Read The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici for Free Online

insignia; and it was here that their first child, Piero, was born – in accordance with the hopes of a well-wisher who had written to Cosimo, ‘God preserve you and arrange that the first night you sleep with your noble and illustrious wife, you may conceive a male child.’
    Contessina appears to have been a rather unimaginative, fussy, managing woman. Fond of good food, fat, capable and cheerful, she was also domestic and unsociable. Far more scantily educated than her granddaughters were to be, she was, like many another Florentine wife, denied access to her husband’s study. Cosimo was quite fond of her; but he was never in the least uxorious, and bore his long partings from her with equanimity, writing to her seldom.
    The first of these partings appears to have occurred in 1414 when, at the age of twenty-five, Cosimo is reported by his friend, the bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci, as having left for the Council of Constance with Pope John XXIII. He was away for two years, travelling from city to city north of the Alps after Pope John’s deposition, and visiting the various branches of the family bank in Germany, France and Flanders. He was back in Florence at the time of Pope John’s death; but soon afterwards went down to Rome as branch manager, leaving his wife behind in the Palazzo Bardi to look after their son, Piero, and Piero’s younger brother, Giovanni.
    Cosimo was manager in Rome for over three years, making occasional visits to Florence but living most of the time in a house at Tivoli where he was looked after by a slave-girl whom he called Maddalena. One of his agents had bought this girl for him in Venice,having established that she was ‘a sound virgin, free from disease and aged about twenty-one’. Cosimo was attracted by her, shared his bed with her; and she bore him a son. As was usual in such unexceptional cases the son, who was christened Carlo, was brought up with Contessina’s sons and given a suitably thorough classical education. A young man of markedly Circassian appearance, he entered the Church and, through his father’s influence, became Rector of Prato and Protonotary Apostolic. 12
    While Cosimo remained in business at Rome, he was able to avoid arousing the jealousy of his family’s rivals and enemies in Florence; but soon after his return his obvious capacity and his supposed support of the
Popolo Minuto
against the
Magnati
reawakened the Albizzi’s suspicions of his family.
    His father, always so wary and discreet, had throughout his life maintained his reputation for modesty and moderation. When the Albizzi approached him with plans to tighten the hold of the existing oligarchy on the government of the Republic, he declined to cooperate with them. But as soon as the Albizzi’s opponents, learning of this refusal, endeavoured to gain Giovanni’s support for a more positive resistance to the oligarchy, he replied that he had no intention of helping to bring about a change of government and that, in any case, he was too busy with his own business affairs. Likewise, when the Albizzi proposed to reform the iniquitous Florentine tax system by introducing a new kind of income and property tax known as the
catasto
, Giovanni, after greeting the proposal with the utmost caution, eventually agreed to support it but with so many conditions and reservations that his actual attitude towards it was clouded by ambiguity.
    All his life he had been at pains to behave like this, never to give cause for jealousy, always to avoid commitment; and as he lay dying he urged his two sons to follow his example. Be inoffensive to the rich and strong, he advised them, while being consistently charitable to the poor and weak.
    Do not appear to give advice, but put your views forward discreetly in conversation. Be wary of going to the Palazzo della Signoria; wait to be summoned, and when you
are
summoned, do what you are asked to doand never display any pride should you receive a lot of votes… Avoid