After the restoration Alessandro carried on his abominable career
here, until, on January 5th, 1537, the dagger of another Lorenzo freed
the world from an infamous monster. Some months before, Benvenuto
Cellini came to the palace, as he tells us in his autobiography, to
show the Duke the wax models for his medals which he was making.
Alessandro was lying on his bed, indisposed, and with him was only
this Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio, _quel pazzo malinconico filosafo di
Lorenzino_, as Benvenuto calls him elsewhere. "The Duke," writes
Benvenuto, "several times signed to him that he too should urge me to
stop; upon which Lorenzino never said anything else, but: 'Benvenuto,
you would do best for yourself to stay.' To which I said that I wanted
by all means to return to Rome. He said nothing more, and kept
continually staring at the Duke with a most evil eye. Having finished
the medal and shut it up in its case, I said to the Duke: 'My Lord, be
content, for I will make you a much more beautiful medal than I made
for Pope Clement; for reason wills that I should do better, since that
was the first that ever I made; and Messer Lorenzo here will give me
some splendid subject for a reverse, like the learned person and
magnificent genius that he is.' To these words the said Lorenzo
promptly answered: 'I was thinking of nothing else, save how to give
thee a reverse that should be worthy of his Excellency.' The Duke
grinned, and, looking at Lorenzo, said: 'Lorenzo, you shall give him
the reverse, and he shall make it here, and shall not go away.'
Lorenzo replied hastily, saying: 'I will do it as quickly as I
possibly can, and I hope to do a thing that will astonish the world.'
The Duke, who sometimes thought him a madman and sometimes a coward,
turned over in his bed, and laughed at the words which he had said to
him. I went away without other ceremonies of leave-taking, and left
them alone together."
On the fatal night Lorenzino lured the Duke into his own rooms, in
what was afterwards called the Strada del Traditore, which was
incorporated into the palace by the Riccardi. Alessandro, tired out
with the excesses of the day, threw himself upon a bed; Lorenzino went
out of the room, ostensibly to fetch his kinswoman, Caterina Ginori,
whose beauty had been the bait; and he returned with the bravo
Scoroncocolo, with whose assistance he assassinated him. Those who saw
Sarah Bernhardt in the part of "Lorenzaccio," will not easily forget
her rendering of this scene. Lorenzino published an Apologia, in which
he enumerates Alessandro's crimes, declares that he was no true
offspring of the Medici, and that his own single motive was the
liberation of Florence from tyranny. He fled first to Constantinople,
and then to Venice, where he was murdered in 1547 by the agents of
Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I., who transferred the ducal residence
from the present palace first to the Palazzo Vecchio, and then across
the river to the Pitti Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account