The Poet Prince

by Kathleen McGowan

  Florence

  1486

  LORENZO WAS IN the library in Careggi, working through a particularly tricky sonnet when Clarice entered. He sighed, hoping it wasn’t too audible, and removed his spectacles. He could see by his wife’s face that this was going to be a struggle.

  Clarice spoke to him in her formal Roman manner, which she rarely shed even after seventeen years of marriage and seven living children.

  “Lorenzo, do you agree that I am a dutiful wife and devoted mother to our children?”

  He knew it was a trap of some sort, so he cut right to the chase. “Of course, Clarice. What is this about?”

  “Let me finish, Lorenzo. It is not what you think.”

  Lorenzo said nothing and allowed her to continue.

  “No, I have long learned to live with the constant specter of Lucrezia in our bedroom. She is a wound that will never quite heal and yet bleeds no longer. You know, I cannot even hate her. She loves you. What woman does not? But I have not come here to speak of her . . .”

  Clarice was hesitating now, which made Lorenzo a little edgy. What could be so dangerous that she was clearly unwilling to broach the subject with him? He was too tired to be patient. “Then what is it

  about?”

  Clarice took in her breath sharply, then blurted, “Angelo.”

  Lorenzo thought he had heard her incorrectly. “Angelo? My Angelo?”

  His incredulity seemed to feed her resolve. “Yes, and he may be your Angelo, and so be it. I cannot determine whom you call your friends. But I can and will determine who educates my children and lives in my home. I will not have that man filling my children with any more of his heretical ideas. Today, our little Maddalena advised me that she was named after the wife of Jesus.”

  Lorenzo shrugged. “She was.”

  “She was not. She was named for my mother, who was a pious and noble woman of impeccable Roman blood. And my mother was named for a saint, Maria Maddalena, the penitent saint and redeemed sinner, as she is recognized by the Holy Church.”

  “Why this, Clarice? Why now?”

  “Because I will not have that taught to my children. If you want to play with your secret missions and your heresies, I cannot stop you. But I will not allow my children to be a part of it any longer.”

  What was left of Lorenzo’s patience snapped. “Unless there is something you have been hiding from me, I believe they are also my children.”

  “Lorenzo! How dare you.” She was stunned momentarily at the insult. Lorenzo was rarely cruel, but she sometimes tried his patience beyond bearing.

  “My children—our children—will not be subjected to blasphemy.”

  “It’s not blasphemy. The definition of blasphemy is taking the Lord’s name in vain. What it is, is heresy. If you’re going to accuse me of something, at least get the charge right.”

  “I will not have that man teaching any more heresy to the boys. Giovanni is destined for the Church!”

  “Yes, he is. But which Church, Clarice? Yours? Or mine?”

  “I’m serious about this. I will have Angelo out of our house.”

  “You go too far, my dear.”

  “No, I have not gone nearly far enough. Lorenzo, do you not think that I fear for you as well? Do you not know that I pray for your immortal soul, pray that you will not go to hell?”

  Lorenzo sighed, a deep and anguished sound.

  “You’re too late, Clarice. I am already in hell.”

  The battle between Clarice de’ Medici and Angelo Poliziano raged on. It was fueled by Lorenzo’s eldest son, Piero, who had no love for his teacher. Angelo was impatient with him and pushed him in his studies. Piero was indulged by his mother and lazy; he had little interest in applying himself, so he complained to his mother about real and imagined insults to worm out of working with Angelo.

  Lorenzo, fed up with Clarice’s nagging, found a compromise. He moved Angelo to another villa, where Clarice rarely visited, and freed Piero from further instruction at his hands. Angelo was relieved, as having any responsibility for Piero’s education was a dodgy business. And while Lorenzo was aware of the shortcomings of his eldest, Piero was still the Medici heir. Angelo could only be partially forthcoming with Lorenzo about the boy’s utter uselessness.

  But Lorenzo would not have to intervene between the two for very long. Clarice de’ Medici became ill early the next year, deteriorating rapidly into weakness, and then coughing up blood. She died quite suddenly at the age of thirty-four. Lorenzo was away at the western edge of Tuscany when she passed away, and he remained away during her funeral. Still, in spite of the sadness of their years together, he indicated in his journal that he was distraught over her death. For all that she lacked as a wife and companion to him, she was a devoted mother to his children. He grieved for her loss as a result and felt no small degree of guilt for his own hand in giving her a life that was not as happy as it could have been.

  Lorenzo moved Angelo back into Careggi to focus on the education of Giovanni and his half brother Giulio. Now, with literally the greatest teachers in the world—Angelo, Ficino, and the Master—available to them, they were receiving exactly the education Lorenzo wanted for them. And the “twins,” as Lorenzo referred to them, were not alone. He had adopted another thirteen-year-old boy, a special angelic whom he and the Order had been watching from birth. Michelangelo Buonarroti had grown into the most extraordinary talent anyone had ever seen at such an early age, and it was determined that he must be raised as a Medici.

  Michelangelo joined Lorenzo’s family hesitantly. He was painfully shy, but the boisterous brood welcomed him and he quickly learned to fit in. The older girls adored him and waited on him, and the younger ones annoyed him with requests to sketch horses and flowers. When they sat down for meals, Michelangelo was placed at Lorenzo’s right. He was treated as a son from the moment he walked through the

  door.

  “He is an astonishing student,” Angelo informed Lorenzo. “In everything. Ficino is working with him on Hebrew and the study of the Old Testament, and he is thriving. His language skills are strong and he can retain almost verbatim stories told to him once. And the Master is over the moon about Michelangelo’s spiritual understanding. Says he was born with innate knowing of all these teachings. He knew them coming in. It is as if he truly is the incarnation of the Archangel Mi-

  chael.”

  “Maybe he is,” Lorenzo said. He wasn’t kidding.

  Michelangelo was in the garden sketching when Lorenzo came to find him. He stood back, watching for a moment, as the boy held up a small statue. It was the statue of what appeared to be a saint, about a foot tall and very old. He held it to the light, turned it, then put it down and sketched. He held it again, looking very closely at the face, then resumed his sketching.

  “Who is your muse, my boy?” Lorenzo asked him, pointing at the statue.

  Michelangelo looked surprised to see him. “Good morning, Magnifico. The statue is of Saint Modesta. It is the treasure of my family, as it belonged to the grand contessa, Matilda of Tuscany.”

  Lorenzo was impressed. “May I see it?”

  “Of course.”

  Lorenzo picked up the little statue and examined it. He understood why Michelangelo was so fixated on the face. It was beautiful. The features were delicate and sweet; they conveyed a wisdom and yet also a sadness.

  “What is it you are sketching?”

  “A pietà. It is our assignment from Verrocchio. Only I wished to create one that is not traditional but rather celebrates the teachings of the Order. See . . .”

  Michelangelo showed Lorenzo the drawing. His beautiful Mary, whom he sketched with the sweet face of Modesta, sat with Jesus draped over her lap in a classic pietà style. But there was something different about this piece. An elegance and a sadness that Lorenzo had never seen before.

  “Stunning, my son. And her face is perfection. Yet . . . she is quite young to be the mother of Jesus, is she not?”

  “Sh
e is, Magnifico. But that is because she is not the mother Mary. She is Mary Magdalene. I have created a pietà that represents our Queen of Compassion in mourning for her lost love. Her pain is our pain; it is the pain of love when it suffers separation, the way that most humans feel it on earth. I would capture that feeling through this new way to interpret the story. Someday I would like to sculpt this in stone and make it come to life completely.”

  There was a light in his eyes when he spoke. Such an inspiration would have been extraordinary in an adult with a lifetime of education and experience, but coming from the lips of a thirteen-year-old boy, it was completely unexpected. And utterly divine.

  Lorenzo’s reply was simple. “Thank you, Michelangelo. Thank you.”

  Florence

  present day

  THE NIGHT AIR was particularly silky as the moonlight bounced off the red tiles of the Duomo. Petra and Peter sipped the Brunello as they continued their discussion.

  “Are you still a priest, Peter?”

  Surprised at the direct question, Peter hesitated, then put his glass down. “Hmm. I paused because I have yet to actually say this aloud, to myself or anyone else. But no. I’m not a priest. I no longer believe in any of the things that I originally took vows for. And while I am a more devoted Christian than I have ever been, I am not a Catholic any longer. At least, not a blind one. I have many questions for my own Church.”

  “And when you were a priest, did you ever question your vocation?”

  “You mean did I feel lonely? Like I was missing out by not having a relationship? If I am truly honest, yes. I did. But I refused to think about it and simply chalked it up to the doubt of the devil talking.”

  “Were you ever tempted?”

  “No.” Peter shook his head. It was not as if he hadn’t had countless opportunities. He had. Peter was a very handsome man with his “black Irish” looks: dark hair and deep blue eyes. He was the priest the female students always fought over. If you had to take Latin or Greek, at least you could sit in Father Peter’s class. “I just never considered it. I have a lot of self-discipline, and when I commit to something, I commit all the way.”

  “Commendable and rare,” Petra said. “But now that you are no longer a priest . . .”

  “Am I tempted?” His question was soft, pointed.

  As was her answer. “Yes.”

  He nodded, looking at her over his wineglass. “You already know the answer.”

  Her huge brown eyes were suddenly very bright. “I . . . knew before you arrived, and it was confirmed when you walked through the door. We were both teachers who were forced to leave our original occupations and find ourselves through the Way of Love. There were other clues.” She laughed, a little with nervousness now, and a little with the wonder of life. “God has a sense of humor and he leaves such things for us, knowing we are so often asleep. You are a linguist. You know that Petra is the female version of Peter. That . . . I am the female version

  of you.”

  He smiled at her. “I do, and it already occurred to me. I have thought of nothing else since arriving in Florence. I’ve been quite tormented about it, to be honest.”

  She reached over and took his hand. “There is no need to rush anything, Peter. This is all new for you and I expect you to have doubts.”

  “Oh, but I don’t.” He stunned her with certitude. “None whatsoever. The Arques Gospel and the Book of Love have led me to understand that there is another way, and I know that it is the way that Jesus truly taught. And it is the Way of Love. That is the way of God, the reason we are here. And I need to continue to understand it so that I may teach in a new way, to a new world.”

  “I am happy to be your teacher. So that we may teach in this new way together, to what is becoming a new world.”

  “Then I am happy to be taught. But you will have to be patient with me. Not because I have reservations, but because I am inexperienced. I have no personal frame of reference for a relationship with a woman.”

  “Then I shall have to give you one,” she said, moving closer to him now. “After all, I am the Mistress of the Hieros-Gamos.”

  But as Petra moved closer to begin Peter’s instruction, the roof deck was illuminated by an explosion and a flash in the near distance.

  The explosion at the Palazzo Tornabuoni Apartments rocked the city of Florence. It was a tragic accident, and the cause would be under investigation for some time. It appeared that a gas line had been cut during the construction earlier in the day, causing a leak. That the majority of apartments were not yet occupied was a blessing in this terrible tragedy.

  Supermodel Vittoria Buondelmonti and a visiting friend, originally reported in the news to be Bérenger Sinclair, had been injured in the explosion. Later the reports would be amended to reveal that it was Alexander Sinclair, the president of Sinclair Oil, who was in critical condition at the hospital, along with Vittoria.

  While Bérenger had been nearly buried by debris, he had been able to take shelter beneath the entry of the neighboring palazzo. He was treated for minor injuries and a concussion and then released into the waiting arms of Maureen.

  In a strange little twist, the hospital in Florence where all the victims were treated was in Careggi. It was, in fact, the Medici villa where Cosimo and Lorenzo had lived such full lives, now renovated as one of Florence’s hospitals.

  There was one more twist that would reveal itself in the events of that night. The child, Dante Buondelmonti Sinclair, was not in the building at the time of the explosion. The construction noise had made him irritable, and a nanny had taken him to visit his grandparents at their villa in nearby Fiesole several hours before the tragedy.

  Careggi

  April 1492

  THE DIMINUTIVE DOMINICAN friar Girolamo Savonarola was becoming increasingly problematic. He openly cursed Lorenzo from the pulpit now, calling the Medici tyrants and predicting their downfall at the hands of an angry God.

  Savonarola had arrived two years earlier, when he had been invited to Florence by Lorenzo and installed most comfortably in the beautiful monastery of San Marco, which had been restored and decorated under the guidance of Cosimo Pater Patriae. When Lorenzo first made the decision to invite Savonarola, he knew it was a gamble. The monk was renowned for his heavy-handed preaching style as he raged against frivolity and corruption. He was troll-like and ugly, and yet charisma radiated from him when he opened his mouth. Even those who despised him and his message were often transfixed when Savonarola spoke, and they had trouble turning away.

  Lorenzo had been convinced by his friends in the humanist movement to allow Savonarola to come to Florence for two reasons: the first was that the little monk saved his greatest ire for the corruption of the papacy; they had a common enemy. And while the current pope, since the death of the villain Sixtus, was an ally, there was still much reform needed in Rome. If Savonarola could be controlled, or at least influenced, he could become an effective tool in creating that reform. The second reason was precisely that Lorenzo was not a tyrant. He did not want it to be said outside Florence that he was excluding Savonarola because he was afraid of his message. By welcoming the controversial Dominican into his fold, he could keep a close eye on the message as well as the messenger, perhaps even exerting control over them

  both.

  It is likely that Lorenzo de’ Medici would have been successful in his management of the Savonarola problem had his body not been in a state of rapid deterioration. He suffered with the gout that afflicted all Medici men and had killed both his father and grandfather. Lorenzo was only forty-three, and he hoped that if he was careful with his food and his treatments, he might live as long as Cosimo. Besides, he didn’t dare die now. Piero was too much of a fool to run the Medici empire, and Giovanni—who had been made the youngest cardinal in history at the age of fourteen—was still too young to take over.

  But Lorenzo had little energy or spirit left to deal with Savonarola, and as a result the friar’s poisonous preachi
ng continued unchecked—and escalated.

  An angry and distressed Angelo returned from the Duomo, where Savonarola had had a packed crowd earlier that morning. “He must be stopped, Lorenzo. He is playing prophet now. And while you and I both know that he is inventing prophecies which we know he can fulfill, the average citizen in Florence doesn’t realize that. If Savonarola says tomorrow will come, his idiotic followers will all stand up and cheer the sun tomorrow and say, ‘Fra Girolamo was right! Tomorrow did come!’ ”

  Lorenzo was in bed, exhausted. He had been out at Montecatini taking the waters, as they seemed to help his gout in some small way. But the ride back across Tuscany was almost too painful to make it worth it.

  “Let him rage, Angelo. I do not care.”

  “You need to care. He is predicting your death.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And soon. He is saying that God is striking you down and that suddenly you will take a terrible turn and die immediately.”

  “Well, I do not intend to die, Angelo. So we shall prove Savonarola a liar once and for all.”

  “I hope so, Magnifico. I hope so.”

  Lorenzo’s condition worsened. Like Cosimo, his pain became so acute upon standing that he was confined to his bed. But he was definitely not dying. Of this he and his physicians were certain. Still, they tried every possible cure for gout, including a bizarre mixture of ground-up pearls and pig dung, boiled into spiced wine. It was so vile that Lorenzo insisted he would rather have the gout.

  During these bedridden days and nights at Careggi, Lorenzo was entertained by those he loved most. Angelo and Ficino read to him; Giovanni and Giulio practiced their Greek and Latin together. The girls showered him with love. Michelangelo would come and simply sit, content to be with the man who was more like a father to him than anything else. Sometimes he would sketch; at other times he would ask questions about life, art, or the Order. He was easy and welcome company for Lorenzo, who referred to him as “my son.”

  Colombina came as often as she was able, visiting both Lorenzo and the Master at the same time. She would kiss Lorenzo on the forehead and sing to him and sometimes merely hold his hand while he slept. All the while she was praying as hard as she knew how for God to heal the prince so that they might continue their mission together, and that she might have the chance to love him for as many years as possible.