Of the two combatants before Niccolo, one was administering a sound thrashing about the face and ears of his opponent. The smaller boy, whose head was surmounted by a terrific bush of black hair, however, did not seem to mind, and he threw himself with abandon into the idiotic pastime. Slaps and little owl-hoots of pain and triumph rang off the walls of the venerable government building. “It was nice,” thought Niccolo sardonically. “Like a circus.”
Finally, Niccolo was admitted to the suite of offices where he was so often welcomed in the past. “Well?” said Passerini.
Never had a man been more aptly named. Passerini—the little sparrow—was indeed a birdlike specimen. He had a tiny, narrow head that came to a point in a small, sharp, beak, and thin, pursed lips. No chin, no forehead. He was a small man, but an extraordinarily plump and rotund body swelled the space beneath his purple cassock.
“Who are you?” he chirped. “And what do you want?”
Niccolo explained the nature of his errand, depositing the heavy manuscript on Passerini’s polished desk.
“What do you want me to do with that thing?” He looked at it with obvious repugnance, as though it were the carcass of some dead animal.
“I would like to be paid for it, Your Excellency, according to the terms of this agreement.” Niccolo handed over the contract, and the cardinal examined it.
“This isn’t my signature.”
Niccolo bit his ready tongue and choked off the stream of obscenities that was about to escape. He remembered that, when asking for money, it paid to be polite. “The former cardinal de’ Medici, on behalf of the city of Florence, concluded this arrangement with me. I am applying to you as his legally—the word almost stuck in Niccolo’s throat—constituted representative to carry out the terms of the agreement.”
“Why bother me? Why don’t you take this thing to Rome and present it to the pope? He’s the one who ordered it. If he wants it, let him pay for it.”
“Your Excellency, I was hoping to avoid a trip to Rome. I’d very much like to settle this matter in Florence. I’m getting old and I don’t travel well anymore.”
“I’m sure that’s not my problem. I’m simply not empowered to honor this thing. I don’t see any way around it. You’ll have to go to Rome.”
Niccolo realized he was being evasive, whether for financial reasons or political concerns was not entirely clear. “I’m sure there’s some way we can work this out here. If you’ll just write to the pope . . .”
“The pope has enough on his mind.”
“Is there anyone else Your Excellency can consult?”
What passed for a tight little smile broke out on his face. “Very well, if you insist.” Then, turning toward the back of his chambers, he hollered, “Secretary! Secretary!”
A door opened and closed, and Michelozzi bustled into the room. He was surprised to see Niccolo, but shot him a warm smile. “Excellency?” Michelozzi bowed low, and, for a minute, Niccolo thought he was going to kneel at the cardinal’s feet.
“This gentleman has an old contract from the Cardinal de’ Medici and insists on us honoring it. I told him I’m simply not empowered to do so, but he insists. Would you please go and find my lords Ippolito and Alessandro. I’m sure they can satisfy the gentleman.”
Michelozzi hastened out of the room, but as he was going, the cardinal stopped him, “And secretary, bring us a little rose water. It’s frightfully close in here today, and we would like to refresh ourselves.”
When he returned with the rose water in a few minutes, Michelozzi also had in tow the two youthful combatants from the civettino match Niccolo had witnessed in the corridor. So these were the Medici bastards! Red hose and yellow codpieces!
“Alessandro,” said the cardinal. The smaller one with the frizzy hair stepped forward. He had enormous, thick lips and skin that was much darker than even a Spaniard would feel comfortable with. “Alessandro, look at this.” He handed the boy Niccolo’s contract. “Did your father ever give you any instructions regarding this?”
Niccolo watched while Pope Clement’s illegitimate son examined the document. So the rumors were true. When he was Giulio de’ Medici, the present pope had been keeping an African slave who also served as his concubine.
“Well?” said the boy a little stupidly.
The cardinal said, “Are you inclined to authorize the disbursement of 100 florins for this rather, ahem, lugubrious tome on the history of Florence?”
“One hundred florins! I should think not! Father told us to be frugal.”
The cardinal turned to the older boy, “You, Ippolito?”
“I stand behind Alessandro’s decision.”
“There,” tweeted the cardinal, turning to Niccolo. “I told you there was nothing to be done for you here. The young lords of the house of Medici have denied your request. You are free to go to Rome to present your petition to the pope. In the meantime, good day, sir.”
Petition! Niccolo was furious as he stalked out of the room. He didn’t have a petition, he had a contract. He wasn’t a beggar! He was a historian! And two fifteen-year-old bastards had refused to pay him the money that was rightfully his!
Michelozzi hurried out after him. Putting a hand on his shoulder, he said, “Niccolo, I’m sorry. Things have changed around here. The Signoria is not what it used to be.”
“Those two children are running the city?”
“No, the cardinal is in control. He uses them, the authority of the Medici name, to add a little weight to his decisions.”
“And you? The chancery?”
“He uses me to fetch rosewater and write letters to his mistress.”
“You’ve fallen on hard times, Michelozzi. The whole city has fallen on hard times.”
They both nodded sadly in agreement. “What will you do now, Niccolo?”
“Go to Rome, I guess. What else does an old man like me have to do with his time?” As he spoke, the boisterous new generation of Medici clattered out of the cardinal’s chambers.
“Secretary!” sang Alessandro.
“Secretary, we require your services,” chimed in Ippolito. “The cardinal has lent you out to us for the afternoon. We’re giving a banquet, and we need someone to write the invitations!” The last Niccolo saw of Michelozzi, secretary in the Second Chancery, Alessandro de’ Medici, the pope’s son, was leading him down the hallway, affectionately, playfully, by the ear.
Before undertaking the journey, Niccolo had written several times to his old friend Francesco Vettori in Rome, seeking advice. Vettori wrote Niccolo advising him to come to Rome. Vettori wrote Niccolo advising him not to come to Rome. Niccolo wondered about the extent of Vettori’s friendship, and about his judgment, but in the end, spurred on by poverty and restlessness, he decided to make the trip. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Riding distances proved to be a more painful proposition than Niccolo had anticipated, and his kidneys soon ached from long days in the saddle. The blue pills helped somewhat, but, by the time he arrived, he was feeling discouraged and tired and constipated and old. Rome, as he entered it, was much the same sad, squalid, sorry mess he remembered from years before. But as he progressed toward the Vatican, he began to see evidence of ambition and the flood of money that had poured into the city from all over Christendom. Both Pope Julius II and Leo X had spent lavishly on building and construction projects. Many cardinals and other churchmen, fattened by graft and corruption, had done likewise. Through the jumble and clutter of huts, they had cut, or caused to be cut wide, open avenues and lined them with lofty and exquisitely classical palaces.
Niccolo took note of these changes, but only in a detached and uninterested way. As he had feared, the ghosts in this city seemed more real to him than its present inhabitants. As he rode along familiar streets, he could remember the echo of her laughter, the way she smiled, the way she tossed her long hair back out of her face. He could almost see her making her way confidently, nonchalantly, through these teeming, vibra
nt streets. This was her city, Giuditta’s city, and, even though he had spent time with her in Florence and in the country and even in Ferrara, it was in Rome that her image rose up to haunt him. It was here that she was more maddeningly real than in any other place. Here the memories were stronger, more visceral, more tangible, more inescapable. More than once, Niccolo had to shake himself, to force himself to realize that the fleeting glimpse of a beautiful dark-haired woman was nothing more than an optical illusion or a case of mistaken identity or a bad case of wishful thinking.
It took him a day of wrangling at the Florentine embassy to secure an audience with the pope. He passed through gallery after gallery, antechamber after antechamber. He had plenty of time to examine what seemed like hundreds of miles of frescoes and friezes and hundreds of statues of the living and the long dead. He would wait, then a door would open and someone would beckon. He would pick up his heavy volumes, lug them through another lavish and ornate doorway and wait again. This went on all morning.
“Machiavelli?”
Niccolo jumped up.
“His Holiness is pleased that you have come,” said the chamberlain. At least he had a Florentine accent.
“Good,” said Niccolo, a little tired, a little irate, but grateful nonetheless that he had finally reached the end of his quest. “Can I be shown in now? I’ve been here all day.”
“His Holiness is also pleased that you’ve completed the history, and instructs that you leave it in my care.”
“What! I came all the way from Florence! I want to see him!”
“In due time, I’m certain you will. But for the time being, you’ll have to be content to leave your opus with me. When the Holy Father has had time to peruse it, you will be notified.”
“Notified! How long will that take?”
“If I were you, and I didn’t have any other urgent business in Rome, I wouldn’t bother to tarry here. Not on account of this. It could take a while. I’m sure His Holiness will know where to reach you in Florence.”
Niccolo was outraged and in his anger could scarcely find words to express his feelings. “Two years of sweat and blood . . . all the way from Florence . . .” he sputtered.
The chamberlain regarded him with a bored, slightly pained, expression. “Do you want to leave the book or not?”
Niccolo stifled another outburst. He handed the volume over. Abruptly, the chamberlain turned in a smart, military fashion, walked crisply to a bench set in a niche in the wall and deposited Niccolo’s enormous volume there—on top of a great pile of enormous volumes. There must have been over two hundred of them.
Niccolo was limp when he turned to go, but his descent into chagrin was barely underway when a loud clap brought him out of it. Through the great carved portals behind which the papal presence presumably reposed, a gnome had been forcibly ejected. He hit the marble floor hard but was on his feet in an instant. He was hopping in his anger and pounding on the great, closed doors. Bald, shabby, and choleric, he had a long, cleft beard that made him look like a goat or the devil. He was saying uncomplimentary things about the supreme pontiff. He was casting aspersions on the pope’s origins, which were, in fact, dubious, and on his mother, who was either unknown or long forgotten. He did, however, have the good taste to deliver his tirade in Florentine. Niccolo noted that Rome seemed to be full of Florentines these days. Disappointed Florentines.
Gradually, some of the anger bubbled out of the small man, and his hopping became less incessant. Still red-faced, with fists balled at his sides, he delivered one final kick to the doors with such violence that his sandal flew from his foot. “What are you gaping at?” he said to Niccolo, his face twisted in a tight scowl.
“Buonarotti? Michelangelo?”
The artist glared at him, squinted, and then his features softened: “Machiavelli, Niccolo! Well met!” They exchanged a hearty embrace. In the years since their first meeting, the secretary and the sculptor had had intermittent contact, since Michelangelo had been charged with several commissions by Soderini in the name of the republic of Florence and Niccolo had arranged the details.
“You’ve been in audience with His Holiness?” Niccolo asked the obvious question.
“The bastard!” fumed Michelangelo. “The ungrateful bastard! They treat you like servants. Do you have any idea what it’s like to work for these Medici overlords?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Niccolo.
“They hold us hostage!”
“We’re nothing but slaves!” A hail of similar denunciations and imprecations followed. They were entirely in agreement on the subject, and so, linking arms, the two poverty-stricken Florentine geniuses made their way out of the Vatican into a sunlit Saint Peter’s Square. They spoke at length of the injustices that had been thrust upon them. They spoke vehemently of ingratitude.
“The point is, now, you either work for the Medici or not at all,” Michelangelo was saying.
“And you’re working?”
“Oh, first they had me working as quarry master, because I was the only one who knew how to recognize the good marble and cut it without damaging it. When we found it though, it was in such a remote place that we couldn’t get it out, so the pope said, ‘Build a road.’ Then I was a road builder! And when I finally got the blocks I wanted out, perfect blocks, mind you, they used them to pave the floors! Can you imagine! It’s a sacrilege! They might as well pave their floors with the body and blood of Christ!”
And on and on he went. Niccolo marveled at the seemingly endless reserve of temperamental outrage in this little man. He had finally met his equal in righteous indignation.
“And the pope?” asked Niccolo when there was a break in Michelangelo’s tirade.
“Oh, he’s the worst one yet. Lorenzo was the best—Lorenzo the Magnificent, not little Lorenzo. Little Lorenzo was a beast. But the Medici strain seems to be getting diluted as the years pass, they get worse and worse, they live shorter and shorter lives.”
“Have you seen the latest generation?” asked Niccolo. “The pope’s son?”
“The mulatto? I’m sure we have great things to expect from him!” said Michelangelo. “Great things for Florence, eh Machiavelli? Great things for old hands like you and me!”
“Non vedo l’ora—I can hardly wait,” confirmed Niccolo.
Enjoying the rounds of mutual spleen-venting in which they were engaged, Michelangelo invited Niccolo back to his studio. The passed through an open courtyard littered with giant, half-carved blocks of stone. There was something mysterious and almost holy about the way the silent statues were beginning to emerge from the marble and come to life—here a sinewy arm, a muscled leg, there a rippling torso just starting to take shape, something alive struggling to be born, twisting in agony to disengage itself from the cold, inert matter.
Inside, Niccolo was overwhelmed by the sweet, piney smell of turpentine. And the visual clutter. Tools and brushes and pots of paint. Pieces of statuary—dismembered stone limbs, severed stone heads. There were huge drawing tables covered a foot thick with piles of paper. From the walls and ceiling beams hung the immense, thin sheets of paper, the cartoons, on which designs for frescoes were sketched before being painted. They were covered with life-size and larger-than-life figures—vibrant, living figures bending and straining, some tormented, some in ecstasy. Everywhere he looked, Niccolo saw this great, intimidating surge of life, the raw energy and emotion of the human body captured in charcoal or paint or stone. It was exhilarating—and haunting. It was like being in a room with thirty thousand ghosts or silent, raving demons.
“I’ll get wine,” said Michelangelo. “Sit down.”
“So what will you do now?” said Niccolo when he had made himself comfortable.
“Go back to Florence and carve Medici statues, I guess. There are still a number of Medici who need to be immortalized. Like little Lorenzo.”
“You’re going to carve him?” said Niccolo with obvious distaste. He remembered having been tortured by
little Lorenzo.
“You either work for the Medici or you don’t work at all. And you should see the design the pope’s approved. If I do it and if the statue survives, posterity is going to think little Lorenzo was some kind of a Greek god, because that’s exactly what they ordered, a Greek god. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“Skinny, phlegmatic, crooked teeth, sunken chest . . .”
“The same. Only the statue is going to have massive and powerful limbs, a torso like a tree trunk! The strength of Hercules! And with such a pensive expression! The wisdom of Solomon!”
“You’re kidding?”
“Do you think they’re going to pay me to carve a statue of a scrawny consumptive coughing up blood into a silk handkerchief?”
“Such is the nature of patronage,” sighed Niccolo.
“Look, I can’t seem to find anything to drink. I’m going to run out and get something. I’ll be right back.”
Michelangelo was not gone for more than thirty seconds before he returned, looking a little embarrassed. “You don’t have any money, do you? I . . . I . . .”
Niccolo grinned and tossed him a coin.
“Be right back!”
With the master of this bizarre household gone, Niccolo was left with the ghosts. They were alive. Not like the bloodless saints you see painted on the walls in dark churches. They had a depth and an energy, a fury about them. Idly, Niccolo wandered through this human menagerie, marveling at its inhabitants. There were figures from the Bible and from Roman history. Niccolo smiled to himself—his ancients.
He stopped in front of one of the cartoons tacked to the wall. Even with nothing more than a few bold strokes of charcoal on this thin, yellowish paper, Michelangelo could breathe life into his figures. Here was a sketch of the rape of Lucretia. She was twisting to get out of the grasp of the brutish Tarquin, but to no avail. He was bearing down on her with beastly delight in his eyes, the sinews in his neck and arms visible. Lucretia’s face had been barely sketched in, but even in those few lines, you could already read the terror—and something else? What was it? Niccolo shrugged off the odd feeling. There was something frightening about this man’s work.
Machiavelli: The Novel Page 75
