Ill-fated son of Lorenzo the Magnificent
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| Piero the Unfortunate's poor judgment earned him his unenviable moniker |
Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici, later dubbed Piero the
Unfortunate or The Fatuous, died on this day in 1503, drowning in the
Garigliano river, south of Rome, as he attempted to flee following a military
defeat.
The eldest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Piero was handed
power in Florence at the age of 21 following the death of his father.
He was a physically handsome young man who had been educated
specifically so that he would be ready to succeed his father as head of the
Medici family and de facto ruler of Florence.
Yet he turned out to be a feeble, ill-disciplined character
who was not suited to leadership and who earned his unflattering soubriquet on
account of his poor judgment in military and political matters, which
ultimately led to the Medici family being exiled from Florence.
Piero took over as leader of Florence in 1492. Initially
there was calm but the peace between the Italian states for which his father
had worked tirelessly to achieve collapsed in 1494 when King Charles VIII of
France led an army across the Alps with the intention to march on the Kingdom
of Naples, claiming hereditary rights.
The young leader’s first bad decision had been to ally
Florence with Naples rather than Milan, where his father had striven to
maintain an even-handed relationship with both.
Ludovico Sforza, the former regent of Milan, was
unimpressed, but at the same time saw an opportunity to re-assert his power in
the city by scheming with Charles VIII to eject his nephew, Gian Galeazzo
Sforza, and replace him as Duke.
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| Charles VIII of France |
In return he allowed Charles’s army, some 30,000 strong, to
proceed unchallenged through his territories and arrive at the borders of
Tuscany. Piero’s decision to ally with
Naples meant that Florence, by association, was France’s enemy
Piero at first attempted to mount some resistance, but at a
time when the fanatical Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola was undermining
the authority of the Medici court he struggled to garner support from the Florentine
elites.
He then made the extraordinary decision to seek a deal with
Charles, taking the lead from his father’s great act of diplomacy in 1479, when
Lorenzo reached a settlement with Naples by making a personal visit to the King
of Naples.
Piero persuaded Charles to give him an audience, yet
returned home having given away several important Tuscan castles along with the
ports of Pisa and Livorno.
His poor handling of the situation and failure to negotiate
better terms led to an uproar in Florence, and the Medici family fled. The
family palazzo was looted, the Republic of Florence was re-established and the Medici
formally exiled.
A member of the Medici family would not rule Florence again
until 1512, after Piero’s younger brother, Giovanni, was elected Pope Leo X.
Piero and his family at first fled to Venice. In 1503, as
the French fought the Spanish over the Kingdom of Naples, he travelled south.
The two armies engaged in the Battle of Garigliano, named after a major river
between Naples and Rome, and after the French were routed Piero attempted to
escape to the south but was drowned as he tried to cross the the Garigliano river.
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| French artist Henri Philippoteaux's depiction of a scene from the 1503 Battle of Garigliano |
Travel tip:
The Garigliano river, which flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea
near Marina di Minturno, south of Formia, marks the border between Lazio and
Campania. Its strategic position has led
it to be the scene of several notable battles. In 915 a coalition of the papal
army, the Byzantines, Franks, Lombards and Neapolitans defeated the Garigliano
Arabs there and in 1503 came the fateful Battle of Garigliano after which Piero
drowned and Medici power transferred to his brother, Giovanni. During the Italian Campaign of the Second World
War, the Liri and Gari-Garigliano rivers were key elements of a system of
German defensive lines around which the battle of Monte Cassino took place in
1943-1944.
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| The rebuilt Abbey of Monte Cassino |
Travel tip:
Piero the Unfortunate’s body was buried in the cloister of
Monte Cassino abbey, one of the most famous abbeys in the world, established in
the sixth century when Saint Benedict chose its mountain location as a place to
host him and his fellow monks as they travelled from the monastery at Subiaco,
outside Rome. At a height of 520m (1,700ft) it is a landmark for travellers on
the A1 motorway and the Rome-Naples railway. The abbey has been destroyed four
times – by the Lombards in 577, the Saracens in 887, an earthquake in 1349 and
by the ferocious Battle of Monte Cassino in the Second World War, when the
Allies made the controversial decision to bombard the site, which they suspected
was being used by the Germans to launch artillery attacks. Fortunately, the Germans smuggled out most of
the priceless books and artworks to a place of safety prior to the bombardment
and the abbey was rebuilt after the war had ended.
More reading:
Also on this day:
(Paintings: Portrait of Piero by Gherardo di Giovanni del Fora (1494); portrait of Charles VIII by unknown painter in the style of Jean Perréal, Musée Condé, Chantilly; Battle of Garigliano by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1840), Palace of Versailles)
(Picture credit: Monte Cassino Abbey by Ludmiła Pilecka via Wikimedia Commons)