| 10. The Sixteenth Century |
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Lorenzo
the Magnificent knew how to impose his personal power without
overthrowing the republican institutions. He likewise also
managed to establish a certain equilibrium between the various
Italian states, avoiding intervention by the great foreign
powers. But upon his death (1492) it took only a few years for
the son who succeeded him, Pietro the Unlucky, to demolish the
wonderful structure of Medici power. The cowardly policy of
Pietro regarding the invader Charles VIII constrained the city to
eliminate him and reestablish in full the republican regime. But
the people were divided between those who sided with the Medici,
the great families who wanted to restore an oligarchic
government, and the bulk of citizens, inflamed by the sermons of
Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar from San Marco, one of the highest
expressions of the religious tradition in the city. Savonarola's
followers reformed the government, imposing a new regime in which
an important role was given to a "Gran Consiglio" which
reunited the members of the principal families. But it was not
long before the Medicis and their supporters made a comeback,
thanks to the fact that Savonarola had been judged a heretic and
burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria on May 23, 1498
on the order of Pope Alexander VI against whom the friar's
violent sermons were directed. Followed a brief period in which
the patrician republic was strenghtened with the elections of
Pier Soderini as Gonfalonier for life. This was time when
Michelangelo created his famous statue of David to be located in
front of the Palazzo della Signoria as "a guardian to the
florentine freedom". Afterwords the city once more found
itself under Medici rule, at the behest of the pope, allied with
the king of Aragon whose word was law in Italy after the
departure of the king of France.  The elevation to
the papal throne, first of Giovanni de' Medici (Leo X) (1512),
and then of Giulio (Clement VII) seemed to reinforce the Medici
signoria even more. But when news of the sack of Rome (1527)
arrived, the people rebelled and once more ousted the Medici and
proclaimed their freedom. This was the last desperate attempt to
reinstate the republican government. On August 12, 1530, after an
eleven-month siege, the armies of the emperor and the pope
together entered Florence and the following year, with imperial
concession, Alexander de' Medici was declared "head of the
government and of the state". The new lord, whom a
subsequent resolution was to call "Duke of the Florentine
Republic", installed a tyranny, with new institutions all
under his control, and began a foreign policy of alliances with
the most important reigning families in Europe, marrying a
natural daughter of Emperor Charles V and giving his stepsister
Caterina as wife to the second son of Francis I.
 The adversaries
of the Medici, headed by Filippo Strozzi, who had been forced
into exile, tried in vain to overturn Duke Alessandro's
government. They were unsuccessful even when Lorenzino (or
Lorenzaccio) de' Medici assassinated Alessandro in 1537. At that
time the best they could do was call in as successor Cosimo il
Giovane, son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a younger branch of
the family, since the line of Cosimo the Elder had been
extinguished. Barely seventeen, the new duke however managed to
command respect and gradually installed an autocratic regime. He
also succeeded in crushing the adverse factions and reinforcing
the state, bringing Siena under Florentine rule (1555). The state
Cosimo now ruled over was regional, something republican Florence
had never managed to achieve. He obtained a sovereign title from
the pope and on March 5, 1570 was crowned grand duke of Tuscany
by Pius V.
Cosimo I died in 1574 and left the government in the hands of his
son Francesco who reigned till 1587 whe he was succedeed by his
brother Ferdinando I (1587-1609).
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