods and thus to deprive your enemies of the chance to do so to your displeasure and to the destruction and ruin of your friends.”
Until this point Machiavelli’s plan looks like a version of the classical mixed constitution. These reforms would suffice, Machiavelli added, if Leo and Giulio “lived forever.” But “since you will have to die,” and because Machiavelli evidently discounted the possibility that other Medici would assume the reins of authority, maintaining a “perfect republic” required one more innovation: the intervention of the sixteen standardbearers of the companies of the popolo in the meetings and deliberations of both the Signoria and the council of 200. Neither body should be allowed to assemble without some of the Sixteen in attendance, who would have the power to veto the Signoria’s decisions and appeal them to the council of 200, and similarly to block decisions of the 200 and appeal them to the Great Council. This unprecedented suggestion would have made the Sixteen the real arbiters of power by vesting them with the authority to give the council final say in any matter. The Sixteen “could be chosen either in the way they have heretofore been selected, either on the authority of Your Holiness or by the Great Council,” and presumably by the council once pope and cardinal were no more. Machiavelli thus assigned to this popular magistracy the same veto power that the tribunes of the plebs (according to Polybius) had in the Roman republic. Behind the concessions to Medici power (about which he had little choice as long as Leo and Giulio were on the scene), Machiavelli tried to persuade them to acquiesce in restoring the popolo to political equality with the ottimati, reassuring them that this plan would not damage their position: “Considering this constitution as a republic, and without your authority, it lacks nothing; but considered while Your Holiness and Most Reverend Monsignore are still living, it is a monarchy.” Their own security required the Medici to “organize the government in such a way that it will administer itself and Your Holiness will need keep but half an eye on it” and “to arrange things so that the institutions [ordini ] can remain stable on their own. And they will always be stable when everyone has a hand in them, and when each person knows what he has to do and in what he can place his confidence, and when no class of citizen needs to have recourse to revolution out of either fear or ambition.”680 Needless to say, the Medici had no intention of implementing a plan so audacious and far-reaching, especially one whose ultimate purpose was to make them unnecessary.
Popular republican ideas flourished in the discussions in the Rucellai family gardens (the Orti Oricellari) hosted by Cosimo, grandson and nephew of the arch-ottimati Bernardo and Giovanni. Bernardo had hosted an earlier phase of the Orti’s discussions characterized by opposition to Soderini,681 but Cosimo reopened the Orti after Bernardo died and made it a center of literary, historical, and republican themes. Its participants included Machiavelli, Cosimo Rucellai and Zanobi Buondelmonti, the dedicatees of Machiavelli’s Discourses, Luigi Alamanni, Battista della Palla, Antonio Brucioli, the historians Jacopo Nardi and Filippo Nerli, and the young Donato Giannotti, the most important republican theorist of the next generation and Machiavelli’s chief intellectual heir. Nerli, one of the few Mediceans in the group, later recalled the powerful influence of Machiavelli and his reading of Roman history on the younger men in turning the historical and theoretical understanding of republicanism away from the ottimati’s idealization of Venice and back to the ancient Roman republic. According to Machiavelli’s Roman model healthy republics gave the people its due share and a free people was armed. These distinguishing features of Machiavelli’s republicanism were subsequently echoed by Brucioli in his Dialoghi della moral filosofia of 1526682 and elaborated by Giannotti in his Della repubblica fiorentina of the 1530s.
This was not an openly anti-Medici group, which would in any case not have been allowed, but in 1522 several former regulars of the Orti (Buondelmonti, Alamanni, Della Palla, Brucioli, together with Niccolo Martelli and several others, but not Machiavelli, on whom no suspicion fell) conspired with Cardinal Francesco Soderini in Rome to kill Giulio de’ Medici and restore Piero Soderini to power. According to Martelli’s confession, Francis I was ready to provide the necessary military muscle, but the conspiracy was revealed before they could act. Two conspirators were executed, others fled, and Giulio punished the Soderini by confiscating their property, exiling several of them, and persuading Pope Adrian to imprison Francesco Soderini in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.683 All discussion of constitutional reform was firmly squelched in the aftermath of the botched plot and lost opportunity to remove from the scene the member of the Medici family who was soon to inflict unimaginable catastrophes on both Florence and Rome.
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