The Medici Boy

by John L'Heureux

  I was left behind in Florence with Pagno, who was put in charge of the bottega . . . a temporary arrangement, Michelozzo said, but he could not look at me as he said it. Pagno again, as ever. It would be a matter of a month, perhaps two, until Donatello should return with the commissions for me to write up first in our common language and then in Latin for the sake of the tax laws. At that time, as befitted my age and accomplishments, I would replace Pagno. But one month became three months and then four, while Pagno preened and crowed as manager of the bottega. Though he pretended to consult me on all matters of commissions and payments—he was ever sly and subtle—it was I who made all the important decisions and guaranteed that work was accomplished in due order and on time. My exile—so I still think of it—was further occupied with transcriptions of Latin and Greek manuscripts for Cosimo de’ Medici. It was I who made the first copies of Cicero’s De Oratore, a text I came to hate as I copied it out with care and deliberation for the fiftieth time. Cosimo delighted not only in acquiring these manuscripts but in making gifts of them as well.

  Meanwhile time stretched on intolerably as Donatello and Michelozzo labored in Rome on the great marble slab that would become the Giovanni Crivelli tomb in Santa Maria Aracoeli and the even more splendid Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament for San Pietro itself. And they did much fine work in gold, work of great beauty executed at great profit.

  Yet it was time lost, all of it, lost. Anyone could have done these things.

  In Rome Donatello carved a small wooden John the Baptist as a boy very like the lost Agnolo, so I am told, but Michelozzo says that is not so, that Donatello was happy at this time and that he had put Agnolo from his mind. But in this I do not believe him. I think he lies only to spare me.

  I am saddened even now to say that I regard these Roman sculptures with a certain bitterness since I had no part in them: the writing up of the commission was completed by some sticky-fingered lawyer in Rome and even today, among my many papers from the partnership of Donatello and Michelozzo, there is no trace of contracts or commissions for their work in Rome; only the odd note from Michelozzo promising to return to Florence—soon—and wishing me well.

  It was not until 1433 that they returned to Florence—Michelozzo in April, Donatello in May—and then in truth only because the Prato Commune had run short of patience and had begged Cosimo to intercede. “Donatello is intricato,” they said. “He is unreliable. He has again and again violated the terms of his contract.” They were threatening to sue for completion of their Pulpit, but Cosimo intervened and sent Pagno to Rome to tell Donatello and Michelozzo that they must return to Florence and finish the Prato Pulpit. It was not a request; it was a command.

  They returned and a second contract was drawn up, this one calling for new balcony ornamentation for the Pulpit with a firm date fixed and new money advanced.

  To soften the harsh urgency of his summons, Cosimo rented them the Inn of Santa Caterina and two adjoining little houses for five florins a year—nearly a gift outright—for use as a much enlarged bottega with a foundry and a work yard and with lodgings for his apprentices. This new bottega stood where the Via Longa meets the Via de’ Gori and where, in 1443, Cosimo would erect the great new Palazzo Medici designed and built by his favorite architect, Michelozzo. But for now it was Donatello’s bottega and the time forever lost was about to be redeemed.

  It is here that Donatello would carve the immortal Cantoria for the Duomo and the two sets of bronze doors for the sacristy of San Lorenzo and it is here that he would finally bring to completion the fatal Medici Boy.

  We were hardly settled in the new bottega when, without warning and without reason, Agnolo came back. Incredible as it must seem, he was accepted into Donatello’s life without rebuke. In truth he was accepted without warmth and without forgiveness either—it was a chill homecoming—but he was accepted nonetheless. He hung about uselessly—“a decoration,” the apprentices said—while everyone else worked hard at their given tasks, but for once he did not complain and did not put himself forward. He made no offers to grind paints for Caterina or to carve marble for Pagno or to pose for Donatello. He was simply there, modest and humble, as passive as the donkey Fiametta.

  I knew him, of course, and I knew his calculations. He was waiting to be noticed and therefore loved. I, in turn, was waiting to see what would happen.

  1433–1434

  CHAPTER 27

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT took all the world by surprise. Cosimo de’ Medici, in his forty-fourth year, the richest and most admired man in Florence, was arrested and charged with treason. This was the work of Rinaldo degli Albizzi, a man whose hatred and jealousy of the Medici had led him to plot against Cosimo for years, to fabricate plot after plot, and finally to bribe the Signoria successfully and convince them to put Cosimo under arrest. He wanted nothing less than Cosimo’s death and it was his great mistake that he settled for less.

  The plot unfolded over a period of years but, as I think of it now some thirty-six years later, it seems to have begun at the foolish siege of Lucca, when Cosimo resigned from the war committee and took his family away with him to Verona. The blame for the disastrous war with Lucca naturally fell on the Albizzi, and the crushing financial burden as well, and this is when Rinaldo’s conspiracy against Cosimo took fire.

  To crush the Medici Rinaldo would first have to take control of the Signoria. This took time and much money, but by spring of 1433 Rinaldo had bought the votes of six of the nine members of the Signoria. He then paid off the debts of Bernardo Guardagni so that he could be elected Gonfaloniere—head of the Signoria—and with Guardagni in office Rinaldo was ready to spring his trap.

  Rumors were circulated about Cosimo and his ambition. He acted modestly and went about with only a single servant, they said, in order to distract honest citizens from his prodigious wealth. He was a friend and intimate of sodomites and perverts. He was a usurer, not a banker, and his donations to the poor and his civic building projects were hypocritical gestures to buy men’s good will in this life and God’s mercy in the next. His famous sympathy with the little man was a ruse to disguise his drive toward absolute power. What he intended in fact was to hire condottieri and, with their aid, to overthrow the Republic.

  These rumors drifted back to Cosimo but he shrugged them away as the cost of doing business in Florence. The rumors spread, growing more vile and vengeful. Finally words led to actions and one night the Medici insignia that framed the great palace doors were publicly desecrated with black paint and a week later with human shit. This happened not once but several times until finally, when those same doors on the Via de’ Bardi were smeared with blood, Cosimo chose the way of caution and withdrew from the city to his newly fortified palace at Trebbio in the Muggelo.

  * * *

  FIRST, HOWEVER, HE took care to protect his money. Only Cosimo would have thought how to do it and only he would have been able to execute his plan.

  On a single day in May he emptied his palace vaults and transferred three thousand gold ducats to the Benedictines at San Miniato al Monte, nearly five thousand gold florins to the Dominicans of San Marco, and to the Venetian branch of the family bank over fifteen thousand gold florins. To end the day right, he transferred all his family stocks in the Florence Commune to the Medici bank in Rome. Do whatever they might to him, the Signoria would have no access to Cosimo’s wealth because, though they might dare to tear down his palace, they would never dare to move against the monasteries.

  I was witness to this transfer of gold, and I am proud to say I was a participant in it as well. Cosimo had long depended on me to copy out in my best hand the rare manuscripts that he collected, and over the years he had come to value my loyalty. Thus it came about that on the third day of May I was summoned to his palace and told to bring Fiametta, saddled with the stout leather borsette used for hauling limestone and marble, and to come quietly with no show of haste.

  It was a fair day to be out in the streets and I was flushed wi
th pleasure at being singled out by Cosimo for some important task. Secrecy always makes the heart beat faster.

  I was admitted to the palace through the small side doors and, since Fiametta could not well fit through the opening, the great fortified doors were swung open long enough to admit her, and then they were closed again. In the courtyard a dozen men set about their business. They worked in silence, bringing out sacks from a storeroom within the walls and piling them in a neat circle around the central well. Cosimo was there, standing beneath the arch of the stairs, and his lady was there as well, and Giacomo stood silent behind them. I bowed from the waist but they gave no mark of seeing me and I realized that, officially, this was not happening.

  Cosimo’s men selected four heavy sacks and packed them firmly in the borsette. They placed cypress chips on top and tightened the straps on the pouches. They stepped back, silent still, and waited. And then Giacomo appeared from beneath the arch of the stairs and approached me where I stood beside Fiametta. I noted that even here in the courtyard Giacomo wore the sword and dagger that seemed to mark him out as Cosimo’s special servant. He said simply, “Monasterio del San Miniato al Monte. You will be expected.” I was not told what was in the sacks and I knew not to inquire. I guessed that it was a cache of rare books. I did not suspect that I was bearing through the streets of Florence three thousand gold ducats.

  I walked beside Fiametta half consumed with pride in my secret commission from Cosimo de’ Medici and half consumed with fear that I would be discovered. I knew only that great things were afoot and I was playing a part in them, though I grew more anxious as I approached the city gates.

  I passed through the Porta Romana with no trouble from the guards and it was with a sense of relief that I ascended the great hill to San Miniato where the Prior was expecting me. He seemed both anxious and annoyed at my arrival, as if he had feared I might not come and was troubled afresh now that I had. He unbuckled the straps on one of the pouches and put his hand deep in the pouch and rummaged about. We could hear the dull clink of metal on metal. He nodded then and made a sign to two of the Brothers who were standing by. Without a word they shouldered the bags of gold and disappeared into the sub-basement of the larder. When they reappeared, the bags safely stowed away, the Prior dug down into the side folds of his habit and brought out a velvet purse embroidered with the insignia of the Medici. He slipped it into the breast of the leather apron I wore and beat lightly on my shoulder. “You have,” he said ceremoniously, “done well.” When I was safely back at the bottega, I took out the purse and discovered ten gold florins.

  It was yet a good thing to be a trusted friend of the Medici.

  * * *

  WITH HIS MONEY safe and only his palace exposed to confiscation, Cosimo spent an easy summer in the safety of the Mugello surrounded by family and servants and visiting friends. In Florence the insidious rumors died down and Cosimo concluded that perhaps his worries had been unfounded. All the news from the Signoria was reassuring and Bernardo Guardagni, the new Gonfaloniere, in particular seemed to have turned friendly. He sent messages regularly to Cosimo informing him of news of the Signoria and seeking his advice on matters of tax reform and sumptuary laws.

  Cosimo was still in the Mugello in early September when an urgent message came from Guardagni summoning him back to Florence. The Signoria was about to make important decisions, he said—though he gave no indication of the nature of those decisions—and Cosimo’s counsel would be essential. Cosimo was wary, as always, but he returned to Florence, without a retinue and without any sense of what was about to happen.

  On September 4, as requested, Cosimo presented himself at the Palazzo della Signoria where he received a warm welcome from Guardagni who was vague about the matters to be discussed and who asked Cosimo to wait for three days—“a little patience, my dear friend, it is essential”—until the Signoria would hold their official meeting. Cosimo returned to his palace and waited. During this time he visited his bank and moved further monies from Florence to Venice.

  On the morning of September 7 Cosimo arrived early at the Palazzo della Signoria and found the council already in session. There was no sign of Guardagni or any welcoming committee. Instead the captain of the guard, without any explanation, led the way past the council chamber and continued on up the stairs. Cosimo paused at the chamber doors, wondering what this could mean, and then he looked behind him and discovered two more guards, pikes in hand and swords at the ready. Stricken, he realized that the trap had closed on him and it was too late to resist. They continued on up the endless flight of stairs—two guards behind and one in front—until at the very top of the tower they reached the prison cell called the alberghettino, the little inn. The captain opened the door to the cell and stepped aside to let Cosimo enter. The two guards took their positions on either side of the door. Then the captain, reciting a formula, assured Cosimo he had been arrested on solid legal grounds as his subsequent trial would make clear and for now he was a prisoner of the state. He moved forward and opened the three windows that looked down on the great piazza far below. Cosimo moved slowly toward the back wall. For an instant he felt sure they intended to fling him from those windows, but the captain only turned to him and said that until further decisions were made the alberghettino would be his home. The captain bowed and left, locking the door behind him.

  Cosimo looked around him at the long rectangular room with its narrow windows opening onto the great piazza below and realized that this prison might become his tomb as well.

  WHAT FOLLOWED WE know from Cosimo’s own confidential notebooks, his libri segreti. After a week of fasting, since he refused even to taste the prison food and since everyone agreed that poisoning was both a danger and a possibility, Cosimo was permitted to have meals brought to him from the Palazzo Bardi, though guards were assigned to supervise the cooking and the delivery of his food. He was allowed no visitors at all. When he insisted on seeing his confessor, a priest was brought to hear his confession and give spiritual counsel, though even at these private times some government official was always present. What was specifically forbidden was any communication between Cosimo and his friends, his family, or his bank.

  The personal guard assigned by day was sympathetic to Cosimo, however, and like most guards he was susceptible to bribes. Thus, in a matter of days messages were passed into and out of the alberghettino and in time Guardagni, the Gonfaloniere himself, accepted a bribe of a thousand florins. In return Guardagni found himself too ill to attend the council that would decide Cosimo’s fate and so delegated his vote to another Priore who had already been bribed by Cosimo’s people. In his libro segreto Cosimo noted that the price was low; he would gladly have paid ten times more to guarantee Guardagni’s timely illness.

  Meanwhile ambassadors from Venice and Rome had arrived to protest this persecution of the Medici whose banks were so important to them. In Cafaggiolo Cosimo’s brother Lorenzo was raising an army among Medici followers and readying them to march against Florence. And in the city itself there was a mood of unrest, a rising distrust of the Albizzi and a concern for Cosimo who had for so long been a defender of the poor.

  His trial came down to this: Cosimo was accused of raising himself above the rank of ordinary citizens—a high crime against the state—and of conspiring to take over the city and become its despot. The penalty was death.

  It was a terrible situation for everyone. The council, threatened on all sides, had no choice but to go forward with the trial. Desperate to have all this behind them, they met in haste and on 28 September, after a long dispute about death versus exile, they chose exile over death. Rinaldo degli Albizzi exhausted himself arguing for the death penalty—it was well deserved; it was essential for the safety of the Republic—and he was on fire with rage but he could not bend the council to his will. Their decision was binding. By decree of the council Cosimo was banished to Padua for ten years and his brother Lorenzo to Venice for a period of five. Both Cosimo and Lorenzo, a
nd the entire Medici family, were forbidden to hold office in Florence for however long they should live.

  Cosimo was summoned from his freezing accommodations in the alberghettino. He stood before the full council—this great man now a lowly prisoner—and the decree of banishment was read aloud to him. He made no effort to refute the charges. He merely insisted that he had always declined to be nominated as a government official, that as a citizen he had paid taxes in excess of what was required, that he had supported the war against Lucca with money and men, and that he remained a simple law-abiding citizen of the great Republic of Florence. He concluded by accepting the judgment of the Signoria which he would obey without question. “I will go into Padua most willingly; in truth I would go wherever you might command, whether to live among the Arabs or any other people however strange and distant they might be. I am, Signori, the loyal servant of our state.”

  But knowing the Albizzi and their gangs and foreseeing treachery in the streets below, he added a demand that he expressed in the form of a request.

  “One thing I beg of you, Signori, that since you intend to preserve my life, you will make certain that it should not be taken by wicked citizens, and in this way you be put to shame. Take care that those who stand outside in the Piazza desiring my blood should not have their way with me. In such a case my pain would be small, but you would earn perpetual infamy.”

  The Signoria took his meaning and, aware of what would befall them individually if harm should come to Cosimo, they took care to spirit him out of the city by night through the Porta San Gallo, and under armed guard they turned him over to men of his house who would escort him through Ferrara to his exile in Padua. This took place on 28 September 1433.

  * * *