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154
John Koenig
was dressed “most humbly” in (mourning) black and the gonfaloniere
in “pagonazzo buio,” an elegant material, in which even emperors
deigned to wrap themselves in public displays of humility. Certainly,
this was far from going barefoot, and further still from donning the
camicia or sackcloth 218 . In any event, the appeals for heaven’s help fell
on deaf ears; and at the end of the month, the Florentines received very
bad news, the loss of Empoli (29 May), on which they depended for
their supplies 219 .
Empoli marks the beginning of the end. Republican policy, having
by now boiled down to a choice between surrender (a diplomatic solution
being its euphemistic equivalent) and armed struggle, is now resolving
itself in favor of the former. After seven months, the government had
shown no sign of having a victory strategy. One cannot say that the
situation on 29 May was hopeless; but the fact that the remaining two
and a half months of siege only continued the period of military inactivity
(with one unremarkable exception) certainly means that well before the
end Florentines realized that the republic’s life force was ebbing – that
is, when they judged the situation by normal criteria; for, as we know,
they were otherwise sustained by a belief that they held the trump card
as the side with an irrefutable claim to God’s assistance. And so, the
lively debates on how best to obtain a divine intervention resumed, as the
minutes of the pratiche of 30 May and 2 June reveal.
On 30 May, Bono Boni for San Giovanni recommended prayers
and the proper administration of justice as the means of placating God,
as did Giovambatista Cei for Santa Croce, who underscored the need for
“equal justice for all,” before moving on to speak of practical matters.
The spokesman for the Twelve singled out, as the best way of gaining
God’s favor, good works, which he believed were more effective than
five hundred soldiers. Piero da Filicaia, representing the Sixteen, pointed
218
VARCHI, Storia fiorentina 2, 333. See n. 205 for discussion of these matters. For this use of
pavonazzo, n. 98.
219 This defeat provided the title for ROTH’s tenth chapter, “The Blockade,” Last Florentine
Republic. For the effect on the Florentines, VARCHI, Storia fiorentina 2, 345, 356-57.