Niccoli is really one of the finest types of collectors. Born at a time when Florence demanded that each citizen should belong to one or other of the factions that kept civil war alive in the city, he nevertheless managed to keep free from all civil strife. His house was the temple of art and of neutrality. A friend of the powerful and wealthy Medicis, who by the way trusted to his infallible eye as a connoisseur whenever rare things were offered, Niccoli never took advantage of this unusual position, but kept himself far from all ambition and was possessed by the sole desire to collect art, study old manuscripts, and be an ever-obliging helper to students. The friends and admirers who came in flocks for advice, to borrow his rare manuscripts, or to visit his fine emporium of art, were always well received. Niccolo Niccoli was born in the year 1363. The son of a rich Florentine merchant he was forced in his youth to give all his activities to commerce. Liberated from the tie of a profession for which he had no call, he finally gave himself to his cherished study of art and literature, attending the lessons of Luigi Marsigli and Emanuele Chrysoloras. His studies were thus the stepping-stone to the collecting of antiquities. In the year 1414 his fame had already extended beyond the city walls. The Chancellor of the city of Padua addressed him in a letter as “clarissimus vetustatis cultor.” Notwithstanding his great wealth, such was his passion that but for the discreet help of the Medici, the powerful Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo, who became Niccoli’s benevolent bankers, on more than one occasion this enlightened amateur might have been forced to sell his precious collection, or at least do that which is most hateful to the true lover of art, sell the best that years of patient work had gathered together. What is most surprising is the fact that Niccoli managed to make one of the finest collections of art of his day almost without leaving his native city. We know of him as going once to Padua to secure a rare manuscript of Petrarch, and later on as accompanying his friend and protector, Cosimo Medici, to Verona, a trip the latter undertook in the year 1420. With Cosimo again he visited Rome, to be horrified at the mutilation inflicted upon the Eternal City by barbarians of all ages and denominations. Yet without moving from his native city, keen-eyed Niccoli managed to search the world with the help of agents and friends—some of them, no doubt, the practised servants of the Medicis. There was hardly a rare thing discovered, no matter where, but the fact came to Niccoli’s ears, and the “find” generally found its way to this enlightened Florentine’s collection. Once he even had the fortune to discover a fine sample of Greek art in Florence, a few steps from the door of his house. It was the well-known cameo which he attributed to Polycletus and which was afterwards so often reproduced by the artists of the Renaissance. Niccoli discovered this rare piece of chalcedony hanging round the neck of a street urchin. He asked him who his father was and found him to be a poor workman. He went to see him, and to the man’s surprise offered for the stone the round sum of 5 golden ducats. It is curious to trace the migrations of Niccoli’s “calcedonio,” as the piece was called later. When Cardinal Scarampi—the Patriarch of Aquileia and the most passionate collector of his time—came to Florence, he went to visit Niccoli and his collection. There he became so enamoured of the “calcedonio” that he proposed to buy it. Niccoli, who could hardly refuse the favour to the powerful and influential Cardinal, consented to part with the rare piece for 200 ducats. Later on the “calcedonio” entered the collection of Pope Paul II, to pass finally to that of Lorenzo il Magnifico. In an inventory belonging to the Medici family the gem is valued at 1500 golden florins.

Not dissimilar from certain modern and older types of collectors, Niccoli was what might be called a strange character. While spending large sums of money on his articles of virtu, he was almost parsimonious in his household, although he liked to drink from rare cups and set his table most richly with all sorts of precious vases. One of his peculiarities was always to be dressed in pink. He had an endless wardrobe of these rosy-hued garments and was as preoccupied with them as he was with the rare objects of his collection. These and other oddities were naturally the subject of gibes and sarcasm from friends and unfriendly humanists, but Niccoli never answered one written line, content to retaliate with his witty and cutting tongue. He certainly had the best of it in this curious duel, for he forced Aurispa and Filelfe to leave the town, and also, perhaps not through his sarcastic tongue alone but through some Medicean intrigue, compelled his enemies, Emanuel Chrysoloras, his former teacher, and Guarino to make themselves very scarce in the city.

Niccolo Niccoli’s name brings us straight to that of his protectors, the Medicis, the family who as collectors of art and fosterers of literature and philosophy surpassed every one of their age.

Cardinal Scarampi’s collection, that of Pietro Barbe, afterwards Paul II, and even the most complete of all, that of Niccoli, become rather minor stars when compared with the artistic treasures gathered by the Medicis for generations. This illustrious Florentine family seems to have been for centuries nothing but a succession of patrons of the fine arts.

“No art collection,” says Eugene MÜntz in his Les Collections des MÉdicis, “has more deeply influenced the art of the Renaissance, no collection has passed through more trials than the one of this family. Ten generations of enthusiastic amateurs have given themselves to its enrichment; the greatest artists, Donatello, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, the two Lippi, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael have sought inspiration and models in the Medici collection. This while, by an unaccountable contradiction, all the revolutions that troubled the city of Florence seem to have continually threatened the existence of such an inestimable gathering.”

To be convinced of the extreme importance of the Medici collection one has but to reflect that what now remains of it in the Florentine museums or in well-known private hands is only the smallest part of those past treasures, which has managed to survive the pillage of the collection in the year 1494, when Piero Medici fled and the Medici palace was sacked by the populace and the remaining effects sold and dispersed by order of the Commune. What was later recovered by the family was only a small part of the collection. An idea of the magnitude of the Medici museum of art can be gained by perusing the accurate inventories still remaining in the Florentine archives, the list of the objects left by Cosimo the Elder to his son Piero and the catalogue of the collection belonging to Lorenzo il Magnifico, and finally the account of their money.

A brief study of the character of the two most important collectors of the Medici family, Cosimo and Lorenzo il Magnifico, will enable us to judge of the quality and tendencies of the amateur of the Renaissance.

The characteristics of the time in which Cosimo lived and the fact that he had spent a long period in exile, a misfortune brought upon him by jealousy, gave his inclinations as an amateur a different course from what they might otherwise have had. Thus, while on the one hand Cosimo never lost a chance to help artists and to acquire fine works of art, he was shrewd enough to do so without ostentation, to avoid arousing enmity from adversaries. But for this peculiar feeling Cosimo’s palace, the present Palazzo Riccardi, one of the most sumptuous monuments of Florence, might have been still more imposing, displaying greater architectural wealth. It is known that Brunelleschi’s project was privately preferred by Cosimo, but he did not dare to arouse old jealousies by too sumptuous a display. Michelozzo’s design was chosen as the more modest of the two and thus better fitted for the “bourgeois prince” of Florence. Notwithstanding the necessity for caution even in liberality, Cosimo encouraged Poggio Bracciolini and many others in their intelligent search for manuscripts and rare parchments. He had Niccoli as an invaluable adviser and helper, and left to his son Piero one of the finest collections of antiques.

His grandson, Lorenzo il Magnifico, was more free-handed. Times had changed, the Medici family, though without heraldic title, was now master of the city, and the splendours of a man of taste, such as Lorenzo, and his prodigal inclinations, knew no restraint whatever. The difference between Cosimo and Lorenzo lay perhaps in the fact that the former could not do half what he might have done. Comparing Niccoli and Lorenzo, one might say that the former tallied more with the modern interpretation of the word collector, while the latter, as being far too eclectic a lover of all sorts of artistic expression, was more cut out for the part of an enlightened MÆcenas, a prince-amateur and a generous patron of art and literature. One can hardly even imagine the Magnifico classifying his cameos as did Niccoli, or giving a semi-scientific and rational order to his objects of virtu, but, running on the same lines as Cosimo, Lorenzo invested in the rÔle of patron of art and lover of the antique, in which he displayed such magnificence as to fully deserve his appellation. Such was the character of these two Medicis, stated by contemporaries as being more greedy for fame than money. An estimation fully justified, especially in the case of Lorenzo, who in his Ricordi notes that his father and grandfather spent 663,755 florins in the space of thirty years and rejoices in the fact. The sum quoted amounts to rather more than a million francs; how many modern heirs would feel like Lorenzo il Magnifico?

Like Niccoli and Cosimo, Lorenzo possessed the excellent quality, most uncommon in a collector, of letting friends and admirers have full benefit of his collection. More than the gratification of an egotistic desire to possess rare and beautiful things, he saw in his artistic pursuits a great means of education and a help to the artists of his time.

According to the taste of his age, Lorenzo was very partial to Greek and Roman art, to all that concerned past civilization. A page of Plato or the beautiful form of a Greek marble aroused in him feelings of emotion more than any modern expression. Not only did he fill his palace with fine pieces of sculpture but his villas also appear to have been replete with them.

“He was bursting with joy,” Valori, one of his contemporaries tells us, “when he received the bust of Plato sent him by Girolamo Roscio.” This passion for the antique, however, did not prevent Lorenzo from encouraging the artists of his own time or from taking a deep interest in their art. Eclectic in taste, as a collector he nevertheless had some preferences. In a letter to his son Giulio, the future Leo X, on his promotion to the Cardinalate, he gives advice as to the kind of art which is most in keeping with ecclesiastical taste, but as a matter of fact epitomizes his own penchant as a collector of art. Urging his son to give preference to antique statuary, he discourages him from becoming a collector of jewels, tapestries and embroideries. “Love in preference,” he recommends, “fine antique things and books”—qualche gentilezza di cose antiche.

Lorenzo the Magnificent seems to stand apart from the lovers of art of his time not only on account of his culture and intelligence, his broad eclectic views and genuine cult of every expression of beauty, but as being a rare type of the grand seigneur, Æsthete and humanist. Paul II is a passionate collector of art, but more a scholar than an artist, with him knowledge is supreme; Cardinal Scarampi is, as Ciriaco D’Ancona calls him, an archÆologist, and Niccoli, as an eager and intelligent searcher of objects, would make a good type of antiquary of our day, but Lorenzo displays interest in every kind of elevated human expression; his character seems to conform to his noble motto, Nul ne sait qui n’essaye (nobody knows who does not try).

His reputation as a connoisseur and expert in art spread afar. Princes and monarchs asked his advice. Lorenzo is not only prodigal in this respect, but also in the artistic things of his collection which he sends as presents. To Mathias Corvinus he sent a bust by Verrocchio, to the Count of Madaloni of Naples a fine horse’s head—now in the museum of that city—a rare piece of work which until lately was taken for Greek but is now attributed to Donatello. The Duke of Calabria asks him for an architect, and he sends him one; in the year 1488 he sends to Ferdinand, king of Naples, a fine plan of a palace by Giuliano da Sangallo, and later he introduces Leonardo da Vinci to Lodovico il Moro, Filippino Lippi to Cardinal Carafa, Sansovino to the king of Portugal. In connection with odd requests that came to Lorenzo from princes and monarchs there is a queer one from Louis XI. The French king asks the Magnificent to lend him for a while the miraculous ring of the Florentine patron saint, San Zanobi, pledging himself to restore the ring to the owners—very likely the Girolami of Florence—and begging Lorenzo to tell him how and in what way it must be worn to perform the miracle, cure his gout and restore him to health.

Through his love of art and his munificence towards artists Lorenzo became practically bankrupt, and certainly had no scruples about using public funds for his private purposes. Not that he was fond of personal display, on the contrary he detested outlays that had no public utility or did not foster some progress.

Rinuccini, another of his contemporaries, tells us of Lorenzo’s indifference to personal luxury and of his dislike for society functions. “All the things that in olden days,” says Rinuccini, “gave grace and reputation to the citizens; like weddings, dances and fÊtes and handsome clothes, he condemned them all and did away with them through his example and his words.”

A detailed description of his character as a collector and the quality of his passion is not so eloquent of Lorenzo’s particular penchant as his Ricordi. Take, for instance, these words concerning his mission to Rome at the elevation to the Holy See of Cardinal Della Rovere. “In the month of September, 1471, I was sent as ambassador to attend the coronation of Pope Sixtus. I was the recipient of many honours in Rome and brought back from the city two antique busts, the portraits of Augustus and Agrippa, given to me by the Pope. I also brought with me the carved cup of chalcedony and many cameos and medals.”

It must be said that in forming his collection the Magnifico never lost sight of Rome and its treasures. He had many agents in the Eternal City excavating and looking for antiques to add to his collection. His intercourse with these accomplices, the ruses employed, the adroit management of influential prelates opposed to Lorenzo’s schemes, and grieved that rare things should leave Rome, form an interesting chapter of diplomacy.

Glyptography was given preference in Lorenzo’s collection. Some of his cameos and engraved precious stones are now the rarest things in our modern museums. Then came a fine collection of coins and medals, 23,000 pieces in all, and another of Etruscan vases. His statues, which Verrocchio and other artists were often charged to repair, filled to overflowing his palazzo in Florence and his villas.

To his assistance came not only special agents, but friends as well. A magnificent vase was obtained by Lorenzo from Venice, and it was through the mediation of his literary friend Politiano that the rare find got into the Magnifico’s collection. Politiano writes from Venice to his friend and patron on June 20th, 1491, that Messer Zaccharia has just received from Greece una terra cotta antiquissima and that he believes it to be worthy of Lorenzo’s collection. Antonio Yvane writing to Donato Acciaioli says that a little statue of Hercules has been found at Luni, and that it and other antiques excavated are to be sent to Lorenzo.

One of his agents sent him a marble statue with an Etruscan inscription; from Siena, Lorenzo receives a bust that sends him into raptures, and he immediately wishes to buy it. To give an idea of his appreciation and willingness to pay whatever it might be worth, we quote part of his letter dated May 15th, 1490, addressed to Andrea da Foiano then at Siena. “Ser Andrea, I received your letter last night, and with it the head which you sent me and which, on account of its being fine and having much of the antique beauty, I would most willingly buy from him who owns it, if he will part with it for what it is worth.”

Though there is no document to support the fact, this bust is possibly the one that P. della Valle says was sent from Siena to Lorenzo, representing a head of Jupiter, of such a character that beheld from one side it had a benign expression, and from the other a terrifying one. Naples also contributed its share to the Medicean collection, from whence arrive the portraits of Faustina and Scipio Africanus, a fine bust of Hadrian and a sleeping Cupid. These last two statues were conveyed to him by Giuliano da Sangallo, who under Lorenzo’s directions had asked them of the king of Naples.

As a collector and type of antiquary not disdaining a good bargain, and perhaps influenced by the lineage of shrewd bankers, from which he sprang, Lorenzo made more than one good stroke of business. From Pope Sixtus IV he managed to buy the artistic treasure of the Holy See at such a ridiculous price as to arouse protests from the Pontifical accountants. The deal, which was carried through by Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni Tornabuoni, caused a scandal that only the Pope’s authority managed to silence, and the Medici collection became enriched by many fine pieces. Among them, the so-called “Tazza Farnese,” now one of the finest pieces of the Naples Museum, to which the inventory of the collection gives a value of 10,000 ducats, and the rare Greek work known as the “Rape of the Palladium,” rated by the same inventory at the sum of 1500 ducats. This celebrated cameo had formerly belonged to Niccoli. Donatello copied it for one of his medallions of the Medici palace. There were other dealings between the Medici and the Holy See, but we fail to know how advantageous they may have been for either side. In the year 1460 the Medici sold a piece of tapestry to Pope Pius II for the not inconsiderable sum of 1200 golden ducats, and later on, through the above-quoted agent, Giovanni Tornabuoni, in the year 1484 several yards of common tapestry were sold to the Pope by the Medicis.

We have spoken at greater length of Lorenzo il Magnifico as he appears to us to symbolize the type of MÆcenas and collector of his epoch, but all Italian princes were more or less art lovers and collectors at that time, as well as being shrewd bargain drivers on occasion. As an example of this, one is led straight to Isabella d’Este and her hard dealings with Mantegna. Intelligent, keen-eyed and a good connoisseur, Isabella had set her heart on a Faustina antica in the possession of the Paduan painter, but did not wish to pay the price demanded by the artist. Negotiations were carried on for quite a time. Knowing Mantegna’s straightened circumstances, Isabella coolly and almost cruelly waited the favourable moment to take best advantage of the artist’s distressing situation. Pressed by all sorts of needs, the aged artist finally decides to part with his best antique, the portrait of Faustina, a work of art he adored. Conscious of having served the house of Gonzaga most faithfully and knowing Isabella’s intelligence and admiration for his bust of “Faustina antica,” as he calls it, he determined to offer her the work for a hundred ducats. In his letter dated from Mantua, January 13th, 1506, he tells Isabella all his troubles and how hard it is for him to part with his cherished bust, but also how glad he would be if she will take it, or as he says: “Since I have to deprive myself of it, I would rather you had it than any other Lord or Lady in the world.” To this pitiful letter, ending with the touching appeal: “I recommend myself to your Excellency many and many times,” Isabella replies later by sending one of her agents, whose letter to her is full of an astute spirit of bargaining and runs as follows:

“In compliance with what your Signoria writes me, I will call to-morrow morning on Messer Andrea Mantegna and will act as shrewdly as possible about the Faustina (farÒ l’opera con piÙ destro e acconcio modo saperÒ) and will inform your Excellency of the result at once. Giovanni Calandra Mantua, July 14th, 1506.”

A second letter from Giovanni Calandra informs Isabella that the artist is obdurate as to the price. That though he is in extreme need he hates to part with his Faustina di marmo antica and asks pardon for the refusal, that he hopes to find his price with Monsignor Vescovo di Gonzaga, who has the reputation, Calandra states, to be keen on these things. Dealings through the agent go on, till one day the latter announces to the Marchesa Isabella Gonzaga that she has become the possessor of the Faustina antica, which is already shipped to her (Mando per burchiello a posta la Faustina a S.V.), provided she agrees to the price; if not the agent begs that the bust may be sent back, in accordance with his promise given to the painter, should the price not be agreed upon (acciÒ possi disobbligar la fede data a M. Andrea Mantegna). Negotiations between Isabella Gonzaga and the penurious artist who had covered with glory the prince he had served and had decorated with magnificent frescoes the room of Isabella’s mansion, lasted from January 13th, 1506, to August 2nd of the same year.

These are but a few incidents of the day. All Italy was collecting. Excitement over antiques had now become a mania, and this is perhaps the best justification for imitators to have turned into fakers.

At this period art collecting ranged from its highest votaries, Lorenzo Medici, the Duke of Urbino, Este, Gonzaga, Sforza, Arragona, down to common citizens who were earnest and intelligent collectors.

One thing to be noted in this epoch is the total absence of the parvenu collector so fully represented in the Roman period. There may be an occasional case of snobbery, like that of Cardinal di San Giorgio, who refused to keep in his house an excellent imitation of Michelangelo, because, though having deceived him and many others, it was not actually genuine, although far better than some of the rubbish of his collection which contained indiscriminatingly anything that had been unearthed in Rome, but a Tongilius, a Euctus, and above all a Trimalcho, do not seem to have existed in the Renaissance period. If they did, they were surely minor characters and quite outside the world of real amateurs.