Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) and Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1495): Florentine Patrons of the Rebirth of Learning
Presented on: Thursday, November 10, 1983
Presented by: Roger Weir
Italian Renaissance
Presentation 6 of 13
Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) and Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1495): Florentine Patrons of the Rebirth of Learning
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, November 10, 1983
Transcript:
The date is November 10th, 1983. This is a sixth lecture in a series of lectures by Roger Weir on the Italian Renaissance. Tonight's lecture is entitled Cosimo de Medici who lived 1389 to 1464, the Florentine patron of rebirth and learning. Also scheduled on this tape was Lorenzo de Medici but mister Weir did not cover Lorenzo on his tape.
We come tonight to Cosimo. Cosimo is one of the fine figures in human history. You can go a long way before you find someone like him. And in fact, the closest parallel in Western history is with Pericles in classical Athens. They both had roughly the same outlook on life. The same kind of character and produced the same effect on history. They never talked about it, but he might have been a reincarnation of Pericles. They certainly talked about the reincarnation of Plato and Comiso Slitsen(?), the great Byzantine scholar.
I have a photo of Cosimo adoring the infant Jesus. And as soon as I can I'll get all of these on slides so we can see them appropriately.
Cosimo, and I always mispronounce his name on purpose, in deference to his greatness is actually the person responsible for the Renaissance more than any other figure. Although the core, the root, is due to Dante. It was Cosimo and his genius and excellence as a man that was able to carry it out and bring to pass the structures in the forms and the basic nutrient out of which human life could proceed. And as you will see tonight it was a very peculiar formative time in history for him to arrive. And I think the least that we can say is that he probably was one of Fra Angelico's brother angels.
We have before us an interesting situation. The father of Cosimo, Giovanni de Bici was one of those bulldog looking Tuscan gentlemen. Spoke softly and acted directly. Was elegant, in not an effective way but elegant in that he usually could size up the human being quite accurately and proceed to business. And as a consequence, Giovanni de Bici built up a fabulous fortune. And he focused the power of the family in the banking business. So, Cosimo was born into the banking business. It was a banking Empire. It was a family that owned banks in Florence and Paris and London, Bruges, Naples, Genoa. In other words, they had branches of their bank everywhere in Europe. And as a consequence, because they could swiftly make decisions around the family dinner table, as it were. They facilitated international business, and it was a new aspect to life in the early 15th century. And because of this hitch, meaning because of the wisdom of the first two great Medici figures. And the family of course continued for four hundred years and eventually every royal throne in Europe was sat upon by a descendent of the Medicis.
But Giovanni and his son Cosimo, who was 40 when his father died, focused the power of the Florentine banks on making the international currency of the time, to glow...the gold and silver Florentines. I have a will have a slide of those they're interesting to observe and see. It meant that the basis of business whatever you were to take up was in the mode of the currency of the Medici family. And on one side of the coin is a fleur-de-lis that was later on added to the Medici coat of arms by permission of the French throne. And on the other side we have a Haggard Saint John Baptist with his long Saint Andrew's cross cruiser and his wild hair suit. So that we have an interesting fact that the symbol for the Medici power, the gold Florentine, actually had on one side the royalty of Europe. And on the other side they aesthetic ideal of Christianity. Which they never relinquished and always kept alive. And it's interesting to note that in the age when it was discovered, the true history of the Christian Church, that the Medici family who were in a position through Cosimo and his grandson Lorenzo more than any other human beings at the time, did not give up their faith. Even when they made great discoveries. Great discoveries were made unto them as to the real history and real nature of the Christian Church.
So, Cosimo, who was styled after his death Pater Patriae, father of the fatherland. And considered as the most effective human being of his time. He...when he was born in 1389, Chaucer was just 49 years of age. And it's interesting to realize that for us in our mind when we think of Chaucer at 49, we think of the medieval world. And yet when Cosimo died in 1464, we immediately think of a world which is modern. And it is due to the genius of this man that that lifetime of just 75 years, should have pole-vaulted over all of the obstructions that had been holding up the advance of history. I know this sounds like an anachronism parking back to the idea of progress, but you will see that there were obstructions in the way. Had been in the way for about 900 years. And Cosimo was able, with the help of a staple diet of encouragement bringing forth some of the best artists and minds of all time. Was able to open up the doors and let a little light come in to human history.
We today live in a culture, in a society which is directly descended, in an unbroken line from that civilization that Cosimo generaled into being in the 15th century. We have the same lineage to Cosimo's Renaissance as Augustinian Rome had to Periclean Athens. That is to say we are somewhat imitative of the situation, but the appreciation outweighs the imitation. And so, by consonants and resonance with quality we overcome the defects that mere falsity and imitation would have bred.
As I said before, one of the great aspects of Cosimo's background was that as a young man growing up in this family, under his father. We can imagine to ourselves the dutiful youngster watching the successful old bulldog went his way without ever having to raise his voice. Without ever having to really resort to arms. Young Cosimo grew up understanding that one had to persevere in a strategy of life and not to push a tactic of triumph or react to some temporary defeat. And so, this overwhelming sense of building up a strategic pattern of operation is the most immediately noticeable quality of Cosimo's character. And in this he is almost unexcelled in human history east or west.
When he was first mentioned we find that he is 25 years old and it's about 1415. And there was a great ecumenical council of the Christian Church. They were trying to find some way to bring the Eastern Church and the Western Church together. And they had tried once before at Pisa and gotten nowhere. And now the Emperor Sigmund had sponsored this great ecumenical council and it was to be at Constance. And this Council of Constance was assembled. And at the time there were several rival popes who had to come into possession of various factions of power. And one of those rival popes was John the 23rd. And Cosimo first comes into notice in written history that when the council decided to depose these rival popes. Cosimo who had been a personal friend and envoi assigned to be with John the 23rd escaped with his life because he was able to don at the sky. And so, he comes in in a moment of intrigue and it's the first time we actually hear of him. There are no records that allow for us to observe his character as a younger man. We can only conjecture and piece together and suppose.
The next time that Cosimo comes into the picture he is thrust upon the world stage by the death of his father. And when Giovanni de Bici died, Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo jointly were to have the family fortune and responsibility for it. And there are actually from this moment on two lines of Medicis. The one line of Cosimo will be most important for our course. And if we were to follow European royal history some two hundred years down the line, three hundred years down the line, it would be Lorenzo's branch that would come into play. But for our purposes it is Cosimo and his grandson who are most important for us.
With the death of his father, Cosimo realized that he would have to establish himself as a trusted confident Italian style. And to do this he desired to brighten up the image of himself by building a new palace. He got his friend Brunelleschi to design a palace for him. But then looking at the design realized that it was a little bit too ostentatious. So, he brought in another friend of his, a younger architect named Michelozzo, who then designed the new Medici palace. And as the walls were going up and reached past the first story and one could see that the ramparts of the second coming, up many of the most powerful other families in Florence got together and they said we've got to stop him now. He's a winner and we're in trouble if he stays. And so, they made a great claim to the fractious residents of Florence, and they said this man is a monster in disguise. He's going to try and take over the state. We've got to seize him and put him into prison, which they did. And his brother was exiled. And they sought to poison Cosimo. He did not eat a thing for three days. He sat quietly in his prison waiting for events to evolve, which they did. The general populace of Florence came to somewhat after two or three days and they realized that he actually had never done anything to anyone. And so, they settled for an exile to him. He was exiled originally; I believe it was to Padua. But eventually made his way to Venice where his brother Lorenzo had been exiled.
The person in charge of this great attack upon Cosimo was a member of the Albizzi family. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, a despicable sort of a character. I'm not really that prejudiced but Ronaldo deserves it. Cosimo, keeping the strategic pattern in mind, decided that the best thing that he could do was to show everyone what a fine fellow he was. So, he proceeded to spend his money very wisely instead of dressing himself in luxurious vermin, he decided to build a little library and he donated a number of books to it in Venice. And this was a kind of an interesting aspect Venice at that time was still very powerful. they are in great proximity to Constantinople which hadn't fallen yet. And so, it was interesting for Venice to have a nice little public library. It was almost like having the people of Venice treated to the fact that they were like royalty. And then Cosimo began donating to certain hospital funds. And making sure that there were places where the poor could at least get a meal. He contributed to a hospital and Waystation in the Holy Land for injured pilgrims there. And this of course, for the roving maritime Venetians seemed to peg Cosimo as a very fine individual.
In fact, the Italian jealousy began to come to the floor. And the Florentines realized that they had lost a gem. And so that began to be a public clamor for the return of Cosimo. And can compointedly(?) fingers began pointing and whispers at night about the Albizzi and the Pazzi and these terrible noble families. Well, the fact is that about a hundred years of history were coming to a head. There were in Florence two great factions, the grandi who were the noble families and the populani popularity, the populous, the general people. And Cosimo was of the people even though he's very wealthy, he was not royal. He was someone who had been given a good head start by his father and had maintained it by his excellence. But he was not royal. He was not a noble. And in a way the general populace by liking Cosimo, siding with him, secretly were able to transfer to themselves the fact that well conditions were right I too could do what Cosimo did. I could be wealthy. And so, the people on the pecking order, the burghers who were trying to do better and better began making arrangements for the return of Cosimo to Florence.
As a matter of fact, there had been two wars fought, one against Lucca and one against Milan. And the Florentines had not won a thing. In fact, that had been very costly. And who was paying the taxes for this but the working man in Florence. And so, this added fuel to the fire and who was responsible for these expensive wars but good old Rinaldo degli Albizzi. And so, they realized that he had to go. And in fact, many others had to go. So, they exiled a bunch of them, and they brought Cosimo back.
And it was interesting because when he approached the city of Florence the whole populace turned out. It was like one of those marvelous events. Strewing the road with flowers and everyone in their finery and cheers. And Cosimo being quite an excellent statesman, as he rode his horse in the entourage past the empty Albizzi palace, he stood up on his horse and pointed silently to the empty palace amid huge cheers. This was in 1433 and he would remain in power, as we would say today. He would not use that phrase at all. He would be a trusted counselor for the next thirty years. And he would bring about that revolution in human thought. That is bring it into a shape a conscious shape, which we call the Renaissance.
There were great events afoot and Cosimo was sensitive to all this. He had all his life been a well-educated man. I don't mean just someone who had a good education. I mean someone who had an excellent background. There is a difference. He could read Greek and Latin. He could read Hebrew and Arabic. And of course, he could converse in all the European languages where the family had banked. So English and French, Italian and a few other languages were available to him. But what is more, the man loved learning. He realized that in order to float and support his strategic patterning of his accomplishments that he had to have information. He had to have judgment. and he had to have people that he could depend upon. And generally, the more educated people are the more dependable they become. They're sort of like a little curve where if you get a little education, you become less dependable. But after a while you finally decide that it's better to be trustworthy than not.
And Cosimo had built up a series of acquaintances. Enormous series of acquaintances. And when he came back to Florence one of the first friends, sort of new friends, that he made was with the man named Sforza. Francesco Sforza who would figure very prominently some twenty years later in European history, when Cosimo would pull the diplomatic coup de Gras of the 15th century. Sforza was one of those brash condottieri. The freelance generals who if you hired him, he would spend money and get mercenaries and put together an army and go out and fight your war for you. And if you paid him enough, he would win. And Francesco Sforza, one of the great generals of his time liked Cosimo because he was such a general about life. He was not ever plotting. Not ever scheming. It was that he was too busy envisioning to plot or scheme. And he was always envisioning and therefore there was a sense of continuity in Cosimo that Sforza loved and appreciated.
And it was unusual because he actually came from the territory of Milan. And Milan and Florence had been at war off and on. Remember they had just had a little war a year before with the Albizzi and had lost. In fact, the situation was that Milan and Naples were arraigned against Florence and Venice. There were other cities involved but that's how the pecking order came down. All of his life Cosimo tried to bring peace. Not, not peace in the ordinary sense but peace in his sense. That is a chance to enlarge the field for his envisioning.
And in 1453 Cosimo made a private deal with his old pal Francesco Sforza. And he said buddy the situation is this we've been fighting; our parents were fighting and it's a hopeless cause. Why don't Florence and Milano get together and become allies. I'll give you plenty of money and some help and you take over Milan and we'll make a pact. And Francesco probably said something like what about Venice. And Cosimo said something like they'll have to make do. Which actually transpired and, in a kit, complete flip-flop. Almost like President Nixon's trip to Red China, the arch enemy became the stalwart foe. And Venice and Naples left out the cold had to come into being allies. And of course, they're so far away and they couldn't ever get together. Have you ever tried to get together with Neapolitans over a long distance it didn't work. And so, peace came to Italy because no one could get together to fight. And this brilliant plan of Cosimo's is just characteristic of his mind.
Other times he would sense that a situation hung on some stubborn personality. And so, he would find someone who had a beautiful daughter and do a little matchmaking and intriguing. And they'd fall in love, and they couldn't have her because of a monetary problem. Cosimo would send a secret envoy and say well it's money how much do you need. And the enemy would become an ally. And the phrase later on was that the Medici usually tried to solve the problems by marriage or other intrigues rather than by fighting him by war.
As Cosimo came back into Florence, he realized that there were tremendous possibilities at foot in the world. And he had been collecting various kinds of manuscripts since he had been a young man. He was always a book lover. And in fact, had spent enormous family sums on books. And by books, they weren't printed yet they were all manuscripts. De Medician library in Florence, the Laurentian as it's called now, has about 10,000 manuscripts handwritten. So, Cosimo is a very avid collector of books. One of the volumes that he was able to get was the original document The Codes of Justinian, the codes of Roman law which had been composed in 533 AD under Justinian. He had made sure that everybody who had worked on this great volume of codes had signed their name and given their background. And this was the whole legal structure of the Western world in a nutshell. And Cosimo had the book. He had the manuscript. And in a very real way because he was a great visionary he held; he felt the scepter of order in the Western world. Even though he sat on no throne that you could see, or I could see. He walked on the stage of history because he had the key to it all.
And in his planning because he had been given the key by Fortuna, Mother Earth then called Fortuna. Lady Fortune, she was a lady, and she could be mom. And Cosimo felt that he had received her finest glance. So, he began to prepare some way to exercise the secret scepter that he had. And in looking around he found such an event. In fact, to sort of help prepare for it we have to digress just for a second, on a little Argo of excursion. He'd come back to Florence in 1433. And in 1436 Brunelleschi finished the dome in Florence. Il Duomo was finished. And of course, Cosimo being a genius, a great carnival director of ceremonies and events staged the best consecration anybody had ever seen for this temple. He built a raised platform from Santa Maria Novella through the baptistry direct to the doors of il duomo and then covered the whole thing with expensive silks and tapestries. And then had a whole entourage including the Pope, his friend Eugenius the fourth, who was residing in Florence. He stayed there for about eight years. Rome had become tenable in terms of staying alive. There were so many assassins and rivals. Cosimo had extended the right for the Pope to stay in town. He, he made special quarters for him in Santa Maria Novella.
So, in effect the Pope could just walk from where he lived to the new cathedral on the raised platform of the wealth of Cosimo de Medici with all of the archbishop's and all the bishops and all the wealthy people of Florence. And everyone as they walked on this procession and all the five hours that they spent in the Duomo, under the great dome, and the long procession back the subject of conversation was Cosimo. He made all this happen. And while he wasn't in the lead. He wasn't the master of ceremonies. He was just like anybody else. Well, he's just over here in line. He's, he's hardly even available. Cosimo was like Joe and lie, he was never number one very wise.
In Gozzoli's Adoration of the Magi we find Cosimo in the background almost hidden by his son fighter of the Gaudi. But as we look at these pink faces or pale faces, the face that stands out like the quarterback who has his eye on a goal is Cosimo. His intensity of purpose just barely disguised by the elegant manners and seeming business of doing banking across the face of the world. Cosimo in fact was planning very great things because he had these hidden centers. And he was king of the world in terms of history. He was a temporal monarch and not so much in the spatial realm. You could take a snapshot of him any day and he didn't look like it. But over the long run Cosimo would win. Because he was after a triumph of the human spirit and not after an empire. He knew what earthly empires were. The gold florins were part of the family treasure.
But Cosimo had in his mind a tremendous feeling for antiquity. He had in fact done a lot of talking with Plethon, Gemistos Plethon who was a very formidable Byzantine scholar. And Cosimo would make sure that Plethon and many other Greek scholars stayed in Florence for several years at least whenever they came to visit. And in fact, he had something in his mind the only scholar that he really didn't get along with was a slightly despicable individual named Filoso. Filoso had gone to Constantinople. Had studied under a Byzantine Greek teacher. Had married or as they said, had had to marry his 14-year-old daughter. And had finally come back to Italy, back to Florence and enjoyed the honor of being a great sophist in Florence. But Cosimo somehow didn't like the fact that the man lived, as he would have said, like a Byzantine animal. He had the all the degeneracy of the misuse of classical learning. And the man was all the more guilty because he should have known better. He should have been a better man. There should have been some dignity in him. And look at him foul-mouthed behind the Greek learning. And not really a likable human being at all. In fact, one just would never have wine with him in the garden. It just wasn't that sort of an individual. And Filoso was the only Greek scholar that Cosimo ever blew up at. In the sense that he arranged for him to be banished from Florence. He finally ended up in Milan. Cosimo made sure that at least he had someplace to be in Milan. Filoso of course tried to assassinate Cosimo with a Greek assassin who was so clumsy that he didn't get very far. I understand that Filoso has, had a scar on his cheek because some historians say, I don't say, someone had sent an assassin against him. And had stabbed him coming into class. Sort of like one of these dueling scars just to show him up a little bit.
At any rate Cosimo felt that it could well be that his gifted position in history was coming to a head because Christianity as a religion had been split in two since the classical world. And Cosimo was always thinking in terms of the nine hundred years between his time and that antique time, which was the last contact with wholeness in the world. Part of the computation that stayed with him all the time was that Justinian's code was 533 and he'd come back in 1433, nine hundred years. And constantly his mind the strategies of his historical empire of rebirth kept coming back and in terms of well what was happening then. What must I bring together now that was undone then. And this correlation is we'll see it was on and on. And eventually produces the right answer. But for now, and the late 1430s where we're talking, Cosimo realized that in fact the Christian Church would have which had been centered into the Roman Church and the Greek Orthodox Church for all this time needed to be brought together.
And in fact, had he not been at the council, Council of Constance and seen the kind of petty bickering that went on. That it was not a matter of men of good will coming together. It was a matter of the petty bickering and who knew men are better than he how to handle men in those kinds of situations. And so, when yet another council, there was a third council at Ball that went nowhere. A fourth council was to be held at Ferrara and who was to be in charge but Pope Eugenius the fourth. And so, after letting things degenerate for about a year in Ferrara, Cosimo went with a small entourage and had a late evening dinner with Eugenius. And the whole procession decided to move to Florence, and they did. And Florence became then the ecumenical center of the world for the six months that this council was to be held in this time. Cosimo wanted it to succeed. He wanted to bring the two branches of Christianity back together again. Make it whole again.
The problem for the Byzantines was not just theological, but of course they had been suffering from the blows of the Turks. And now Mehmed the Conqueror was rallying his troops for the final onslaught. He was still a young man, but it would only be about 15 years and he would breach the walls of Constantinople. This was the last chance for the Byzantines to gain help from Christian Europe. And in exchange for military help the leaders of the Greek Orthodox tradition, Joseph the Patriarch of Constantinople, was put up in one of Cosimo's palaces. The Emperor of the Byzantine situation John Palaiologos [Palaeologus] was put up under Cosimo's elegant hospitality. This was a chance to make a deal. And Cosimo felt that he had been singled out because it was not so much that history needed an artist. Or history needed a philosopher. Or that history needed a general. They needed someone who could make this deal and he made it, but it didn't stick.
On the 6th of July in 1439 the patriarch of Constantinople and the Roman Emperor Pope Eugenius the fourth had their envoys embrace under the Duomo, under Brunelleschi's vast dome and issue a plaque which was carved in marble and placed in the church that Christianity on that date had come back together and been a unified religion. And they believed, the representatives believed that it had been done. Cosimo believed that he had made the deal. But of course, when the Byzantine Emperor went back, and the details became known to the Greek Orthodox population they almost to a man rose against this. Would not accept this. Because the basic contention all the time was that the sea of Rome which was in charge of the Pope was just but one sea and there were maybe twelve or fifteen other seas in Christianity of equal stature. In fact, there were some seas that were even older than the sea of Rome. So that the Pope was but one leader, a Metropolitan of Rome and not the leader of the Christian Church at all. He was not a Pope in the sense that we would think of a Pope today. But was simply one among many. Or as they would even have said the first among many. Using Augustus old Principate policy, that there are many princes in the world that I am the first of the princes. The Greek Orthodox Church would have gone that far.
Part of the problem in the research that came up though was that in fact the whole research in Florence in 1439, digging back into the documents, the scholars who actually could read Greek bringing the documents with them to argue the cases. Somebody in Cosimo's library brought up the fact that the donation of Constantine, this document from the 8th century, Charlemagne's time, was forged. And in fact, further research showed the whole string of documents called the Decree Tolls we're all forged.
And in fact, further research showed the whole string of documents called the Decree Tolls were all forged. That the ecumenical council was dealing with but genera that the whole theological doctrinaire power and authority of the Roman See was based on 8th century forgeries. How could this be they asked. And so, research went back to the Greek documents. Back to the Latin documents. And all the early church fathers used Greek. The first was Tertullian who used Latin, and nobody had been able to read these. Not even so much that they were in Greek and who could read Greek. But these documents had resided in the vaults in Constantinople or Nicaea, Nikaia. And only certain ecclesiastics ever went into those vaults and ever looked at them. But it was in Florence under the prodding of Cosimo, he's trying to be the good host you see, getting everybody to say well we're trying to get this affected. What is the problem. Well, you have these documents, where are those documents? Let's bring them out.
And so, when everybody put everything on the table, they were all able to look, it became a complete sham. that the Roman Catholic Christian Church in its history was a sham. That its authority was based upon eight century forgeries. That the earliest documents all supported the Greek Orthodox contention that there was no kind of favorite tizen [sp?] shown to Rome at all. And of course, this was a shattering blow to many of those scholars. many of those persons in Florence at this time. And for a great portion of the population the whole structure of Christianity became suspect. If this were so, if we were lied to about this what else. That was the tone. And so, they began to rise up in Florence from 1440 a whole quest to reestablish the rightful place of the Christian Church, of the Pope's and that, of finally of human learning and human understanding. Was it not true, were not all these Greek polemical texts of the early Christian church. They all used arguments that were taken from classical Greek philosophy. Every single one of the early church fathers used arguments that were taken lock, stock, and barrel from, and words, all the vocabulary everything was from Greek philosophy. The New Testament had been written in Greek using these words, so the question became one of them utmost importance.
What are those original Greek documents and when they traced back to see, well which philosophers are important and finally they found the philosopher who was important. The grandfather of all of this was Plato. And Cosimo thinking in his mind, he had thought all the time that the laws of Justinian were the place to base himself. And then he realized that it wasn't the laws of Justinian, it was the dialogues of Plato that were the ultimate fount of authority in terms of the history they were trying to reconstruct and understand. And so, from the early 1440s on Cosimo became increasingly attentive, I won't say obsessed, but increasingly attentive in the structural way that he did things. To the fact that we have to find all the dialogues of Plato. We have to dig them out wherever they are in the world, bring them here to Florence and put them together and make an accurate translation into a contemporary language. And then study them and raise a generation of people so we can know at least where have we started from. What do those words mean? What are these concepts? Because otherwise we will never know what is right and what is true. And whether Christianity is a made-up sham or whether it has some real history and substance to it.
And so, in the 1440s Cosimo began to envision for himself the need to find first of all the documents. And second of all somebody, some man who would do the translating for him. And he was vowing to devote all of his financial resources. His income was over two million pounds sterling per year. In today's sum, I don't know what that stands for. That's a figure given in 1910. 20 million, 30. He was willing because his contacts went across the face of the known world. He had spices coming from India and on the same ships there would be classical Greek books coming in. And he would have translators coming from all over. He was collecting all of the individuals who were beginning to flee from Constantinople. Many people could see the writing on the wall. There was no help coming. It was going to fall. And so, Cosimo brought the best of them to Florence.
He had in fact decided to build for himself a villa outside of Florence. In fact, he built three. He built one at Trebbio. But the one that was really important is the one that he built at Careggi. Because when Constantinople finally fell in 1453, the same year that the Hundred Years War came to an end between England and France, Cosimo went up to Careggi and began building the villa which would be the home of the Platonic Academy. Because interestingly enough the Platonic Academy, Plato's school, his Academy had closed in 529 AD about 900 years before. And that became for Cosimo a more significant date than the 533. He had after all been very close. It wasn't so much returning back to Plato because the ancient world had had a continuity of Plato unbroken. Plato had founded his school in the 5th century BC, and it had been unharmed by all the vicissitudes for a thousand years in the Classical Age. No matter who was in power. How bad or how good they were. No one destroyed Plato's school. Because it was like the sacred shrine of intelligence, and they all knew this is the naval of understanding of where we are and who we are. And it had only closed its doors in 529 because there were no more students. No one destroyed it. It was just that no one cared anymore. Human beings are capable of this kind of neglect. And so, the doors were closed. There were just no more students.
So, Cosimo, thinking to himself the task that I need to do is reopen Plato's Academy. And it's not going to be in Athens it's going to be here in Florence. And there's some connection between Athens and Florence. And there's something about that nine hundred years. And the continuity of the ancient world is going to be reinstated. And we are going to bridge over the nine hundred years of these ages of ignorance with our efforts and triumphs now. And we're going to go back and reconstruct the integrity of the ancient Rome and the ancient Greece using Plato's philosophy as the spinal column. As the guide to the whole neural structure of ideas that held together the ancient world.
This was a monumental discovery and invention because Cosimo had found the man. In fact, he had found him some years before. It was the son of his personal physician, a young Marsilio Ficino was just the right person. And Cosimo had looked at him when he was a youngster eight or ten. And had a little personal interview with him for several hours when he was about 13. And then when he was about 15 had decided that this was the boy. This was the fellow to do the job for him and so he had him specially trained. And when we get to Ficino, we'll see what a genius he was. The portrait of Ficino in here shows him to be a most excellent individual. You can look at it later on. He, he looks like the Spencer Tracy of his day.
So, the villa at Careggi was to be Plato's Academy re-born, rebirth, Renaissance. And Ficino never forgot to celebrate Plato's birthday, they computed that. November 27th, it was a great feast. Unfortunately, it wasn't vegetarian, and wine were served. And candles were burned. And there was a bust of Plato at one end of the hall. And everyone participated because the spirit of the master had been brought back to life. Not only that, in reconstructing the ancient world the philosophy, the basic spinal column of meaning that had held the antique world together. They discovered that the genius of Plato starting out this current had had another genius culminating it in the third century AD.
And just as Cosimo directed his energies to bringing Plato back to the world, re-manifesting Plato. His grandson would seek to re-manifest fest that individual who had culminated the platonic tradition, Plotinus. And he would make Neoplatonism the philosophy of Careggi. And it was that that would produce the high Renaissance. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Botticelli, Pico, and it was the high Renaissance that spread across the face of the world.
Well let's take a break and then we'll have some more.
I don't know if we're going to get to Lorenzo or not. It's difficult to leave Cosimo. I don't think we will make Lorenzo.
The contrast between the excellence of the ancient Greeks and the degeneracy of the late Byzantine Greece was very telling to the Florentines. The general populace in Florence took note of this. And the paintings that we have from the late 1430s, 1436 to about 1440, the paintings that were done at that time - mainly The Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano and several other Adorations of the Magi, Gozzoli and so forth - show an amazing sequence of costumes. Wild headdresses and strange garments and odd gold amulets. And this would be the last time in world history that this collection of garments and costumes representing all of the cultures of the Christian East were to be seen because when Constantinople fell it erased the Christian city from the world. Of all the cities in history only Constantinople had been founded specifically for the purpose of engendering the Christian religion. It was known in Florence at this time as the Christian City. And when it fell in 1453 it wasn't very long before Venice also had a curtailment of its maritime Empire. And quickly shrank down to just the collection of interesting artifacts in the edge of the quays.
Through the activities of Cosimo, all of the dynamic of the Byzantine civilization flowed in current to Florence. It was like an electrical charge that just went from one pole to the other. And thus, the founding of the Florentine Platonic Academy was a turning point in Western history. And Cosimo and his individuals around him felt that they had prepared this chalice. The city more than just a city, this facility of bringing together human beings. It was in fact a foreshadowing not only of the Reformation that would come but the Enlightenment that would come in the 18th century. But instead of emphasizing as the one did, religion or emphasizing as the other did the mind, the Florentine Renaissance under Cosimo emphasized the human being. The person. The person in all of the excellence that was available.
In fact, when Cosimo was buying the old monastery of San Marco and redecorating it. Putting in the first great library. It was the librarian of his collection in San Marco that would be the next pope. Who would take the name Nicholas the fifth. And who would set out to rebuild Rome just as Cosimo had built Florence. It was in the time of Nicholas the fifth then that Rome began to come back. It was just a collection of real life until then. It had been sacked and vandalized and it was a mess. It was such a mess that the discovery of a headless statue was a cause celeb at the time. Then of course there would be thousands or tens of thousands of them uncovered from the rubble. Rome had lain sacked for more than a thousand years. And that's a long enough time for there to be quite an overlay of rubble. And these great sculptures and freezes of antiquity, the pieces of architecture the colonnades were all yet to be dug out. The first people to go and dig for relics in Rome were two of the personal friends of Cosimo, the great artist Brunelleschi and Donatello. When Cosimo was exiled all of his friends left. Donatello went to Rome with Brunelleschi, and they dug around, and they were called treasure hunters because they were actually looking for the pieces of antiquity. The sculptures and the architectural pieces. But they were not looking just as collectors or treasure hunters. They were not even working as antiquarians they were looking as Cosimo visionaries.
He'd enthused them all with his capacity to see the resonance of meaning in the piece. It isn't just this phenomenon that exists but it's the numeral connection with reality flowing through this phenomenon that exists. This is malleable and what it brings back into manifestation is the invisible. And if we carry that capacity then man has a dignity that raises him eventually, as they would say in the high Renaissance, above the angelic orders. Because his dignity consists in being able to not only descend to the depth but to soar to the heights along the spinal column core of the universe and all of its horizons of meaning. And by his mercuric messengers service moving through all the echelons of possibility, is man who is the Messenger of God. Not the trumpet of Gabriel. Not the sword of Michael. But the comprehension of man through his hand and through his mind.
This became so well-known in later times that it was scarcely thought to be extraordinary. When, when Michelangelo would bring it to it a culmination...Excuse me. They comment at the time was that the butcher down the street could have done just as well if he had had the time and training. That every citizen of Florence, the general populace of Florence, the common man had been raised up in this vision. It was not just for the few or the talented. It was in fact public.
And this is the key to Cosimo's personality and the tone that he lent. Because his library was available to everyone. If you were an honest researcher or scholar and that's what they called pilgrims or questers in those days. If you wanted to know, you were welcomed. You would be fed. You would be put up. And if you were legitimate as long, as you were legitimate, you would be taken care of. And you would have access to the cream of the ancient world. They had there the original documents that have become the codices for all of our editions of Tacitus, Sophocles, Aeschylus. All of them were there. The earliest Bible at that time, the Codex Amiatinus, all of it was there. All of it was available for the public.
And what was more, Cosimo as the man making the pattern come into manifestation had brought this powerful vision not only into being but had portioned it out and fed it out and tied into it a whole cluster of geniuses who are alive at the same time. And just as Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, Donatello we're working. He also had Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi. And what were they doing? Well, we've talked about it and these lectures leading up to this. I have a description here of Fra Angelico's painting which I wish to introduce not as evidence so much, not even as an impression. But just to underscore the mystical quality of the envisioning capacity at this time.
All the mystic thought of the middle world, the passionate love of God and man that beat in the heart of Saint Francis. The yearnings of Dante's soul after a higher and more perfect order of things are embodied in the art of Fra Angelico. The brilliancy of color and richness which he gives and his pictures of angels and heavenly scenes. A marvelous full of marble they are. In his picture at Cortona of the Annunciation Fra Angelico's first version of his favorite subject the angel's wings are gold tipped with ruby light. And his robe is a marvel of decorative beauty. Studded all over with little tongues of flame embroidered in mystic patterns. His picture of The Coronation of the Virgin is one of the glories of the Louvre. And in it he has lavished the richest ornament in the most radiant color. And the angels who stand before the throne each with a spark of fire on his forehead and glittering stars in the purple wings. The gorgeousness of the vision held firmly in the conception of an agile yet tough mind, in a situation that was so unstable that it was only Cosimo and a few years of his son and grandson that held it stable. It would all come crashing down. It would never be put back together again.
And the fact that the great Ficino would outlive the crash. He would say the burning of many treasures by the fanatics, the religious fanatics, under Savonarola were going to oust these pagans. It would go underground and become what we knew in the 15th and 16th and 17th and 18th and 19th and 20th centuries at the Hermetic tradition. But it was above ground in Cosimo's time.
And man, who is receiving the annunciations from angels that had flames on their heads and glittering stars on their purple wings. What did man have man had the burnished shadowless halos, the nimbuses of eternal light. Answering the call of the angelic orders with the acceptance of the responsibility to manifest it and give birth to the divine. It's not the angels who give birth to the divine is man young his dignity. And therefore, he is worth saving. He is worth educating. He is worth being given the treasures of understanding. Because he alone can use them. There isn't an angel in this or any other cosmos that can plant a flower. Only man can do that.
And so, leaving out a great deal, Cosimo died on the 1st of August 1464. He lay ill for several weeks. As we'll see Ficino had worked steadily on the great manuscript of Plato. But then under the bidding of Cosimo understanding and realizing that within the golden thread of the Platonic tradition was the Ruby laser light of the Hermetic teaching, had said to Ficino finish first before Plato. What a sacrifice. Before Plato finished translating the Corpus Hermeticum - The Poimandres, The Asclepius - that high ethereal watermark of man's capacity to know his purpose and understand the reason. The reason why he is universal and cosmic. Microcosmic God. And so, Ficino brought it, about the last week of Cosimo's life, The Corpus Hermeticum and read out loud to the old man in his bed. Read out loud the translation of Poimandres and Asclepius
to him. And the old man very happy, because it was back. The children may in their play desecrate it. They may want to forget it. But it's back it's here. And eventually even by way of abuse they'll use it. They'll understand.
When he died there was an interesting event. His burial was to be an they wonderful church there, San Lorenzo, that was built by Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi when he had died was buried in il Duomo. But they arranged a little Cosimo subterfuge in the placing of the Crypt. And I'll read this to you it's interesting, "And if we penetrate into the vault below we find in what a peculiar way the special honor to Cosimo was carried out. Evidently the Florentines were determined to do nothing by halves in the matter. Pater Patriae is a father of the country. He is the father of incarnation. No, the father of the manifestation of the core of human history. That quality that makes the reality that we live happen. What is such a man worth. For instead of finding as we should have expected a sarcophagus with Cosimo's name on it placed in the vault underneath the memorial slab in the pavement of the church, we find immediately below the porphyry slab." Porphyry is purple, purple marble. "Porphyry slab, a large square pillar of about 8 feet on each side, extending right up to the floor of the church above. And having on it only the Medici arms."
You know Cosimo for the Medici arms had eight little red balls. In the medieval times had been eleven. And then Lorenzo would get the right to have the blue cloudless sky with the three-gold fleur-de-lis. And he replaced one of the red balls and then it didn't work with seven red and in one blue, so they made it five red and one blue, made it six. You can always tell what age you're in for the Medici by the heraldry. Cosimo was eight.
So, he's not he's not down where he should be. Hmm, where is the body of Cosimo? Well, this 8-foot square pillar extending right up to the floor of the church above and having on it only the Medici arms and one short Latin inscription of five words simply stating that Piero, his son has placed this to the memory of his father. This pillar is Cosimo's tomb, his own name does not appear on it at all. "That is borne by the porphyry slab above and the whole being dust joined together into one monument." It was an honor never than or afterwards accorded to anyone else. And thus is Cosimo after all in reality buried in front of the high altar of San Lorenzo.
Michelangelo later on when he would do The Pietà would be tipping his hat and thanks to the masters who created this who was held in The Pietà of San Lorenzo right in front of the altar. He was a sacrifice of the dead king just like in antiquity. Because he had brought the cosmic order back into being. Such a one his deserving of being laid at the gates of paradise by all his friends and all his successors.
Well next week we see some more of these old-fashioned individuals and see you then.
END OF RECORDING