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But, in order to make it intelligible, and to paint the manners of the times more fully, I must first relate the series of events which led to Lorenzino's murder of his cousin Alessandro, and from that to his own subsequent assassination. Lorenzino de' Medici, the Florentine Brutus of the sixteenth century, is the hero of the tragedy.
So energetic is the style, and so biting the invective of this masterpiece, in which the author stabs a second time his victim, that both Giordani and Leopardi affirmed it to be the only true monument of eloquence in the Italian language. If thirst for glory was Lorenzino's principal incentive, immediate glory was his guerdon.
Indeed, the murder of Alessandro appears to have been almost motiveless, considered from the point of view of practical politics. Varchi assumes that Lorenzino's burning desire of glory prompted the deed; and when he had acquired the notoriety he sought, there was an end to his ambition. This view is confirmed by the Apology he wrote and published for his act.
Certain others, who were more acute, suspected that he was harbouring and devising in his mind some terrible enterprise. The Prologue to Lorenzino's own comedy of 'Aridosiso' brings the sardonic, sneering, ironical man vividly before us.
Bebo was puzzled at first, but when he understood the matter, he professed his willingness, took letters from the envoy to the Duke of Florence, and, in a private audience with Cosimo, informed him that he was ready to attempt Lorenzino's assassination. He added that 'he had a comrade fit for such a job, whose fellow for the business could not easily be found.
It is printed at the end of the third volume of Varchi, pp. 283-95; compare p. 210. A medal in honor of Lorenzino's tyrannicide was struck with a profile copied from Michael Angelo's bust of Brutus. The last thing to perish in a nation is its faith.
In other respects Martelli's brief account agrees with that given by Bibboni, who probably did no more, his comrade being dead, than claim for himself, at some expense of truth, the lion's share of their heroic action. It remains to ask ourselves, What opinion can be justly formed of Lorenzino's character and motives?
Even as Renaissance work in art is too often aimless, decorative, vacant of intention, so Lorenzino's Brutus tragedy seems but the snapping of a pistol in void air. He had the audacity but not the ethical consistency of his crime. He played the part of Brutus like a Roscius, perfect in its histrionic details.
The story goes that when Lorenzino stabbed him as he slept on a bed in Lorenzino's own house, to which he had been inveigled in the hope of meeting there a certain lady, the wife of a Ginori of the time, Alexander started up, and, seizing the thumb of the murderer between his teeth, held him so firmly that he could not have escaped had not a bravo whom he had hired to aid him come to his assistance.
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