The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici Read Online Free PDF Page A

was that of the Medici.
    An office in Rome had been established in the previous century by Giovanni’s distant cousin, Vieri di Cambio de’ Medici; there were also branches in Venice and Genoa, Naples and Gaeta. Giovanni de’ Medici, who had begun his career as an apprentice to his cousin Vieri, opened a new branch in Geneva, a second branch in Rome, and, as a consequence of the growth in trade following the conquest of Pisa, established correspondents in Bruges and London. But Giovanni’s success as a banker was not so much due to the prosperity of the Florentine wool trade as to his friendship with the Pope.
    It seemed a most improbable friendship, for Baldassare Cossa, who was elected Pope in 1410, was not at all the sort of man with whom a rather staid and provident banker might be expected to associate. Sensual, adventurous, unscrupulous and highly superstitious, Baldassare Cossa came of an old Neapolitan family and had once been a pirate. When he decided to enter the Church it appeared to those who knew him best that he sought further adventure rather than the service of God. Adventures he certainly had.
    The Church at this time was in a deplorable condition with a pope at Avignon contesting the rival claims of a pope at Rome. In an attempt to end this ‘great schism’, which was dividing Europe into rival camps, a Council had met at Pisa in 1409. The Council’s solution had been to depose both the Avignon pope, Benedict XIII, and the Italian pope, Gregory XII, and to elect a new pope, Alexander V, who promptly adjourned the Council. Since neither of the previous rivals was prepared to accept the verdict of the Council there were now three popes instead of two, a situation which was not improved when Alexander V died and Baldassare Cossa succeeded him, choosing the title of Pope John XXIII. In a fresh attempt to resolve the difficulty, the German Emperor Sigismund summoned a new Council at Constance, and towards the end of 1414 Pope John left forConstance, apparently taking with him a representative of the Medici bank as his financial adviser.
    By this time the Medici were well established as the Pope’s bankers. Other Florentine banking houses, notably the Alberti, the Ricci and the Spini, had acted as financial agents for the Curia in the past; and the amount of business which the Medici had conducted at Rome was relatively small, though Giovanni had much increased its volume while he was working there between 1386 and 1397. During the pontificate of John XXIII, however, it was the Medici who were most closely associated with the affairs of the Curia. It was said that they had helped to secure this position for themselves by providing the Pope with the money – 10,000 ducats – with which he had purchased his cardinal’s hat; certainly, while he had been Cardinal Legate at Bologna from 1403 until 1410 he had constantly been in correspondence with Giovanni, with whom he had conducted a great deal of business and to whom he referred as ‘my very dear friend’.
    After Cardinal Cossa’s election as Pope the Medici had begun to enjoy an exceptionally profitable relationship with the Papal Chamber, by which the Curia’s revenues were collected and disbursed. They had also been the principal backers of John XXIII during his war with King Ladislaus of Naples who supported the claims of Gregory XII one of the two rival popes; and when Pope John made peace with King Ladislaus in June 1412 it was again the Medici who played the main part in finding the 95,000 florins which were to be paid to the King of Naples under the terms of the treaty. Two valuable mitres, as well as a quantity of papal plate, were handed over to one of the Rome branches of the Medici bank as a pledge. This sort of transaction was not to Giovanni’s taste; but it was a small and necessary price to pay for the enormous profits to be made from the handling of papal finances. How truly immense these profits were may be judged from the fact that