Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  That morning, he was jolted out of his despondency by a message from the Priory of San Marco demanding his immediate attendance on a matter of considerable importance. San Marco! Savonarola’s monastery! Feverish excitement and dread had animated his footsteps. What could they possibly want with him? Was there a message? A legacy?

  He had bristled with indignation, all the more so to hide his disappointment, when he discovered that the important matter he had been called upon to settle was a question of library fines! He was being assessed fines amounting to the preposterous sum of 25 florins for failing to return, in a timely fashion, books borrowed from the Laurentian library, now under the custodianship of the unflinching monks of San Marco.

  The books had been lent to him by Fra Girolamo himself in better days, and Niccolo was unaware that somewhere, some meticulous scrivener in the bowels of the library had made a record of the transaction. In doggedly crossing and recrossing the city to fetch and return the borrowed volumes, he entertained himself with the thought that in the course of life’s vicissitudes and upheavals, it was a comfort to know that precise records were being kept. Violence and bloodshed might engulf great men, convulse cities, shake the very foundations of Christendom! Civilization as we know it might come to an end! And still, bookkeeping goes on.

  With the books duly returned and the fines begrudgingly paid, Niccolo chose a quiet establishment that he had never before frequented and where he was unlikely to encounter any of the companions or accomplices of his more boisterous pursuits. Here he would do his thinking over a flask of rough local wine. He would have treated himself to better fare for the occasion, but the library fines had stretched his meager resources almost to exhaustion. He played with his cap, cleaned his fingernails, deciphered some scatological inscriptions, complete with illustrations, cut into the scarred wood of the table at which he was seated. He called for another pint of wine to ease the drumbeat inside his head.

  Niccolo had attended the prophet on the last night of his life, but there had been no terrifying revelations from him, no final, fateful pronouncements. Only ambiguity, doubt, and an injunction. “Carry on my work,” was all he really said. That was the essence of it. The friar had spoken softly, almost crooning, rarely looking at Niccolo.

  He acknowledged that he had failed, failed in his attempts to build the City of God on Earth. “Perhaps the City of God is best left in heaven,” he smiled. “Perhaps men are not ready for it here. But we must strive to give them something better than a government of robbers and devils, men like you and I.”

  Niccolo protested, “Like me? Why me ?”

  “Who else? The simple souls who followed me, the ardent ones? Their faith is great, but they have no ability to understand, to work in the world.”

  The prophet continued, “You see, I remember the day you first came to see me at San Marco. I remember the way your eyes lit up when I spoke of my plan for governing the city. Your excitement, the passion with which you put forth your own ideas, the conviction in your voice—these are rare qualities, Niccolo Machiavelli, all too rare, especially in those who seek to direct the course of men and cities. Believe me, I know,” he said sadly.

  He went on, “Of all those who came to me, and they were many, you stood out in my mind, because you asked for nothing. Everyone wanted something from me—power, wealth, revenge, even salvation. Everyone but you. You were content to talk and to work and to dream. A city could do worse than to be served by such a man.

  “There is a selflessness in you Niccolo, and despite the sins into which I’m sure you have fallen, a certain purity, a purity of purpose. You will laugh when I say it, but you are like me. And, eventually, you will try to do what I tried and failed to do. It can be no other way with you. Perhaps you will be wiser. Perhaps your efforts will be blessed with more success than mine.”

  Niccolo remembered he had objected and voiced his intention to leave Florence, to go to a foreign place where he could observe the follies and cruelties of men without having to participate in them.

  The friar chuckled knowingly, almost to himself, “I, also, thought to withdraw from the world when I entered the monastery, but the hand of God nudged me back into it, sent me back out to preach.”

  “And God let you down, didn’t he?” Niccolo had said, not without bitterness in his voice.

  “God did not let me down,” Savonarola had replied. “It is I who have let Him down. I have failed to accomplish His work here, but I have tried, in my own way. Perhaps it was the wrong way? Perhaps you will discover a different way? A better way?”

  Again Niccolo had objected vehemently to the mantle the prophet was trying to lay on his shoulders and to the vocation he was trying to pass on to him. But undeterred by his obstinacy, Savonarola had continued, “Your struggle will be a long and a difficult one. And in the end, you can do no worse than I did. At least you have my mistakes to guide you.”

  Looking up at him, directly then, the friar had abandoned briefly his desultory, lilting tone. A stern, frightening certainty had crept across his face. “You will come to think of yourself as the savior of your city, a secular savior, but a savior nonetheless. You will not shrink from the duties laid upon you, from the responsibility, and yes, even the guilt. You may do far worse things than I have done. If the barbarians are at the gates, you too will not hesitate to welcome them, if it suits your purpose, if there is no other way. These things I know!” He was shaking slightly from the effort his words had cost him.

  Niccolo felt uneasy. “You’ve seen things?” he asked, rattled.

  “I know them,” replied the prophet, wearily. “It’s not for you to ask how I know them.”

  Sitting in the darkened tavern, now with his third pint of wine and looking back over the scene, Niccolo realized that he had actually wanted to be convinced, that he had almost begged the friar to convince him. He wanted to shrink before those blazing eyes, cower before the fierce, absolute certainty he had so often seen in them. But that night, as he looked one last time into Savonarola’s smoky green eyes, just before sleep closed them, he saw only doubt and fear. The prophet’s final words still haunted him, still rang in his ears: “You will continue my work, Niccolo, what I’ve tried to do? Won’t you? Won’t you?”

  “Well, won’t you!” Niccolo suddenly became aware that somebody was talking to him, a real voice from the present, from the outside world. Lifting his eyes, he found his vision blocked by the ample girth of a brown-clad Franciscan friar.

  “I said, you will invite an old friend to share a cup with you, won’t you, man? Won’t you?”

  “Pagolo!” There was no mistaking him—older now, and a little fatter, but it was Pagolo. The two friends embraced joyfully, kissing each other on the cheeks, slapping each other on the back.

  “Pagolo, Pagolo, when did you get back? How long have you been in Florence? Why didn’t you come see me?”

  “First wine, then talk,” said the stout friar, thumping on the table to attract the attention of the reticent tavern owner. When he had gulped a long draft to slake his thirst, he upbraided his friend: “I’ve been looking for you for three days. You’re never home. In the usual haunts, nobody’s seen you. And now I find you in this dusty, morose hideaway, looking thin and drawn, looking unhealthy. Niccolo, what have you been up to?”

  “I’ve been busy, little things,” said Niccolo, volunteering nothing. Undeterred, Pagolo began to pepper his friend with questions. It was nearly eight years since the two had last seen each other, and Pagolo, having spent most of that time in Rome, was eager for news or gossip.

  Niccolo sought to satisfy his friend’s curiosity on any number of points touching on marriages, pregnancies, infidelities, kidnappings, brawls, arrests, and imprisonments. Talking about these things, he slowly emerged from the morbid self-absorption that had plagued him for the last several days. Pagolo’s warmth and good humor were contagious. Niccolo actually felt good again, less alone.

  The conversation ranged freely, irre
verently over countless scandalous topics, until Pagolo brought it to a grinding halt. Leaning toward his old friend and lowering his voice, he probed cautiously, “The other day . . . at the execution of the Holy Man, you were there weren’t you?”

  Neither spoke.

  Pagolo continued, in a confidential, discreet tone, “I seem to have observed some sort of, and this may be entirely in my imagination, but there was some sort of communication. Am I right or wrong? Why on earth was the prophet staring at you, of all people? You—the king of impiety? The crown prince of cynical disbelief?”

  Niccolo mumbled something about it not being important, but Pagolo pressed for an explanation.

  “Alright,” said Niccolo curtly, “if you must know, I’m his illegitimate son!”

  Pagolo burst into laughter. “You’re not going to tell me anything, you bastard. And here I am ablaze with curiosity, consumed by curiosity.”

  “Pagolo, Pagolo, believe me, if I could tell anyone, it would be you.” He spoke in deadly earnest. “Think of it as a secret, a confidence I can’t betray.”

  Pagolo harrumphed, pulled at the stubble on his chin, and sat looking profoundly disappointed. Then sensing that he had hit a nerve, like a true friend, he diplomatically backed away, calling for more wine and changing the subject. “Shall I tell you about Rome then? Shall I entertain you with lurid reports of the Eternal City?

  Niccolo gladly acquiesced, but before delivering himself over to the enjoyment of Pagolo’s uninhibited tales, for a brief moment, he wondered why he had blurted out the line about being the friar’s illegitimate son. It made him uneasy. A joke, yes, and an obvious one at that. But it crossed his mind that, in some very real respect, he may have spoken the truth.

  “This pope,” said Pagolo. “This pope, Alexander, is most definitely and most assuredly, the antichrist. Fra Girolamo of blessed and recent memory, was entirely correct on that point.”

  “Worse than usual?” asked Niccolo.

  “Much worse,” confirmed Pagolo. “It’s the very excess of his indulgences that distinguishes him from his predecessors. Nobody minds if the pope has a mistress. It’s established practice, but this pope has several. Children? No problem, but this pope has too many.”

  “How many?” interrupted Niccolo.

  “Seven, whom he acknowledges and adores, and whom he pushes into the public eye every chance he gets.”

  “Wouldn’t any good father do the same?” asked Niccolo.

  Pagolo laughed. “Papa Alexander, in his affection for his children, goes far beyond the bounds of what any good father would do. So rumor has it.” His eyes gleamed in wicked insinuation.

  “And has rumor got it right?” said Niccolo eagerly.

  “Perhaps,” said Pagolo judiciously, raising his eyebrows and playing the informed insider. He paused briefly for dramatic effect, then continued. “The death of the pope’s favorite son, Juan, did give rise to speculation. He was only twenty-one when they dragged his body out of the Tiber last year with nine stab wounds in it. They said that the pope, the successor of Saint Peter, the fisher of men, had been obliged to fish his own son out of the river!”

  “Who killed him?” Niccolo interrupted Pagolo’s self-satisfied amusement.

  “Juan of Gandia was a dissolute scoundrel, and half the population of Rome could have killed him, or at least would have been justified in doing so. He drank and gambled and whored, he ignored his wife, wasted money. At night, and this is God’s own truth, he roamed the city killing dogs and cats.”

  “Charming habit.”

  “He was a charming fellow. So sensitive. They say he never went out without gloves for fear that his fine hands might be spoiled by the unhealthy Roman air. He had high regard for his hands.

  “One night, after a dinner at his mother’s villa, Gandia disappeared. He left with a single squire and in the company of a masked man. There has been much talk about the masked man. He was at the dinner, and was supposed to have visited Gandia every day for the previous month.

  “The next morning, they found the squire dead and Gandia’s riderless horse, whose saddle and accoutrements showed signs of violence, but no Gandia. The pope was distraught. Six days later, a woodcutter, a Dalmatian, came forward and said that he had been keeping an eye on his woodpile behind the Church of San Girolamo of the Slavs, near the Tiber on the night of Gandia’s disappearance. At about three in the morning, he saw two men approach on foot in the company of a man on horseback with a golden sword. Across the rear end of his white horse, a body was slung. At a sign from the horseman, the two men on foot took the body down and flung it into the river. The dead man’s cloak was floating on the water’s surface, and they had to throw stones to sink it.

  “Just downstream from the spot the woodcutter indicated, hung up on a culvert where a sewer emptied into the river, they found Gandia’s bloated body. He still had his gloves on, but his hands were tied. His dagger was still in its sheath, and his purse was untouched, over thirty ducats in it.

  “They say the pope, mad with grief, grabbed the woodcutter and shook him, as though he were to blame for the tragedy. ‘Why didn’t you come forward sooner?’ he wailed.

  “The woodcutter shrugged, ‘I’ve seen over a hundred corpses dumped into the river at that spot, and nobody ever seemed to mind much.’”

  “So who was the masked man?”

  “That’s what I was coming to,” said Pagolo. There are several candidates. The most obvious choice is Ascanio Sforza, the pope’s son-in-law.”

  “Why him?”

  “I should say ex-son-in-law, since he was recently divorced from the pope’s daughter. Not divorced, you understand. The marriage was annulled.”

  “It must be easy—and much cheaper and quicker—to get an annulment when your father is the pope,” observed Niccolo sarcastically.

  Pagolo did not stop to argue the observation. “They say Gandia was murdered because he was conducting an incestuous relationship with his sister!”

  “What!” said Niccolo. “Let me see if I have this straight. The pope’s daughter’s husband, the pope’s son-in-law, killed the pope’s son, because the pope’s son was sleeping with the pope’s daughter?”

  “Precisely, but that’s only the beginning. There is also talk that the pope’s other son killed his own brother because he was jealous that Gandia was sleeping with their sister.

  “Both brothers sleeping with the sister!”

  “It gets even better than that. They say the pope had his own son killed when he found out about the incestuous relationship.”

  “Well, you can’t say he isn’t showing a little probity there,” said Niccolo wryly.

  “Far from it!” declared Pagolo. “They say he did it out of jealousy! The pope was angry with his son for sleeping with his daughter because he, the pope, was also sleeping with the daughter!”

  “Ahi serva Italia!” wailed Niccolo in mock desperation. “Then it’s true what I’ve been hearing—that one woman is the pope’s daughter, wife, and daughter-in-law! She must be the biggest whore in Rome! And Fra Girolamo was right—the pope is the antichrist, and the church has become a disfigured harlot in his hands.”

  “Most assuredly a disfigured harlot,” said Pagolo. “Most assuredly.”

  “So what’s the truth, Pagolo? Was it the enraged husband, the enraged brother, or the enraged father?”

  “The truth? Who can say what it is?” Pagolo shrugged. “Tongues will wag. The pope has enemies, many enemies. The Romans hate him, and any one of a number of powerful Roman families could be behind the rumors. Sangue di Cristo! They could even be behind the assassination. Who knows?”

  “So the pope does not enjoy the support of his Roman constituency?” asked Niccolo.

  “Not by a long shot. They all hate him. When the announcement of his election was made, a mob promptly sacked his new mansion to show their displeasure.”

  “Do they hate him because he killed his son, or because he’s sleeping with his daught
er?” taunted Niccolo facetiously.

  “Oh, nothing as elevated as that. The Roman capacity for moral indignation is abysmally low. He could be sleeping with his sons as well as his daughter, he could be sleeping with his dead son and they would hardly bat an eye. They hate him because he’s a Spaniard and because he’s rich.”

  Pagolo elaborated in accents and tones approaching the pontifical, “The wealthy and the powerful hate him because he’s used the church as an instrument to usurp what they feel is rightfully theirs—the wealth and power of Rome. He’s stolen their thunder, and he’s been enormously successful at it. The poor and the weak, on the other hand, just hate him because he’s a Spaniard. Not capable of understanding the mysteries of Vatican high finance, government, and religion, they fall back—or are pushed back—on their fear of outsiders, simple bigotry, and crude formulations of patriotism.”

  “Wounded national pride!” crowed Niccolo.

  “And, don’t forget, wounded national pocketbooks,” added Pagolo. “Ever since he bought the papacy, they’ve resented him.”

  “I don’t understand. Everybody buys the papacy,” said Niccolo. “Innocent bought it before Alexander, Sixtus before him.”

  “Of course everybody buys the papacy. That’s not at issue,” explained Pagolo. “What they object to is that he was able to pay so much for it. He outbid them, priced them right out of the market—over two hundred thousand ducats!”

  Niccolo let out a low whistle of admiration at the mention of such a princely, or, in this case, pontifical sum.

  “And since his election, he’s appointed forty-three new cardinals. Do you have any idea the kind of revenues that brings in—over twenty-five thousand ducats for each appointment! And to make matters worse, almost every cardinal whom Alexander has elevated to the College is a Spaniard. He even conferred the red hat on his own son!”