Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  “Barefoot?” asked Niccolo. “Where were his clogs?”

  “Where were his clogs?” said Michele, coming back to attention. “Why, if he was at the head of the crowd, he must have kicked them off to keep moving faster. Or maybe he felt the need to throw the cursed things away, to rid himself of them forever.

  “When the people took the Signoria, my grandfather turned to the shabby armies of the hopeless and abused and called for silence. ‘You see,’ he shouted, ‘this palace is yours! And this city is in your hands!’ Roars of triumph greeted his declaration.

  “The multitude cried out spontaneously that Michele should take the title of gonfaloniere and rule the city in their name. Can you believe it? In a few minutes, my grandfather went from a position of near slavery to the highest office in the city. Why him and not someone else? Perhaps his determination was greater. Or his indignation. A man with some modest talent for leadership, with some initiative, suddenly finds himself issuing orders. Who knows?

  “Bowing to the will of the crowd, he accepted. A new hope was in the air, a promise of something better for those who had nothing, a promise that someone would finally listen to them. Michele moved quickly to consolidate the gains of their violent seizure of power. Reforms were instituted. He brought in good men, wise and experienced men known to be friends of the people. He summoned Salvestro de’ Medici to help him rule. In those days, the Medici had a reputation as staunch defenders of the people.”

  “In those days,” said Niccolo.

  “My grandfather wasn’t greedy or ambitious. He realized he couldn’t manipulate the machinery of Florence’s government and economy by himself. He couldn’t even read! He had to have a secretary with him at all times. But he did everything he could to distribute honors and distinctions and power evenly, because he knew that envy and greed were the engines that drove the blacker hearts of Florence, and he would have to defend his fragile new order against them.”

  Niccolo knew the end was near, but not how near. “How long did he stay in power?” he inquired.

  “About three years. But it started almost immediately. Some of the people felt cheated that Michele had agreed to share power with their former oppressors. They broke away and set up another government seat. Emboldened by the open struggles between factions, the guildsmen and the nobility filtered back into the city. They brought in mercenaries.

  “Michele’s government began to disintegrate. No matter what concessions he made, someone on another side was offended and took up arms. Representatives of the old ruling families and the guilds began to make their way back into the government, charging Michele’s men with fraud and corruption. By treachery and force of arms, Florence’s old masters recaptured the city. The experiment was over. And it failed.”

  “And what happened to your grandfather?”

  “Gone, disappeared. Nobody ever knew. But you can guess.

  “They say that the night before he was last seen, someone presented him with a silver goblet at dinner. It was full of dainty, delicate, sweet-smelling treats, but when he reached into the cup to take a handful and distribute them to the other guests, he felt something rough and cold. He pulled it out and held it up for all to see—a heavy, black iron nail. My grandfather sighed wearily, and said to his assembled company, ‘I see someone is trying to tell me something. Either my enemies are making a threat, or some dear friend is giving me a fair warning. I want to believe it’s the latter.’ With that, he rose, left the table, and was never seen again.

  “After his disappearance, only Salvestro de’ Medici, himself in disgrace for having sided with the common people, had the courage to stand up and do my grandfather the honor he deserved. He praised his courage and his vision, and he heaped scorn on the heads of those who had used him so badly. But his words of praise were lost in the rush to discredit Michele di Lando, the wool carder, and to destroy his dangerous vision of a better city built under the sign of justice for all.”

  Having come to the end of his tale, Michele took a long drink and stared off into the red ball of the setting sun. Niccolo spoke, “I understand now why you’re less than enthusiastic about my militia and the defense of Florence,” said Niccolo, breaking the silence that had settled between them. “But you can’t hold a grudge against the city forever.”

  “It’s not a grudge but a realization of the way things are,” said Michele. “An admission of the futility of things—not just the futility of serving in your militia, but of all your grand schemes for the republic, for freedom and justice for the people. What will it all come to in the end? Oppression and injustice. The people are fools to think it can be any other way.”

  “Didn’t Jesus say, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied’?”

  “Blessed they may be, but they won’t be satisfied until His second coming. They won’t find their justice in this world, and they certainly won’t find it in the republic of Florence.”

  “And you think there’s a lesson in all this for me?”

  Michele smiled a weary, understanding kind of smile. “Chi ha orecchie, intenda—He who has ears, let him hear.”

  “But Michele,” pleaded Niccolo. “What the city did to your grandfather was over a hundred years ago. The republic we’ve built this time is different—stronger, based on laws and a constitution, on the consent and goodwill of the people—all the people. Nobody can overturn that now, reverse the progress we’ve made. And with the militia to defend us, Florence won’t have to fear anyone, inside or outside the city. There’s a new spirit, a new age. Things are different now! Things change!”

  “Do they?”

  Riding back into Florence through the Porta Romana and north toward the Signoria, Niccolo was tracing what he imagined to be the route taken by the rebellious clothworkers so many years ago. He could almost hear the low rumble from deep down in the stinking bowels of the city as it turned to a growl and rose in her throat. Finally, it issued from her mouth in a mad, anguished roar. He could hear the distant echoes of the heavy wooden clogs on the cobblestones. Thousands of feet battering the pavement, clattering, clamoring, clomping, a frenzied storm of wooden shoes with cleats and iron studs beating on the pavement. The heart of the city, worn out and long overburdened with too many cares, was throbbing violently, and suddenly it burst, and in a howl of liberation, sent a river of cleansing blood into the filthy streets.

  Then the reign of justice was announced. The wheel of fortune was spinning madly then, wildly out of control. And in that madness, she had plucked a wool carder from the crowd and placed him at the top of the world. But Fortune was quick to recover the regular motions of her ever-spinning wheel, her endless circles. And if she catapulted the obscure Michele di Lando to the very summit, it was only to begin again her long, inexorable spin, downward, to the bottom.

  The wheel spun on in Niccolo’s imagination. On it, he saw a tiny representation of Michele di Lando, bearded and bristling with thick dark hair, not unlike his grandson. And as Michele’s image spun laboriously up and then precipitously downward, other faces appeared on the wheel. Niccolo saw the rise and inevitable fall of Caesar Borgia and Charles VIII of France. He saw emperors and kings and popes, all spinning round and round, up and down. Then he tried to shake the image from his mind.

  It was absurd, fatalistic, childish. It was an outmoded notion, based on the superstitions of the past and the poets’ lore, based on the cringing inevitability and fatalism of the Dark Ages. His was an era of light, of striving and human achievement, of progress.

  Still, he could not ignore the lesson of what happened to Michele di Lando. But that was just the point! He wasn’t ignoring it. He was thinking about it, trying to understand where Michele had gone wrong, what he should have done to hold onto the power that was thrust upon him. If his old friend the outlaw had told him the story as a cautionary tale, to warn him off, to convince him of the futility of his endeavors, then he had failed! The tale only served as a prick and a
goad to Niccolo. If one reformer failed, then the next one would learn from his mistakes and not repeat them. Wasn’t that what the study of history was for? And wasn’t that what the present republic was doing? Consolidating its power? Strengthening its institutions? Providing for its defense with the militia? Learning from the mistakes of the past?

  Niccolo felt relieved that he had worked through the dilemma posed by Michele’s story. He felt sorry, though, that there was nothing he could do about his old friend’s resignation and his pessimism. But as he rode across the Piazza della Signoria, another thought jolted him. It was the thought of the rise and fall of another republican reformer, another champion of justice, one who had ended his career right here in this very piazza. And in the back of Niccolo’s mind, the creaky wheel began to spin slowly again. The face on it this time was Savonarola’s.

  Niccolo stopped by the Signoria to deposit the ledgers and make a quick report to Soderini on the progress of his recruiting efforts. Bone-tired and with much on his mind, he made a hasty deposition for the benefit of the implacable gonfaloniere and then, promising to do the requisite paperwork the next day, begged to be excused.

  “Fine, fine,” the tall blond waved him away. “Get some sleep. Take a day off, if you wish.”

  But as Niccolo was turning to go, Soderini called him back. “I almost forgot. We found somebody for your militia.”

  Forgetting his fatigue, Niccolo quickly brightened. “For the training?”

  “Yes, for the training. He’s a consummate military man. Comes highly recommended. Has a reputation for being able to turn raw recruits into fighting machines in no time. The Council of Eighty has already approved the appointment. Gave him the title, captain of the guard.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Gentleman by the name of Coriglia.”

  “Florentine?”

  “Claims to be. At any rate, several members of the council vouch for him. They say they’ve worked with him before.”

  “When do I meet him?”

  “Right now, if you want. I gave him the office next to yours, since you two will be working so closely together on this thing. I think he’s still there. Why don’t you drop in on him before you go home?”

  “Excellent idea,” said Niccolo briskly. “Well, good night, sir.”

  With a peremptory knock, Niccolo opened the door without waiting for a response and announced himself, “Coriglia, Machiavelli here. I wanted to catch you before you left for the day.”

  The little man behind the desk in the unprepossessing black gown stared up at him, somewhat surprised by the abrupt entrance.

  Niccolo gasped audibly. “You!” The new captain of the guard, Coriglia, was none other than Don Micheletto, Caesar Borgia’s former second-in-command. Caesar Borgia’s former hangman.

  Michele Coriglia, Don Micheletto, waited patiently for the initial shock of recognition to pass. The indulgent smile never left his kind, wrinkled old face.

  “Well, we’ve met before, haven’t we,” said Niccolo, managing to recover a little.

  Don Micheletto smiled his angelic smile, “Yesssssss, we have, haven’t we?” he hissed. “Many timessssssss.”

  This pestilence was so powerful that it was transmitted to the healthy by contact with the sick, the way a fire close to dry or oily things will set them aflame. . . . The plague was of such virulence in spreading from one person to another that not only did it pass from one man to the next, but, what’s more, it was often transmitted from the garments of a sick or dead man to animals that not only became contaminated by the disease but also died within a brief period of time. My own eyes were witness to such a thing one day: when the rags of a poor man who died of this disease were thrown into the public street, two pigs came upon them, and as they are wont to do, first with their snouts and then with their teeth they took the rags and shook them around and within a short time, after a number of convulsions, both pigs fell dead upon the ill-fated rags, as if they had been poisoned.

  —BOCCACCIO, THE DECAMERON

  Whether we believe Boccaccio’s eyewitness account of the vehemence of the plague, and the hideous speed with which it could spread and kill, his views must be taken into account if we are to understand the terror that this disease inspired in the men of his times. Boccaccio was not alone in his exaggerated fears of contamination, and the tales he propagated were representative of the very real fears of a population held hostage by a dreaded, inexplicable disease, for which there was no cure and from which there was no escape. The Black Death, so called, some said, for a black comet that appeared in the sky to announce its arrival, engendered many tales, many explanations. In Sicily, a black dog bearing a sword in his paws and gnashing his teeth attacked a sacred procession to herald the impending doom of the island. In Germany, it was a man on a black horse, in France, a black giant striding through the countryside at night.

  Others, of a more scientific bent, called it the Black Death because of the livid black patches that discolored the skin of the victims, shortly prior to their inevitable demise. The first signs of infection were the swellings or buboes—hence the designation bubonic plague—that appeared in the groin and armpits. These painful excrescences quickly grew to the size of an egg or an apple and spread indiscriminately over every part of the body. Secondary symptoms include fever and the coughing up of copious amounts of blood. Everything that exudes from the body of a victim of the plague from that point onward gives off an unbearable stench—sweat, excrement, spittle, even the breath is fetid and overpowering. The urine turns black and red. Within three to five excruciating days, death follows.

  Because everything about the disease was so disgusting, its victims became objects of revulsion more than pity. Those suffering the most hideously often found themselves abandoned by family and friends alike. The bodies of the dead either lay in their houses and rotted, or thanks to the offices of a terrified relative or servant, were thrown into the streets and piled up there to rot.

  How did the disease spread? How did it manage to engulf all of Europe in so short a time? Many blamed it on a miasmic cloud, a corruption of the very air with putrid fumes. These fumes were said to have arisen from the bowels of the earth itself, set free by a gigantic, shattering earthquake. Others attributed the original poisoning of the atmosphere to a peculiar and deadly alignment of the planets. It is a curious tribute to the eternal, nefarious ingenuity of man that, acting quickly to take advantage of the deadly properties of this supposedly infected air, many enterprising individuals went so far as to risk filling flasks and bladders with the vapors. Later they would attempt to sell this lethal concoction or use it to visit destruction on their enemies. Such is the boundless, never-failing capacity of the human race to harness and turn to their own advantage or profit the malevolent forces that nature provides and our own genius exploits.

  Not that this horrible contagion brought out only the worst in man. Brutality, selfishness, and the ruthless desertion of the dying were only one side of the story, and many chroniclers have overlooked the selfless devotion of doctors and nuns and priests in seeking to comfort the sick and alleviate their suffering. And perhaps nowhere in Europe were their efforts more outstanding and more worthy of commendation than in Florence. Here, the civic administration was nothing short of heroic in its early attempts to stem the tide of the noxious disease. Provisions were made for public hospitals and infirmaries to receive the sick at the first sign of infection, in the hope of containing the spread of the disease and further, rampant contamination.

  Despite all her protective and humanitarian efforts, however, Florence was destined to fall beneath the scythe of grim reaper. The density of her population and her position as the preeminent trading city of southern Europe virtually assured it, for, although it was not remarked at the time, the progress of the plague raging through Europe followed a very specific path—the path of trade.

  The bacterium that we now know caused the Black Death came from Asia or the Mideast in the stoma
ch of a flea. From there it passed into the bloodstream of an animal—the black rat. For reasons of drought or flood, these rats were forced to migrate from the hills where they lived, and some turned up in seacoast towns, where eventually they found their way on board Genoese and Venetian trading vessels bound for Europe. Sailors were contaminated en route. As the sailors signed on board other ships bound for other ports, they took the plague with them. As cargo was crated and transferred to barges and vehicles for overland conveyance, the rats with their fleas nestled between the crates, in the barrels and bales and boxes. And Florence, whose merchants imported enormous quantities of goods from all over the world, began to import this tainted cargo as well. Death streamed into the city.

  As the disease spread and it became clear that it was out of control, those who were able to do so left the city. More and more administrators and leaders fled; of those who refused to do so, many died. Everywhere there were dead rats, thousands of rats, but nobody noticed them, because everything was dead and dying—horses, pigs, chickens, dogs, and cats, and of course, men, women, and children. Before it was over, sixty-five thousand people would die. The plague spared no one. Order began to break down, and putrid corpses piled up in the streets. Chaos ensued, and the sinister becchini made their first appearance.

  These becchini, or gravediggers, were engaged to remove the stinking bodies to the mass graves that were prepared for them in the cemeteries and other open spaces in the city. In general, they were depraved and brutal men who had long since resigned themselves to their own inevitable, grisly deaths. But in the meantime, they had decided to enjoy themselves in drunken, heedless orgies of debauchery and depravity, until that fateful day arrived. At first they were content with the exorbitant fees they extracted from the commune and from private households to cart the infected dead away. But they quickly turned to robbery, looting, and extortion as ways of increasing their short, doomed pleasures. Rape and the threat of rape added to their enjoyment, as did murder and a host of other unspeakable crimes.