Although formally an autonomous commune, Volterra had long been under Florentine influence. A 1361 agreement gave Florence taxation rights and military control, including the office of captain, thereafter generally held by Florentine ottimati, who, as happened elsewhere in the dominion, developed patronage ties with prominent Volterrans, protected the city against infringements of rights or excessive taxes, and extended loans for tax debts. As these ties expanded, Florentine factional divisions were soon replicated in Volterran politics. When Volterra resisted the imposition of the Catasto in 1429, the
Medici became its chief patrons and defenders, and after Cosimo achieved power the Florentine government cancelled all back taxes owed by the Volterrans. Volterra subsequently became a fertile field of patronage for several members of the family but also a site of rivalries that later developed within the regime.479
In 1470 alum was discovered on land owned by the commune of Volterra.480 Alum was used in a variety of manufacturing processes, in particular for the dyeing of woolen cloth. A group of investors petitioned the Volterran priors for a lease to mine and sell alum; it was granted, but then contested by a subsequent committee of priors who claimed that the vote to approve it had been tainted by corruption and that a resource on public land ought to be exploited for the general benefit, not the profit of a private company. Some years earlier, when alum was discovered in papal territory, the Medici bank secured exclusive rights to purchase papal alum and sell it throughout Europe at prices kept high by their monopoly. Opponents of the Volterran lease contended that Lorenzo had organized the company in his clients’ hands in order to control the new source and prevent increased supply from driving down prices. Opposition to the lease drew increasing support, especially when it became known that among the company’s partners were two prominent Volterran allies of the Medici and a Florentine Medicean, Antonio Giugni. Since it was widely believed that the company represented Lorenzo’s, and the Medici bank’s, interest in controlling the alum market, the dispute became a test of strength between Mediceans and anti-Mediceans in both Florence and Volterra.
In June 1471 the Volterran government, now controlled by opponents of the lease, seized the mine and expelled its partners and workers. Florence’s captain in Volterra, Ristoro Serristori, a Medici ally with two brothers in that year’s balia, wrote letters to Lorenzo and the Signoria (the latter sent first to Lorenzo for his approval) vociferously defending the company and denouncing the Volterrans, calling them “donkeys to be thrashed [asini da bastonate]” who needed a stern lesson for their insolence. He alerted Lorenzo to the political implications of the dispute, warning him that, just after the seizure and Volterra’s appointment of envoys charged with defending its actions before the Florentine Signoria, in Volterra it was being “publicly said that what [its government] did was done with the advice and encouragement of leading citizens [in Florence], from whom they will always enjoy every favor. I write
This to you so that you will know how to proceed. They say that everyone is on their side except you and some crazy people.” Several weeks later he commended Lorenzo for having finally “opened his eyes” to the danger and urged him to “recognize friends as friends and enemies as enemies.”17 These warnings got Lorenzo’s attention and convinced him that prominent Florentines were using the issue to undermine him. In fact, the seizure of the mine occurred when the Florentine Standardbearer of Justice was Bardo Corsi, an ally and client of Jacopo Pazzi and an outspoken critic of the Milanese alliance.18 Lorenzo saw these simultaneous challenges in Florence and Volterra as no coincidence, and this no doubt confirmed in him the necessity for a balia, which came in July. After Lorenzo reinforced his control of key political institutions in Florence, Serristori punished four Volterrans for taking the alum mine.
Succeeding Serristori in October as captain in Volterra was Bernardo Corbinelli, who adopted a much more conciliatory approach. In fact, he was rebuked by the Signoria for failing to carry out its instructions and suspected of looking the other way when, in February 1472, angry Volterrans attacked and killed the two leading Volterran Mediceans among the company’s partners. Their murder set in motion the recourse to a solution by force. The Volterrans introduced a militia into the city and appointed a committee for defense, which Corbinelli allowed and approved while also exiling several leaders of the local pro-Medici faction. Antonio Ridolfi, sent by the Florentine Signoria to restore order, sent back a reassuring picture of the situation denying that there was a crisis. Fearful of reprisals, the Volterran government dispatched emissaries to Florence to announce its willingness to restore the mine to the company. But Lorenzo had made up his mind, not only to recover the mine for his friends, but also to punish those who were using the dispute to weaken him politically. He rejected all appeals for compromise, both from the Volterrans, who even asked him to arbitrate the dispute, and from the Florentine bishop of Volterra, who wrote him several letters urging a peaceful settlement. What Lorenzo found intolerable was that leading Florentines were pursuing their own independent courses and policies in relations with the Volterrans, and he thus opted for a military strategy, both to punish the Volterrans and to convey a warning to uncooperative Florentine ottimati.
On April 30, 1472, Lorenzo’s revamped Cento authorized the appointment of a war balia. In order to mute criticism, Lorenzo carefully included among its twenty members, in addition of course to himself, Antonio Ridolfi, Bernardo Corbinelli, his occasional rivals Tommaso Soderini and Jacopo Pazzi (who had also advocated a peaceful solution), and other loyal allies and members of leading families (Pitti, Guicciardini, Serristori, Canigiani, and Gianfigliazzi).
17
Fiumi, L’impresa, pp. 88-95.
Fubini, “Lorenzo de’ Medici e Volterra,” pp. 132-3.
Both Lorenzo and the Volterrans looked for allies beyond Tuscany, and he of course succeeded where they failed. Lorenzo engaged the services of the duke of Urbino and captain for hire, Federico da Montefeltro, who led a combination of his own forces and Florentine and Milanese troops against Volterra in May. To avoid a siege and possible sack, Volterra agreed on June 16 to a negotiated surrender that explicitly assured the town’s safety with guarantees from Lorenzo and the Florentine government. But two days later, Federico’s soldiers entered the city, massacred an unrecorded number of citizens, and sacked and plundered the town.
Some blamed Federico, others the Milanese soldiers, still others the Volterran militia for provoking the attack, but the Volterrans themselves blamed Lorenzo. Earlier in June he and the war balia had urged Federico and the Florentine commissioners to win the war at all costs, “with less regard for the safety of [Volterra] than for winning in whatever way it takes. ... Be determined to conquer this town in any way, demonstrating with actions that, since they have been unwilling to have compassion for their patria, they do not deserve greater compassion from anyone else. . . . Make them understand their error in not having had greater fear of a sack.”481 Lorenzo wanted an unconditional surrender, with the safety of the town entirely at the discretion of Federico and the commissioners, and after the event many Volterrans were convinced they had been deliberately misled and betrayed, that the agreements had been merely a ruse to get Federico’s forces into the city for the town’s castigation. Federico claimed he was unable to control the soldiers, not all of whom were his, but the Volterrans found that difficult to believe given that he limited the sack to twelve hours and removed the army by the end of the awful day. When he heard the news, Lorenzo claimed to be saddened and disturbed, and, with the horror accomplished, he urged restraint. He decided that “we won’t say anything more about the sack, in order to forget it as quickly as possible. Perhaps [the Volterrans] merited this because of some sin of theirs. We must be content with our own conscience and the actions that we and this illustrious lord [Federico] took to prevent this evil from happening.”482 Chancellor Scala delivered an oration of praise and congratulation for Federico in front of the palace, but for decades thereafter chroniclers and poets wrote of the massacre in anything but a celebratory mode. Francesco Guicciardini later defended the commissioners, because his grandfather Jacopo was among them, claiming that they tried to stop the violence and that the Florentines were as distressed by the sack as they could possibly be.483 Still later, Machiavelli (Florentine Histories 7.30) wrote that the “news of this victory was received with great happiness by the Florentines; and because it had been entirely Lorenzo’s undertaking [tutta impresa di Lorenzo], it greatly increased his reputation.”
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