Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  “Who knows? The Lutherans are rattling their spears and threatening to cut off his head. Guicciardini says they’ve already crossed into Italy near Brescia and are heading south.”

  “And what is the pope doing about it?”

  “The usual. Trying to buy them off, but I don’t think he has enough money this time.”

  “Is there going to be a war then?”

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  “And Florence?”

  “Who knows? We’re right in the middle of the high road to Rome. We’re part of the pope’s domains. We may be attacked.”

  “And if it comes to that, what will you do?”

  “Me? Absolutely nothing. I told you I’m finished with that business. I intend to keep on scribbling, writing my plays.”

  “Is that all you’ve been writing?”

  “I swear! Do you want to see the new one? Do you want to see how much I’ve gotten done on it already?”

  “I notice you seem to be writing a lot of letters lately. And they’re longer and fatter letters too.”

  “To Guicciardini. He asks my advice. I’m happy to let a friend benefit from my years of experience with the things of this world.”

  “What things?”

  “Armies and truces, popes and emperors, things like that.”

  “You still have that cricket in your head, don’t you?”

  “I told you, not me. I’m an old man and a happy one. Let’s just say I look on all this grave business of war and revolution as a kind of hobby. I can’t help it. Some men study butterflies or birds or collect old manuscripts or coins. I watch governments and empires rise and fall.”

  “For the sheer entertainment of it all?”

  “What better spectacle is there under the sun? Now let me finish my breakfast.”

  “Finish your breakfast. Take your stroll down to the river. Then it will be dinnertime. After your nap, we’ll take a walk, and by then, of course, it will be time for your supper.”

  “Isn’t it glorious?” said Niccolo, grinning up at her from his bread and fruit. While he finished eating, Giuditta went downstairs to open up the big outside doors for the day. A messenger dropped off several letters for Niccolo, and when she went back up to the kitchen, she deposited them on the table in front of him, just like every day.

  “Mmmmm, something from Venice,” he said between bites. He opened the letter and scanned it rapidly. “Look at this! The Florentine merchants in Venice are pleading with me to send them another comedy!”

  “Bravo, Maestro!”

  “I told you, I’m Niccolo Machiavelli, comic author now!”

  “I know you are, caro,” she said, planting a dainty kiss on his forehead. “Niccolo, listen, I’m going to get dressed and go out with you this morning. There are some things I want to get. Will you wait for me?”

  “Of course, go on. I’ll finish these letters and clean up here. Come get me when you’re ready.” And the happy man went back to his correspondence and his breakfast.

  When Giuditta returned about twenty minutes later, however, Niccolo was still sitting at the table, engrossed in one of his letters. The comic author’s face was screwed up in a worried look.

  “Something wrong?”

  No answer.

  “Niccolo, is something wrong?” louder this time.

  “What? No. It’s from Guicciardini.”

  “Did he get his pills?”

  “Oh . . . yes. . . he got the pills. They’re working fine.”

  “Then there must be some bad news on the movement of armies or the rise and fall of empires and governments?”

  “The Germans are getting closer.”

  “We already know that, don’t we?”

  “Yes.” Niccolo hesitated. “Guicciardini said he convinced the pope that Florence should prepare to defend herself, in case of an attack. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And they need someone to take charge of the preparations. Francesco wants me to take it.”

  “And what will you tell him?”

  “What should I tell him?”

  “That you’re a comic author now?”

  Within an hour, the ex-comic author had packed an old, worn bag with the few things he would need and was riding into a stiff March wind, riding rather briskly for a man his age, on the road to Bologna.

  Francesco Guicciardini had survived the death of his patron, Pope Leo X, and the brief pontificate of the Dutchman Dedel, to emerge as governor of all the Papal States in Romagna under the new Medici Pope, Clement VII. When news of the threatened German invasion reached the pope, the supreme pontiff had hastily assembled the usual rag-tag army of mercenaries under the command of the duke of Urbino and sent them off into northern Italy in the event diplomacy failed and they might be needed to stave off the barbarian hordes. This army was encamped at Bologna where the papal governor, Guicciardini, who now also served in a military capacity as pontifical lieutenant, had his headquarters.

  The high-sounding name of Pontifical Army had been bestowed upon the undisciplined, multinational rabble encamped around Bologna. To Niccolo, the sights and sounds of the camp, although long unseen and unheard, were depressingly familiar. The snarling and cursing of unruly mercenaries from all over Italy and Europe, the arguments over trivial gambling stakes, the drunken singing.

  Niccolo found the pontifical lieutenant comfortably ensconced in a little villa in the middle of the sprawling camp. Notwithstanding the military honors and titles that had lately accrued to him, Francesco Guicciardini would never submit to the discomforts of staying in a common camp tent. When Niccolo was admitted without delay to the chamber where Guicciardini was working, the first thing he saw was a great mound of fur. From between dark fur collar and dark fur cap, the ever-unperturbed, ever-bland face of Francesco Guicciardini peeked out. Although a roaring fire had been built to ward off the evening chill and the room was uncomfortably hot and stuffy, Guicciardini, wishing to take no chances with the malevolent night winds, was sheathed in fur from head to foot.

  “Salve Gubernator!” said Niccolo in greeting. Then he added wryly, “Or should I call you Presidente? Lieutenant?”

  The bear sniggered, “‘Your Excellency’ will do.”

  “You should have been a cardinal, Francesco. You have the girth for it.”

  “But not the inclination. I have a reputation for anticlericism, you know.”

  “Entirely undeserved, I’m sure,” said Niccolo, settling into a chair. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

  “The situation is abysmally complicated, and I’m not that optimistic about our chances for success.”

  “And by ‘our’ you mean . . . ?”

  “The pope’s, Florence’s . . . Niccolo, things are at such a dreadful impasse, I may not even be able to salvage my own career.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse than you can imagine.” As Guicciardini spoke, laying out the situation, from time to time his plump white hands crept cautiously out of the fur, like two fat white mice, scurried around among the documents on the table, rearranged them, and then retreated.

  “It falls to me to stand between the fulminating Germans on the one hand and on the other, the object of their hatred, the pope. Clement, who, as you know, was a great and respected cardinal, is now a small and shabby pope who commands respect from no one. His indecision and his waffling in the face of this imminent invasion are a scandal and a disgrace. And as things get steadily worse, he seems to become even more craven and cowardly.”

  “Francesco, do you actually have command of the army?”

  “No, I’m only a papal liaison and advisor. I relay information to the pope and advice, and I relay his orders to the duke of Urbino. He’s the commander.”

  “And what sort of a man is he?”

  “The duke? A coward and probably a traitor. The usual.”

  “Will he fight?”

  “I doubt it. In any case, the pope refuses to issue the order. He’s try
ing to make a deal with the Germans. So we wait.”

  “And where are the Germans now?”

  “Pretty far north of here. But they’re on their way.”

  “Are they disposed to a truce? Or a payoff?”

  “The emperor is. But the emperor isn’t with them. Just that loose cannon, von Fundesberg, and his hordes of religious dissenters. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  Then, Niccolo, who really cared very little about the fate of the pope, asked the question that was on his mind, “What about Florence?”

  “If the fate of the pope and the Universal Catholic Church were all I had to worry about, my problems would be complicated enough. But I have to worry about Florence as well. That’s why I asked for you.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Prepare for the worst. Assume that this army here will either be defeated or overrun. Assume that the Germans will march on Florence on their way to Rome and attack her. Assume that we won’t be able to get any outside help at all.”

  “Those are pretty dismal assumptions.”

  “Those assumptions, in all likelihood, represent what is actually going to happen. You know it as well as I.”

  “Is there any money available for the defenses?”

  “There’s money being raised, but no one can decide what to do with it. The pope wants to use it to buy a treaty.”

  “That’s madness!”

  “Of course it is, but try to talk him out of it. He has every faith in diplomacy and in the honor and good intentions of the emperor, Charles V. So there you have it, Machiavelli. Go back to Florence and prepare for war.”

  Niccolo shook his head, “With no money, no outside help, no cooperation from the pope . . . It’s impossible.”

  “Why do you think we’re calling on you, old man?”

  “How much time?”

  “A month? Two at the most.”

  “Jesus Christ, Francesco!”

  “Will you do it?”

  A look of almost malicious delight spread across the old diplomat’s face: “I better ride back tonight. There’s no time to waste.”

  The great furry beast smiled.

  Niccolo’s undertaking proved to be every bit as gargantuan as he had anticipated, his struggle every bit as uphill. He was given an official title, provveditore delle mura, overseer of the walls, but little else in the way of support. He was given a secretary.

  With uncommon energy, he threw himself into a thorough examination of all the defense works of the city. He sent for his old friend from the days at Pisa, Antonio di Sangallo, the architect who had gone to Lombardy to study fortifications. He worked tirelessly. Eating and sleeping were only dim memories from the past. Perhaps the only assistance Niccolo did receive that proved to be of any value was from Mother Nature. Torrential rainstorms and late and unseasonable snow squalls were slowing the progress of the German marauders over the Alps and through the narrow mountain passes. The inevitable day of reckoning was postponed for a while due to bad weather.

  Niccolo was coughing badly as he hauled himself up the stairs, long after dark. Giuditta was waiting for him with another reprimand that she knew would go unheeded. “Listen to yourself! You sound like you’re dying of consumption. Niccolo, you have to stop pushing yourself like this.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he waved off her concerns. “My lungs are perfectly sound. The only reason I’m coughing so badly is all this dust I’ve been eating all day long.” To prove his point, he slapped at his cloak and a little cloud of dust materialized. “See?”

  “You’ve been out crawling around on those walls again today?”

  “They have to be inspected. The work has to be supervised.”

  “You’re going to fall someday.”

  “Better that than a German lance in my stomach.”

  “Speaking of your stomach, how do you feel?”

  “Better.”

  “Do you want to eat something?”

  “I’m too tired. I want to go to sleep. In the morning, I’ll eat a fat, greasy breakfast. Will that make you happy?”

  “Did things go badly today?”

  “Things go badly every day. Do you know how many letters I’ve written to the pope, detailing my recommendations and pleading for money to get the works going? And today he sends me not money but his plan, his plan for the fortifications!”

  “What does he want to do?”

  “Enlarge the circuit of the walls to include all the San Miniato hill! That could take years! Do you know what his argument is? That the value of the land added to the city would be over 80,000 florins! I wrote back and informed him there wasn’t even going to be a city if we didn’t do something fast! Imagine! He’s thinking about real-estate speculation!”

  “Calma, caro,” she cooed. “Can’t Guicciardini do something?”

  “He’s tried to overcome the pope’s obstinacy, but nothing yet.”

  “What about Passerini?”

  “Ah, the Little Sparrow is nesting furtively. He’s walled himself up in the Medici Palace. Somehow he found enough money to fortify that!”

  “And what about you, my poor, dear man?”

  “Giuditta, my head is so full of bastions and towers and fortalices and ditches . . .” Niccolo collapsed in a heap on the table.

  “My poor, dear man,” she repeated, stroking his head. He was already asleep.

  Summer came and went. The pope vacillated, and no work was done on the walls of Florence. Niccolo made a trip to the camp of the Pontifical Army, now at Cremona, near Milan. Guicciardini was vainly attempting to hold the army together, but already what little unity they had was dissolving, and the captains were at each other’s throats like snarling dogs.

  In November, the Germans crossed into Italy at Brescia. Twice, the pope ordered the Pontifical Army to withdraw before the advancing hordes rather than stand and fight. Twice Guicciardini complied. The pope was still confident that matters could be arranged and wanted to avoid any outright confrontation with the imperial troops.

  In Florence, all was chaos. No one seemed to be in charge. The pope was supposed to be making the decisions, but he was ludicrously indecisive. Passerini had burrowed deep into the Medici Palace. There was the Council of Eight and the Council of Eighty, but they were disorganized and incapable of coming to any sort of agreement. The smarter council members had already left town. Nothing was being done for the defense. Twice, once in November, once again in February, the panicky city sent Niccolo Machiavelli to plead with Guicciardini for assistance.

  In the mountains and hills north of Florence, it was so cold that the ground, including the roads, had frozen solid. Although the biting winds and occasional snow presented problems for the traveler on horseback, the hard ground made progress a relatively straightforward, relatively rapid thing. Not so when Niccolo descended down and out of the hills, onto the plains—where a sea of mud awaited him. While he was not cut and worried as much by the bitter wind, the mud made any sort of rapid progress impossible. Such were the extremes, such were the trade-offs and discomforts of winter travel. All told, Niccolo preferred the milder temperatures with the incumbent sloshing and slipping in the mud to the piercing cold of the high country—that is, until it started to rain. While the rain did not cut as sharply through several layers of wool as a mountain wind could do, once the icy wetness penetrated, it was there to stay. Niccolo was shivering so violently when he arrived that it took the better part of an hour by the fire and the better part of a cup of brandy before his chills subsided. As the heat penetrated his old bones, Niccolo began to revive, and it was only then that the harried, skinny, hawk-nosed diplomat sat down with the stolid, unflappable aristocrat to discuss what, if anything, could be done to save Florence from impending disaster.

  “So the plans for the defensive measures never got off the ground?”

  “There was nothing but haggling and indecision. I plotted out exactly what had to be done—what could be done in the shorte
st time possible with the least possible expense. I wanted only to fortify existing emplacements, not build any fantastic new walls. But I couldn’t get any money. When I got a little money, the mayors of each district were supposed to supply laborers, but the laborers never materialized. By the time I finally managed to get a labor force together, the money had run out. On and on like that.”

  “And what are the good citizens of Florence doing now?”

  “Wringing their hands, praying. They’re melting down the gold and silver from the churches.”

  “To do what?”

  “Hire mercenaries, if they can find any. Buy weapons if there are any available. Pay ransom if worst comes to worst.”

  “Ahi serva Italia,” quoted Guicciardini.

  “If there were only a militia, Francesco, if the citizens were armed and trained and capable of defending themselves, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “Aren’t there any arms or soldiers at all in Florence?”

  “What little armory there is is inside the Medici Palace with the Eunuch. Same goes for the soldiery.”

  “And he isn’t budging?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What do you want to do?” asked Guicciardini.

  “The only thing we can hope to do is turn aside the brunt of the storm, divert it around Florence. Where are the Germans now?”

  “Oh, hard by. If it were a clear day, you could probably see them from up on the roof. Not that there’s much hope for a clear day in this wretched place.”

  “How many?”

  “My estimate? Thirty thousand.”

  “Thirty thousand!” said Niccolo, astonished. “I thought they were twelve thousand, fifteen thousand at the most.”

  “They were—when they started out. But they trickled down out of their mountains like a little stream—a little stream of heretics. As they went, they were joined by other little streams of dissenters, and the stream got bigger and more powerful. They’re a regular river of cleansing destruction now.”

  “What sort of shape are they in?”

  “Worse shape than you,” replied Guicciardini. They’re colder, wetter, and sorrier than you were when you arrived. They have no artillery, no money, and no provisions. One of my spies was caught in the camp, and do you know what the first thing they did to him was? They stripped him of his boots! Half of that rabble is barefoot out there. Barefoot and shivering.”