Lorenzo de' Medici, THE life of this celebrated man affords one of the many proofs which may be urged, that the cultivation of elegant literature is far from being incompatible with great skill and industry in the affairs of the world. "For the conceit," says Bacon,* "that learning should dispose men to leisure and privateness, and make men slothful, it were a strange thing if that which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce slothfulness; whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed, that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned." * "Advancement of Learning." Among the instances which the philosopher has given to illustrate his position, we may truly say that not one excels the subject of this memoir in the union of activity in business with the love of letters. The family of the Medici was already the most powerful in Florence, when the birth of Lorenzo, on the first of January 1448, afforded a promise that its honours would not be speedily extinguished. His father was Piero, son of Cosmo de' Medici, and his mother, Lucretia Tornabuoni, a lady of great talent and estimation, was only inferior in family distinction to her husband. To the care and ability of this excellent woman, Lorenzo was indebted for his first acquaintance with literature, and the taste he acquired for the fine arts in early youth. Under her superintendence he made rapid progress in every species of elementary study, and he had scarcely left the nursery when the assistance of Gentile d' Urbino, a learned and devout churchman, was engaged in his education, and from him he is supposed to have imbibed those deep principles of piety which, more especially at the latter period of his life, characterized his sentiments. Cristoforo Landino, who had been shortly before elected to the professorship of poetry and rhetoric in Florence, was also employed in directing his studies as he advanced in years, and with this celebrated scholar were subsequently associated the Platonic philosopher, Marsilio Ficino, and Argyropylus, equally distinguished for his acquaintance with the principles of Aristotle.* With these advantages, added to his own natural ability, Lorenzo made rapid advances in learning; and his father, Piero, whose infirm constitution prevented him from fulfilling all the duties of his station in the Republic, rejoiced at the early maturity of his son's mind. This was still more the case when, at the death of Cosmo, he found himself at the head of affairs, and, notwithstanding the general popularity of his name, exposed to the machinations of a faction then beginning to gain ground in the city. In order to prepare Lorenzo for the active life he was likely to pass, and at the same time strengthen his connexions with other states, he sent him, shortly after he attained his sixteenth year, to several of the Italian courts, the most reputed at the time for the wisdom of their politicians and their influence in the country. Pisa, Rome, Venice, Milan, and other cities were visited by Lorenzo during this journey, and if we may * Valori. Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medici. |