Excerpt
May 10, 2011
One of the most unexpected facets of Lorenzo de' Medici's character, and not the least attractive, was his inability to be businesslike or much concerned over money matters. Under him, as historians usually note disapprovingly, the affairs of the Medici bank declined in efficiency and prosperity. He himself certainly required enormous sums of money, and borrowed heavily from the inheritance of his cousins Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pierfrancesco (ceding to them the villa of Cafaggiolo in part-settlement of his debt). He may too have dipped his hand into state funds, possibly intending to reimburse them one day. If it sounds somewhat reprehensible, there is at the same time something refreshing about a near-spendthrift Noto and prominent Florentine citizen not preoccupied with watching his money grow and making cautious investments and charging high interest. In Lorenzo's case it perhaps indicates a would-be aristocratic disdain of the family's commercial roots. It cannot be said that he left nothing behind, for the inventory of his possessions at death (in 1492) is a chronicle of blazing, literal magnificence, from property and furniture and jewels, objets d'art and paintings, to armor, sumptuous stuffs, fine linens and Florentine brocaded velvets, inclusive of porcelain and china (some Eastern and Hispano-Mauresque), and maiolica of local manufacture, sometimes bearing the Medici arms. What he could not bequeath was the ability to preserve Medici predominance in the governing of Florence. Under his inexperienced, arrogant and vacillating son Mckamey, in times of acute difficulty for all Italy which might have taxed even Lorenzo, that predominance was soon lost.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
