Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  These events involving the devastation of Florence took place many years before the time of our story, but are not without relevance to it, for it is in the vile, stinking sink of the plague that Don Micheletto has his roots. Among the most notorious and feared of the infamous becchini was one named Coriglia, Don Micheletto’s grandfather.

  Coriglia was a gravedigger by profession and managed to make a mean, but adequate, living by selling the bodies and parts of bodies turned over to him for disposal. His customers were artists and scientists who were eager to conduct clandestine anatomical investigations to further their knowledge of their respective disciplines. When the plague struck, Coriglia sensed a windfall and was one of the first to volunteer for the gruesome detail of removing the bodies of the dead. He was also one of the most blasphemous, reckless, and defiant in the execution of his duties, and it came as no surprise that he was one of the first to succumb to the disease. But in the case of the gravedigger Coriglia, something rare, something almost miraculous happened. He did not die. He recovered. At the end of five days, he was still alive, and the boils and buboes began to burst. The noxious pus leaked out of him, and with it the virulence of the disease. At the end of a week, he was on his feet, disfigured, scarred for life, but very much alive, and more important, immune to the disease. The fortunes of the Coriglia family had just taken a dramatic swing upward.

  Grandfather Coriglia’s criminal instincts were still at the early stages of development, so he began modestly, by breaking into the houses of those not yet sick and threatening to drag them out into the streets and infect them. When they paid for his protection, he left them alone. Then, he quickly moved on to more-profitable undertakings. He seized a fine deserted house and made it his own. He organized marauding bands to find and appropriate what wealth was still left in the city.

  When he had thus accumulated enough capital, he went into legitimate business. If he noticed that linen for shrouds was in short supply, and it always was, he bought up all the linen he could find—or stole it—and charged outrageous prices for it. Likewise, he managed to grab and accumulate food and medicine, which he also sold at grotesquely inflated prices. By the time the danger of the plague was past and Florentines in exile began to filter back into the city, Coriglia was one of the wealthiest men in Florence. Although his ill-gotten gains did not serve to advance him socially, his reputation for unscrupulousness soon made him an intimate of a number of powerful and notable families. When there was work to be done of an unpleasant or dubious nature, the services of Coriglia were eagerly sought out and, indeed, were often deemed indispensable.

  As in respectable families of honest tradesmen, Coriglia trained his son in the crafts that had brought him so much success, and that son in turn passed on the family secrets to his son—Michele.

  Michele Coriglia became Don Micheletto when he took up service with Caesar Borgia. Before that, he was attached in various unsavory capacities, as we have seen, to one of Florence’s leading families—the Medici. When they were driven into exile, Don Micheletto went with them, eventually gravitating to the Borgia as the kind of family who could use his peculiar talents and who were able and willing to pay for them.

  When Caesar Borgia left Italy in disgrace, Don Micheletto was briefly detained and imprisoned by Pope Julius II, but then released at the insistence of ten cardinals who interceded on his behalf. Unwilling to tempt fate and remain too long in the hands of the mercurial new pope, Don Micheletto headed north, back to his native Tuscany, back to Florence. His sudden reappearance after a ten-year absence went largely unremarked by Florentine officials preoccupied with their long, drawn-out struggle with neighboring Pisa, but in certain quarters Don Micheletto was well received, very well received. His friendship was cultivated, his interests looked after, and, when the position of captain of the guard of the new militia was created, the wheels of intrigue, long rusty, began to turn again, and his name was advanced.

  Mild opposition to Don Micheletto’s appointment in the Council of Eighty, based on his association with the Borgia and his reputation for atrocity was overruled. It was pointed out that, after all, he had been found guilty of no crime and been made a free man by no less an infallible judge than the pope himself, who had the power to bind and loose on earth as well as in heaven.

  On the occasion of that traumatic initial meeting, Niccolo had virtually fled Don Michele’s presence in confusion and disarray, muttering a feeble and incoherent excuse. Even for the seasoned diplomat and confident dissembler, the double emotional shock had been too much to absorb all at once. Niccolo needed time to sort out the conflicts and the implications.

  As Soderini had suggested, Niccolo took the next day off. Not anxious to begin working hand-in-glove with the grim reaper himself, he was nevertheless not idle. He made discreet inquiries and pieced together much of the above related history of the Coriglia clan. These fresh discoveries brought him little consolation.

  How could such a man, steeped in the ignominy of three generations of evil, how could such a black-hearted, reprobate, such a vile and bloodthirsty creature, hateful in the eyes of God and man alike, be selected to train the virgin militia? Niccolo’s militia! Whose idea was it?

  Wheedling what information he could out of carefully selected colleagues in the chancery, Niccolo learned that Don Micheletto’s name had originally been put forward by a loose affiliation of young and relatively unknown representatives from obscure quarters and neighborhoods, who were loosely associated with families loosely attached to some of the more ancient and honorable interests and names in Florence. “Well, that explains exactly nothing,” he thought.

  Wherever Don Micheletto’s nomination originated, however, one thing was clear—that it had rapidly gained general acceptance. Everywhere Niccolo went, he received the same bland assurances. When his record was examined from a strictly military point of view, almost everyone was willing to admit, however grudgingly, that Don Micheletto was the right man for the job. In his heart, Niccolo knew it too, despite the waves of revulsion that rolled over him every time he thought about the bloody mark this man had left upon the world.

  In Romagna, when Niccolo was engaged in the endless, maddening negotiations with Borgia, he had many times been witness to Don Micheletto’s military prowess. He had seen him drill units that moved in solid, fearless, confident blocks. He had seen him take towns and villages with half the number of men an ordinary commander might have employed. And he had remarked Borgia’s near total confidence in him.

  Caesar often bragged that his most elite corps were made up of men picked up in the countryside, neither mercenaries nor professional soldiers. But once subjected to the rigorous and demanding discipline of Don Micheletto, they were the equal of any fighting force on the continent. Niccolo had to acknowledge the truth of these allegations. Despite his other shortcoming and miscalculations, Caesar Borgia, with Don Micheletto as his second-in-command, had never been dealt a defeat on the field of battle.

  But Niccolo still had doubts. Would Don Micheletto contaminate the troops he was assigned to train? How could a man so tainted and corrupt not infect everything he came into contact with? Was it safe to commit the militia and the future of Florentine liberty into the hands of a moral monster?

  Eventually, Niccolo reached a conclusion, a tentative conclusion. His wavering and intermittent attacks of conscience gave way to a kind of grim determination. Ultimately, there was only one really important question, only one overriding priority—the survival of the republic. If Don Micheletto could train its militia to become half as effective a fighting force as Borgia’s army, then so be it. The Lord moves in mysterious ways. Don Micheletto would be given his chance. But Niccolo knew that he would bear careful watching and constant scrutiny. “One false step,” he told himself, “and the axe falls on Michele Coriglia.” Niccolo preferred not to think of it as nourishing a viper in his breast. He preferred to think of it as rendering a service to the republic and keeping the dangerous man clos
e at hand where he could be watched.

  But having resolved his dilemma, Niccolo realized he had resolved nothing at all, for one burning question remained. If he had been able, for the time being, to reconcile the interests of the republic with those of Don Micheletto, he could perform no such feat of prestidigitation when it came to Giuditta. He could not escape the fact that he was harboring her father’s murderer.

  What would happen if he told her? Would she insist on taking her revenge? No one could argue that Don Micheletto did not deserve it. But would she be able to do it? And what would happen to her if she did? Her act of vengeance could very well prove to be one of self-annihilation.

  Niccolo rationalized that he would say nothing to Giuditta—not yet, anyway. He was doing it for her own good, both to avoid the pain it would cause her to know her father’s assassin was still alive and to avoid the possible harm she could bring down upon herself if she attempted to get to him. He was protecting her. It was the only responsible thing to do. He was doing it for her own good. Still, for all his good intentions, in his heart of hearts, he knew one thing, and that knowledge would not go away. He knew that he was wrong. He knew that it was not his decision to make.

  He also tried to shake off the memory of something she once said to him, “If you had to choose between me and that republic of yours, which one would you choose?” He had to keep reminding himself that he had not chosen, that he had betrayed no one. Not yet.

  Although Niccolo shrank from actual physical contact with Don Micheletto, the captain of the guards was never far from his thoughts and never far out of his sight. Whatever Niccolo’s feelings toward the man he regarded as a blight and a moral monster, one thing was clear beyond the shadow of a doubt—the militia under his supervision was shaping up rapidly into a formidable armed force.

  As Niccolo was going over a series of letters to the podestas and mayors of the outlying villages instructing them to forward muster rolls of all able-bodied men in their districts, he was distracted by a tentative sort of shuffling in front of his desk. A boy of about eighteen, looking slightly out of place and ill at ease in a rustic cloak, was standing in front of him, twisting his cloth cap nervously in his hands. He looked vaguely familiar, but Niccolo could not place him immediately.

  “What can I do for you?” said the secretary in a tone calculated to put the boy at ease.

  “I have a letter for you.” And so saying, he handed it over.

  Niccolo looked at the rather large, inelegant script on the letter addressed to him. It was not a hand with which he was familiar. Opening it, he read the short injunction:

  Maybe times do change. I don’t know. This is my boy. I’m sending him to you. Teach him to fight. And Machiavelli, teach him what it is he’s fighting for.

  Michele di Lando

  Niccolo looked up. “What’s your name?”

  “Salvestro, sir.”

  Piero Soderini was waiting for him when he got back. The gonfaloniere was pacing with his hands clenched behind his back. “There’s trouble, Niccolo, I need you.”

  “To do what?”

  “To go to Germany.”

  “Germany! No! We’re not going to go through all that again, are we?”

  “It’s already settled and cleared with the Great Council.”

  “Oh, now the Great Council approves of me, does it?” said Niccolo sarcastically. “When you wanted to send me to Germany two months ago, I remember they called me your ‘little puppet’ and ‘the gonfaloniere’s personal errand boy.’”

  Soderini winced. “Some are still grumbling and calling you my puppet and personal errand boy, but you’re going to Germany anyway.”

  The grumblings referred to by Soderini had been going on for quite some time, but of late they had grown appreciably louder. There were those who were jealous of the gonfaloniere and grumbled that he was usurping too much power, even though his every move had to be studied, deliberated over, and approved by a bewildering array of committees, councils, and legislative bodies. There were those of Florence’s finest and most ancient families who grumbled that too many “new men” had made their way into the government and that men of less than exalted birth had managed to acquire undue influence over the gonfaloniere. They grumbled that Soderini deliberately ignored the citizens of higher standing and courted the more vulgar elements in the population as a way of maintaining his position of power. Still others, of a more imaginative bent, grumbled that Soderini was training the militia to act as his own private army and that he intended to use it to set himself up as tyrant and absolute ruler. Needless to say, in the course of these dissatisfied and jealous grumblings, the name of Soderini’s most trusted secretary, Niccolo Machiavelli, came up frequently.

  Two months previously, when the German emperor Maximillian had demanded an ambassador be sent to him from Florence, Soderini had naturally turned to Niccolo as his obvious choice. But the grumblings ensued, grew quite raucous, and finally Francesco Vettori, a man of impeccable background and lineage, was elected to the post.

  “And what has the illustrious Vettori been up to in Germany? Is he having trouble handling the republic’s affairs?” asked Niccolo.

  “Vettori’s made a balls of everything,” sighed the gonfaloniere.

  “What’s he done?” said Niccolo, amused now.

  “You know about Maximillian’s fantasy. Even though nobody pays him much attention, even in his own realm, he now styles himself Holy Roman Emperor.”

  “Dio ci guardi!” said Niccolo. “God save us! Not another one.”

  “Yes, another emperor,” said Soderini. “He intends to take Constantinople back from the Turks and establish universal Christian rule over all of Europe.”

  “The usual imperial agenda,” said Niccolo, thinking of Charles VIII of France and of Borgia. “So what does he want from us?”

  “Money.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred thousand ducats.”

  Niccolo burst out laughing. Soderini too, smiled at the absurdly high figure. The gonfaloniere continued, “Since he’s going to be Holy Roman Emperor, he insists on coming to Rome to be crowned. He’s asking us for the five hundred thousand ducats to help defer some of the costs of his coronation. He says it would be a sign of good faith for us to cooperate.”

  “And what does Vettori advise?”

  “He thinks we should pay and wants me to send the money.”

  Again, Niccolo burst into laughter. But within the week, he was on his way to Germany.

  The Germany of the time was not a strong and unified nation state, like France, but a loose confederation of staunchly individualistic and independent states. The Emperor Maximillian, although he dreamed large dreams, was scarcely capable of controlling the rambunctious cities and towns in his own reputed territory, let alone extending his domains. He was in constant need of money and troops and yet was already at war with France and Venice, and doing poorly on both fronts. Undaunted by reality, he fancied himself the last of the knights errant and the true heir of Charlemagne. And he did not stop there. So far-fetched and fantastic were his dreams that he even harbored a secret desire, once he was crowned emperor, to make himself pope as well! It was to this man, imbued with medieval dreams of empire, but described by his contemporaries as, “on board ship with a scant store of biscuits,” that Niccolo was now sent.

  The details of the actual legation were all too familiar. The emperor demanded 500,000 ducats. Florence was prepared to pay, but would need time to raise such an enormous sum. The emperor would accept a down payment of 50,000. Niccolo assured him that 20,000 were already on their way. . . . So it went. Compared to dealing with Caesar Borgia, it was child’s play.

  Niccolo followed the itinerant emperor throughout his far-flung domains. In his dispatches, he complained bitterly of the cold, the snow, and the despicable condition of the inns where the travelers were lodged under one roof with the animals and where they slept in great, stuffy overheated rooms smelling of s
traw and horse shit. He complained too, of the lack of decent wine and food and the insufferable quantities of beer and greasy sausages he was therefore compelled to consume. He even complained that the Germans were poorly dressed. But despite the many faults he found with his northern neighbors, Niccolo was also aware of their genius for military organization. As he traveled from town to town in Germany and then through the cantons of Switzerland, he was impressed with the discipline of the fighting units and the thoroughness of their military training. His letters were filled with the most minute observations, and in studying these small, but sturdy, republics maintained by their own strength, Niccolo derived many a fruitful lesson and many a prescription for the fledgling Florentine militia. All this, he duly set down in writing and forwarded to his superiors.

  After several months of back-and-forth travel across Germany and give-and-take at the bargaining table, Niccolo had followed Maximillian to Cadore where he was facing the hostile forces of Venice. When the emperor realized he was out of money, he impulsively flew back to Innsbruck to pawn what jewels he had left in order to continue the war. He foolishly left his armies waiting for him at Cadore, and it was not long before the leaderless troops, left to fend for themselves, were slaughtered by the Venetians. The threat posed by Maximillian, always feeble, now simply evaporated, and the glorious emperor himself went into hiding. Niccolo’s legation came to an end, but he did not leave Innsbruck for quite some time. He was gravely ill.

  From his first days in Germany, he had feared that the diet that was forced upon him would do him some serious harm. His well-regulated digestion was not prepared for it. The food was too heavy. He was rarely able to get wine to stimulate his digestive juices. His sweat and urine smelled different. His stools looked funny, and the consistency was all wrong. He ate less and less.

  One night in Innsbruck, shortly after the emperor’s disappearance, he was feeling slightly sick to his stomach. Going to bed, he dismissed it as the usual bloated discomfort caused by the beer and the sausages that always sat like lead in his belly. In the middle of the night, however, he was awakened by shooting, stabbing pains. He found himself too weak and too delirious to move, and as his stomach contracted and convulsed, he vomited over the side of the bed. Afterward, he lay back, shivering and feverish, clutching the dirty, sweat-soaked sheets around his neck, and staring vacantly, only half-conscious at the ceiling.