by Mary Hoffman
‘Which ones?’ I asked.
‘The fancily dressed ones,’ he said. ‘The ones with the long names and high pedigrees. The ones who didn’t like your posing for a symbol of the Republic.’
‘Altobiondi and his friends,’ I said.
‘And Visdomini,’ Angelo said.
‘He is one of the friends,’ I agreed.
‘But why are you friends with them?’ he asked. ‘I would have thought they would repel you.’
‘They do,’ I said. ‘You would find no new Lorenzo among them. I am there in their midst only as a spy.’
He sat back on his heels. ‘I thought so. That’s why I said you should be careful. It is a dangerous game you are playing. In fact, it isn’t a game at all, although you seem to think it is.’
‘What makes you say so?’
‘You dress up in their fancy silks and velvets and plumed hats and doubtless drink their wine and eat their rich food. But if they find out you are really a republican, you will find that those daggers they carry at their belts are not worn as ornaments.’
‘I am careful,’ I said. ‘Really. I don’t care about the life they lead. I just want the frateschi to be ready when they try to let another de’ Medici into the city.’
Angelo looked at me in some horror. ‘Another de’ Medici?’
‘Yes. If not Piero then the Cardinal or his cousin.’
‘You forget – I know these people. At least I knew them. You had better be very sure that the frateschi will win before you are identified as a traitor.’
‘Guess what!’ said Gismondo. ‘The Pope has died!’
After last year, when the rumours had us all expecting it, it came as a surprise.
‘So Cesare Borgia has lost the protection of his papa?’ I said.
‘Who was also the Papa of us all,’ said Gismondo. He seemed very cheerful about it. ‘But everyone expects the new Pope to be Cardinal Piccolomini and he is favourable to Cesare too.’
I remembered that I had heard that at Altobiondi’s.
‘He has been levying troops in Rome, you know,’ said Gismondo.
‘The Cardinal?’
‘No, idiot, Cesare Borgia! He has given them a livery of red and yellow with ‘CESARE’ lettered back and front.’
‘His own private army?’
‘He will be invincible,’ said Gismondo. ‘He was supposed to be going to take his men to fight for the King of France in Naples but then his father got sick.’
‘What did he die of?’ I asked.
Gismondo shrugged. ‘A fever. Rome is full of the pestilence this summer.’
‘So he wasn’t poisoned?’ I asked. One never knew with the people around the Borgias. It was rumoured that at least one cardinal had been poisoned by Cesare.
‘No, it seems it really was a fever. Cesare had it too.’
‘Why didn’t he die as well?’ I asked.
‘Well, he’s much younger, of course,’ said Gismondo. ‘But I heard he had himself put into a jar of ice-cold water up to the neck to bring the fever down.’
‘And it worked?’
‘It worked,’ he said, ‘but all Cesare’s skin sloughed off like a snake’s.’
I thought about this newborn pink hero with his fresh skin hearing that his father and protector had died. It made him seem vulnerable for the first time.
‘It’s the bad air in Rome,’ said Gismondo. ‘It seems Cardinal Soderini had the fever too but he is expected to recover. But they say the Pope never once asked to see his children when he was dying.’
I wondered if Cesare Borgia knew that; truly his father had abandoned him at the last and thought only of his own end.
‘There are all kinds of rumours flying around that the Devil himself came to collect Pope Alexander, so great were his sins in this life,’ said Gismondo.
‘There are always wild rumours when a Pope dies, I suppose,’ I said.
‘But they say he was in the room, in the shape of a baboon, and flew out of the window with Alexander’s soul.’
I marvelled at the man’s credulity.
‘Do you believe that?’ I asked.
‘Well, no, probably not,’ he said. ‘But there are other stories that both Alexander and Cesare really were poisoned – by wine they had put the deadly powder in themselves, to poison a cardinal. Then there was a mix-up about the jugs.’
‘Well, there have been so many stories about Borgia poison, it’s hardly surprising. Still, if Cardinal Soderini is also ill with fever – they can’t all have been poisoned.’
‘True,’ said Gismondo. ‘And some of the rumours really are incredible. Some people are saying it wasn’t a jar of water that Cesare had himself plunged into but the body of a freshly slain bull. I ask you!’
‘That’s because his family symbol is a bull, surely? That’s how legends begin.’
It was a few weeks later that we heard we had a new Pope – Pius the Third, who had been Cardinal Piccolomini. So the de’ Medici had been right and Cesare Borgia’s rise would continue. But gradually further rumours filtered through – that Cesare was a man ruined in body and strength and might never live to see another victory.
And the Pope was over eighty years old! I couldn’t imagine then that such an ancient being could even walk and talk, let alone be the most powerful man in the Church and in the country. I’m older now than Pope Pius was then and I suppose all the young bloods think of me as a doddery old fool teetering on the edge of the grave.
But about Pope Pius, they would have been right. Hardly had we heard of his election in the city, before new messages came to say that he too had died; he had been Pope for less than a month. Poor man! He never got more than four of his fifteen statues from my wayward brother.
‘Now they will elect della Rovere – you mark my words,’ said Gandini the baker. ‘It was a close thing last time but they need a strong man on Saint Peter’s Chair in Rome and Piccolomini was never going to be that.’
I had got over my shyness about buying pastries from Gandini’s after his wife had seen the Giant in his nakedness at the public viewing. But ever after the viewing I was known just as ‘David’ at the baker’s. It was getting late into October now and I could breathe again now the days were cooler but I craved crumbly pasticcerie still warm from his oven.
Angelo was not particularly interested in the news when I bore it to him along with one of Gandini’s pastries. He had news of his own.
‘Da Vinci has got that commission he was boasting of,’ he said, eating his pastry in three bites, too fast to taste it.
‘Monna Lisa’s portrait?’
‘No, the fresco in the Palazzo della Signoria.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t really know what to say to that. And I didn’t see why Angelo should be so agitated about it.
‘I’d wager he won’t complete it,’ said the sculptor. ‘He’s a great one for accepting commissions he doesn’t complete.’
I tried very hard not to look at the model for the bronze David that the Maréchal de Rohan was still waiting for.
‘He’s still painting del Giocondo’s wife, I believe,’ I said. Her cousin sometimes mentioned it when I saw him at Altobiondi’s and in fact the portrait was beginning to be well known in the city.
‘If del Giocondo ever gets that, I’ll eat my boots,’ said Angelo. He was thoroughly out of sorts that day.
It was not long before white smoke again billowed from the Vatican chimney to indicate the selection of a new Pope. And Gandini was right; it was della Rovere who carried the vote in conclave and took the name of Julius the Second. Neither I nor Angelo had any idea at this time of how significant this election was to prove. But Gismondo was on fire with excitement.
By the time the news reached Florence, it was clear that Julius and Cesare Borgia were already in conflict.
‘The Pope said he’d give Cesare a safe conduct through Tuscany,’ Gismondo told me. ‘So he could recover his territories in Romagna. But then he didn’t. Florence is sending an
army to stop Borgia – I want my father to let me serve.’
He was unable to keep still, he was so agitated.
‘Do you need his permission?’ I asked. ‘You are older than me.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and see if I can enlist.’ And he ran off to the Palazzo della Signoria.
I wondered if Lodovico would blame me if Gismondo went rushing off to stop Cesare Borgia marching through Tuscany.
He was accepted into the force that the city quickly mustered and even Lodovico raised no objections. ‘Let him get it out of his system,’ he said. ‘It seems this is not the most dangerous commission he could undertake.’
And he was right. Within weeks Gismondo was back, his face shining.
‘Did you take Cesare then?’ I asked him.
His face fell. ‘He wasn’t with his troops,’ he said. ‘The rumour is that Pope Julius won’t let him leave Rome. But there was a force of seven hundred horsemen, led by del Corella and della Volpe.’
‘What happened?’
‘We cut them to pieces!’ he said. ‘Our general Gianpaolo Baglioni gave the order and it was a complete rout. They say Cesare is furious but the Pope has written to the Signoria thanking them for their help.’
That didn’t seem like the act of a Christian to me, let alone the head of the Church. First to promise safe conduct and then to thank the forces that had slaughtered Borgia’s army. It seemed clear that the new Pope was more of a politician than a holy man.
I had never thought much about Popes in the past but now, with the compagnacci dealing with Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici in Rome, I had begun to wonder if it was the same issue as with the difference between the rule of a single despot or a republic. What mattered was the man and not the office. But this was probably blasphemy.
‘Cesare’s followers are deserting him one by one,’ said Gismondo. ‘The cardinals who supported him have fled from Rome to seek the protection of the Spanish army in Naples. And Florence is demanding two hundred thousand ducats from Cesare’s confiscated properties. The Borgia’s ruin is assured.’
He sounded as triumphant and knowledgeable as if he had knocked Cesare off his horse himself and trampled him into the dirt.
Lodovico was very glad to have his youngest son back unscathed but from then on Gismondo was even keener to enter the army full time and showed less and less inclination to help his brothers in their cloth business.
But now I had to go and see the conspirators at Palazzo Altobiondi and find out what the news from Rome meant for them.
Chapter Seventeen
Death of a Prince
‘Well, I think it’s more or less done,’ said Angelo.
He was gazing at the giant replica of me in his workshop. I was surprised because I had never witnessed him working on a sculpture before and I couldn’t see that it looked any different on this day from how it had any day since the public viewing six months earlier, even though I knew we had both spent time on it since then.
‘How can you tell when a piece is finished?’ I asked.
‘You can’t,’ he said flatly. ‘All you can tell is when you can’t do any more to it. And then you need to stop because if you don’t, you will spoil it.’
‘Well, it’s certainly magnificent,’ I said. Though I felt strange saying it, in case it sounded as if I were praising my own form and face.
‘And you have contributed to it with your new skills,’ he said.
‘Hardly,’ I protested. ‘Just a little bit of refining in places that no one will ever see.’
‘And there’ll have to be a bit more of that once we’ve moved it,’ he said, flicking imaginary specks of marble dust from the statue’s toes.
‘When do you think that will be?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know where it will be placed. They say there’s going to be a special inquiry next month to decide.’
‘You don’t have any say in the matter?’
‘Oh my voice will be heard,’ he said. ‘But indirectly – through others. I am not invited to be part of the meeting.’
‘It’s going to be quite a job to move it anywhere,’ I said. It had suddenly struck me just what a monumental task this was going to be, even if David had been going to go on the cathedral buttress for which the original block had been ordered.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said blinking his horn-coloured eyes. ‘I think the Sangallos are the men to help with that.’
Another Christmas came and went and I had not gone back to Settignano. I don’t know why; it was such a short distance away. I sent a basket of Gandini’s best pastries to my parents and the same carter took a pair of gloves of the softest leather for Rosalia. She sent me a fine cambric shirt, which she had embroidered with her own tiny stitches. I gave Grazia a bottle of jasmine cologne from the friars at Santa Maria Novella – she was delighted with it.
A few days before Epiphany, I walked to Altobiondi’s palazzo hugging my velvet cloak tight against the cold. I wasn’t wearing Rosalia’s shirt. Though it was finer than anything I had owned in Settignano, it wasn’t of the same quality as the linen Visdomini had given me.
The usual gaggle of young men on the street corners recognised me and greeted me as David. I was used to it by now.
As soon as I got to the Via Tornabuoni, I knew something had happened. There was an air of excitement and hushed voices; I couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad. And when Altobiondi made the announcement, I still didn’t know; nor, I suspected, did he.
‘Some of you have already heard the news,’ he said solemnly. ‘Word has come from the south that Piero de’ Medici is dead.’
Well, even if most people did know, there was still a shocked murmur in response.
‘He was killed at the Battle of Garigliano, fighting for the French against the Spaniards.’
I had no idea where that was and only a very vague notion of what they were fighting about. But I did remember Gismondo telling me ages ago that Piero was trying to join the French king’s army – Louis, I seemed to remember.
‘He was drowned in the Garigliano river,’ Altobiondi was continuing, ‘and aged only thirty-one. He would have been thirty-two next month.’
So Piero had been really young when his father died and he became head of the de’ Medici family. I reckoned he must have been no more than twenty. And I was now twenty-one!
‘Let us drink to the memory of Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici,’ said Altobiondi, who had ordered one of the best vintages from his cellar. ‘He could not live up to the achievements of his father but they would have been hard for any man to match. Today we will remember not his failings but his strengths – his physical strength and beauty engulfed by the waters of the Garigliano. And his pure blood as a de’ Medici and an Orsini on his mother’s side. He was a true prince.’
We all drank deeply and called the dead man’s name till ‘Piero de’ Medici’ rang round the room. If what my brother had told me was true, poor Piero had never been so popular in his lifetime.
‘And now,’ said Altobiondi, ‘we must talk about what this means for our future plans. We have suffered setback after setback – Soderini’s permanent election and Piero’s untimely death are just two of them. We must now strengthen our ties with Cardinal Giovanni, for he is the new head of the family now that his brother has gone.’
‘Did Piero not have a son?’ someone asked.
‘Yes, he has a boy, another Lorenzo,’ said Altobiondi. ‘But he is a mere child of only eleven.’
So Piero had been married and already a father when his own father died. It made me feel very immature. And then I remembered Davide, who was nearly two years old.
‘The time may well come when little Lorenzino inherits his father’s position in the family,’ said Altobiondi, ‘especially since Giovanni is a cardinal and, unlike Borgia, not so ungodly a one as to sow a crop of bastards.’
Bastards. Like Altobiondi’s own ‘son’ if he had but known it
.
‘But for the time being,’ he went on, ‘Giovanni de’ Medici together with his cousin Giulio are the men we must continue to work with to restore the family’s fortunes in the city.’
‘What about the other brother?’ asked one of the younger men. ‘There were three, weren’t there? Piero, Giovanni and . . . ?’
‘Giuliano,’ said Altobiondi. ‘He is still in Venice, as far as our information tells us. We are in contact with him too.’
I told Angelo next morning about Piero and he stopped what he was doing and made the sign of the cross.
‘For a year or so,’ he said, ‘he was like an older brother to me. We ate at the same table, played with the dogs, went riding together – and now he’s gone. Drowned, you say?’
‘In the course of a battle,’ I said.
‘An ignoble death,’ he said but whether he meant because Piero died while fighting in the French army or because Angelo regarded all death by water as demeaning, I didn’t know. I wondered if he was remembering that Piero had set him to carve a man out of snow that had melted into ice-water.
‘We will close the workshop today, Gabriele,’ he said, ‘and go to the cathedral to light candles and pray for his soul. There’s bound to be a Mass said now the news has reached the city.’
That was not going to do my credibility with the frateschi any good but it would be useful for my disguise as a de’ Medici supporter.
I put on my fine clothes again and set out with my brother to pay respects to a man I had never met and now never would.
The cathedral was packed but the atmosphere was tense. Luxuriously dressed de’ Medici supporters, many of whom I knew, were flaunting black velvet cloaks and sooty plumes along with their tears and laments. Piero Soderini was there, resplendent in purple, as a halfway house of mourning. He could hardly absent himself from a service to honour a predecessor as ruler of Florence but nor could he be seen to show much genuine grief.
Gianbattista was in the middle of a bunch of frateschi. Perversely they had left off their usual black clothes and were dressed in a variety of gay colours I had never seen them wear before. Gianbattista was in bright scarlet. To me, in the mood I was in, brought on by Angelo’s sadness, it seemed an act of tasteless triumphalism.
