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by:
Stephen B. Cox
The sands of the desert covered the mystic Egyptian Hall of Records of prehistory; fundamentalism and princely
ego destroyed the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum. Then a thousand years later the spirit of adventure and learning
was again reborn in Florence at the Platonic Academy of the Medici. The quest goes on!
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The Medici family rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance in the city of Florence and became one of the most
powerful families Europe has ever known. Yet with few exceptions they retained their grace, modesty, geniality and culture.
What is more, in the case of Florence in the period called the "Quattrocento", they seemed to have given that city state a
stability and prosperity that many envied, and more amazingly an intellectual and cultural liberty that given the nature of
the times was quite amazing. For like the Knights Templars before them, they wielded great economic power (in the case of
the Medici it was again banking and also trade). Their links their contacts and power and their finance placed them in the
position of influence and power broking. In time Cosimo and his grandson Lorenzo (il Magnifico) not only preserved
the republic of Florence and its independence against the encroachments of the Papacy and France in particular, but also became
mediators in many of the great conflicts of Italy and bankers and cultural advisers to other states, even to the extent that
the Papacy itself was in its debt and despite heavy subversive attempts to undermine the Florentine state (for example the
murder of Lorenzos handsome and dashing brother Giulio in an assassination attempt on the whole family while in church by
the agents of Pope Sixtus IV and Cardinal Riario in 1478- for which the people wrought a terrible vengeance on the Medicis
enemies, even lynching the Cardinal and others!) ensuring Medici policy ruled.
But this was not a dynasty bent on power for its own sake, or for the imposition of a creed. It was a dynasty
that was very modern in its reason as to why power was necessary: a harmony and commitment to the commonwealth. And from that
power base the Medici were able to finance the great renaissance in the arts and sciences that they became famed for and attracted
great scholars and artists to the city. The Medici poured in vast sums of money to the city coffers to finance public works,
and the Medici also created a safe harbour for the heretical voices of the esoteric aspects of the Renaissance.
And when the Papacy demanded the silencing of particular voices or the handing over of magickians to the
Inquisition, Lorenzo was powerful enough to intercede and pacify by diplomacy the threats and offer to keep and eye on the
heretics ( who were in facts proteges of the Medici!).
This was the case with Pico Mirandola in 1489. The Medici then were in fact dukes in all but name, but were
always careful to maintain the semblance and the intent of the Florentine Republic, its institutions and laws. Thus the Medici
and the Republic became synonymous with each other and with the prosperity and progress that made it an oasis in the history
of the West. They set the model for successful dynastic democracy.
The reality of Italy since the fall of the Rome, was that Rome and also the secular princedoms needed to
show that they were inheriting the mantle of Rome. The years leading up to the fall of the Byzantine Empire (based at Constantinople,
modern day Ankara) to the Turks in 1453 created a flood of learning to the West fuelling the Renaissance. Dynasties an the
Papacy collected vast treasures of Classical art, learning and science. However, the Medici were different inasmuch that they
inextricably bound their family and the wealth and power their family had created (often abroad) as merchants and bankers
with the destiny if the state and its people. The family actively sought out all that was to be had in terms of the latest
science, learning and art: the brilliance of the Florentine Republic outshone the schools of the other cities- Ghiberti, Donatello,
Fra Angelico, Paulo Ucello, Masacio, Filippo Lippi, Ducio, Pollaiuolo, Raphael, Verrocchio, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci,
Ghirlandajo, and Botticelli to name but a few were all proteges of the Medici and their city. So great was the cultural revival
in Florence that Lorenzo frequently lent his artists to the Pope, to France, to Milan, to Naples: more military and political
bargaining chips for future machinations.
And emulating the great collections of the ancient civilisations, they sent out their agents in expeditions
of collecting all over the known world to bring back statues and manuscripts. And at Florence itself the Medici created festivals,
competitions, ceremonial, made learning a princely status, revived the ancient Tuscan tongue, and created the famous Platonic
Academy, a school and a library which for some years outshone anything in Europe in terms of learning since the fabled Great
Library of Alexandria.
And to be cognisant of the achievements let us note what was happening in
the rest of Europe in this age: the Muslim hordes were hammering at the doors of Vienna, the shores of Sicily and the borders
of France, and occupied the Balkans; the Popes were increasing their vice-like grip on thought. Whilst in Northern Europe,
which had been tearing itself away form the control of Rome, civil-war and puritanical religious fervour were sweeping the
lands with a new kind of repression.
A delicate line existed between reading an ancient treatise on philosophy and mythology and sudden incarceration
and torture for heresy. A contemporary writer (Luigi Guiccviardini) wrote: "The city enjoyed perfect peace.
The people were daily entertained with festivals and novelties; trade and business were at the heights of prosperity. Men
of talent found their proper place in the great liberality with which the arts and sciences were promoted and those that practised
them were honoured".
The Library had actually begun with Cosimo (1389-1464) who built up a private book collection and encouraged
the spread of learning via his palace and sent envoys to the Middle East and Greece to find manuscripts, including works by
Ovid, Plutarch, Livy, so that by 1430 his collection was one of the richest in all Europe. He 1439 he met George Memistus
Plethon (the Greek philosopher) and so became fired with the ideals of ancient learning and dreamed of founding a Platonic
Academy. He it was who began gathering around himself the finest minds of the time. In that cultured ambience lived the young
Lorenzo and grew wise and skilled and absorbed the new learning with a voracious appetite.
And when he succeeded his grandfather he extended his work of the nascent academy: here scholars and artists
dined side by side with nobles, who were expected top discourse on their terms. The Academy included such great minds as:
Pico Mirandola; Poliziano; Botolomeo Sozzini (whom the Medici seduced away from Bologna University in
1478); Francesco Bandini; Christorfo Landino (who gave discourses in poetry and eloquence); Lacaris;
Luigi Pulci; Mateo Franco, a vernacular poet; Matteo Palmieri (whose career began with Viuta Civile
urging all citizens to be involved in politics!); Gentile Becchi (who in 1466 even accompanied Lorenzo on an embassy
to Rome); Gerolamo Benivieni; and of course the famed hermetic magickian Marsilio Ficino.
It was a time also when the moveable type of the Gutenberg press invention was making an impact across Europe
and fuelling the hunger for learning.
Florence itself became the centre of the book trade. The enthusiasm
for the learning of the great scholar Petrarch was shared by Niccolò Niccoli (who was the librarian to Cosimo) and
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, and like him travelled Europe and the Middle East on behalf of their master to either
ransack or copy works of great learning of ancient Greece and Rome. Petrarch had wished to bequeath his great personal library
to the municipality of Venice as a public library, but his wish was not fulfilled. The Medici however had an eye for an opportunity
and were not slow to miss this one.
Cosimo Medici however set up, on the basis of Niccolòs library, the Bibliotecha Marciana in Florence
in the convent of San Marco. This was followed by the library of his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who bequeathed to the
city an even greater library, open to the general public. It was officially opened to all citizens in 1571 in a fine building
designed by Michaelangelo and which still exists as the Bibliotecha Laurenziana, although it had been amalgamated in
1808 with the Bibliotecha Marciana to form the Bibliotecha Mediceana-Laureziana.
Under Lorenzos influence also the rise of vernacular literature in Italy gained momentum. Heralding the birth
of our Orders own initiative for the regions of Europe and the development we see today of regional dialects and ethnic traditions
of all our native races, Lorenzo was keen to promote the old Tuscan language, whilst not denigrating the Classical, tradition
of Greek and Latin to which he had been educated. He arranged for many translations of Classical works into Tuscan for this
library and also for competitions in the city. Indeed, he could be called the father of a Europe of a hundred flags in some
respects, and our Order hails his historic insights.
As such, irrespective of the actual size of the Medici Library compared to that of ancient Alexandria, what
Cosimo and more especially later Lorenzo did was in effect to transform the entirety of the Florentine Republic into a vast
gathering house, a repository, a foci an engine house of learning. In classical studies, and in history, poetry and moral
philosophy, especially Florentines were pre-eminent and the citys leading citizens, jurists, merchants, physicians, theologians,
made significant contributions to their discipline and also built up their own libraries. And because of the atmosphere of
comparative democracy and libertarianism engendered by the Medici, heresy shrank and the vitality of free enquiry and intercourse
of the intellect flourished.
The Biblioteca Nazionale describes many thousands of manuscripts
attesting to the Florentines broad range of interest and innovative translations and collecting appetite and this would be
even longer had not more diverse categories of certain other works- such as the occult, heretical literature and other matters-
been destroyed in successive and more oppressive times.
It was the Library par excellence not only of Florence but quite probably of all Italy and further afield,
and the libraries which that library inspired, which was the trigger for the other initiatives of Florence. This included
the studia and the convegni. These might be described as a Florentine version of the salon.
It is astounding to note that at a time when repressive hierarchy was increasing across Europe (deriving
from feudalism which gradually led to the equally artificial "class warfare" of the 19th. and 20th.
centuries, that in the Academy and meetings instigated by the Medici, participants came from every social class (although
the majority were professionals, scholars, writers or patricians with strong intellectual leanings). An atmosphere of private
patronage emerged with the public institutions producing a cross fertilisation of learning which can only be called, for want
of a better word, democratic.
The Medici Museum for example, in effect was an extension of their Library and vice versa, including paintings,
was housed in the office of one of their palaces. It is recorded that the paintings and other items were listed in tourist
guides of the time, and the public were admitted to see them (other families palaces were also open). The offices (uffizi)
of the Uffizi palace was converted and opened as a permanent museum for the public. The entire collection was bequeathed by
the Medici to the public in 1743.
And the Library itself grew not only by collecting, but by commissioning the many scholars which he had attracted
to Florence to write new works and to undertake translations. For example, commissioning Marsilio Ficino to make a complete
translation of Plato. It was reputed that Lorenzo spent half of the citys revenues on books! However, the finances of the
Medici and the state of Florence were very closely intertwined in terms of loans between each other, so the accusation is
not what it seems.
That this scholarly democratism flourished in a city state where the first citizen was in all but name a
duke yet refused the pomp and the status of that office, is poignant.
Equally important in Medicean Florence centred around their Library,
was the school of artists, their Platonic Academy, Museum. It spurred the emergence in Europe of what is termed "the rise
of humanism", which may be said to have received its birth at Florence. Whilst the humanities in general had gradually grown
in Europe as an outgrowth of the old Graeco-Roman civilisation and the tendency of Christianity to take on something of this
mantle of the old civilisation, under the Medici humanism took a great step forward and made the sciences, the esoteric and
the concept of the sovereignty of man as an evolving beast with certain dignity and rights, above all that men owed to each
other a certain respect in their relationships irrespective of station.
It is a testimony to the Medici and their proud thirst for collecting with
their library that an age of toleration was born in Florence the seeds of which were to grow and remain steadfast in the European
psyche. In time it was to inspire the European Library in England in the late twentieth century. They say that nothing
of beauty is ever entirely forgotten or lost if men have the will and love and imagination to strive to its re-manifestation
and thence its advancement. The European Library today is the rebirth of a one such gem in the sparkling diadem of sentient
and spiritual evolution in the cosmos. W
ã 1998 by Bro. Stephen B. Cox
(first published in Baelder Journal, 1998)
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