The Florentine Emerald: The Secret of the Convert's Ring

by Agustín Bernaldo Palatchi

  The body of Lorenzo’s only brother, Giuliano, mutilated by stab wounds, revealed the truth. Sprawled on the cold marble of the church in a fetal position, his magnificent costume, torn and drenched in blood, served as an improvised funeral shroud. Lorenzo’s handsome brother, beloved by all, lay alone in his final hour, accompanied only by the pool of blood seeping from his innards.

  Here was unmistakable evidence that this was a ruthless and meticulously planned coup d’état. Were Lorenzo to die, the Pazzi would be the new masters of Florence before night fell upon the city. Stimulated by these thoughts, Luca pondered whether to leave the ambassador of Ferrara, retrace his steps, and help finish Lorenzo off. Nevertheless, his instinct for survival overcame his yearning for revenge. Should the tyrant of Florence survive the conspiracy against him, all those involved would die, subjected to the most atrocious torture. The most elemental caution told him to slip discreetly away from the scene of the drama. If the Pazzi were to triumph, he would be the first to celebrate their victory. But if the Medici were to prevail, he did not wish to find himself among the defeated.

  The Via dei Servi was a swarming mass of frightened people, who were also uncertain about which horse to back. One false step publicly revealing support for the losing side could lead to a death sentence. Aware of this, Luca and the ambassador of Ferrara kept silent and discreetly wended their way home so as not to draw attention to themselves. The throng also chose to move away from the church, willing to submit later to the victors and thus avoid any unnecessary danger.

  Once back in his austere palazzo, Luca felt a bitter pang of regret as he recalled his family’s glorious past. Because of the Medici, they were no longer one of the most powerful families governing Florence. Over four decades ago, Rinaldo Albizzi, using all his influences in the government, had tried to curtail the progressive rise of Cosimo, Lorenzo’s grandfather, whom he had accused of conspiring against the republic. Their lordships had timidly limited themselves to sending Cosimo into exile instead of sentencing him to death. This, in the end, provoked the family’s downfall when Cosimo, acclaimed by the majority of the citizens, returned triumphantly to Florence. How easy to fool the people by dispensing favors and money with calculated patience and sponsoring the construction of emblematic buildings such as the Ospedale degli Inocenti, the orphanage where nuns looked after abandoned children. It was in this way that the Medici had bought loyalties that were not their due through nobility.

  In any case, the truth was that by using all his cunning it had been Cosimo, a social climber and descendant of humble money lenders, who had won in the end. The Albizzi were obliged to abandon Florence and Luca himself, born in exile, had not been allowed to set foot in the city until he’d turned fifteen years old. He had spent half his life away from the city his ancestors had made great. The worst of it all was the humiliating price he was forced to pay merely to live in Florence: the constant adulation he had to show to Lorenzo both in public and in private, as if the man was a genius and a benefactor to humanity. He knew only too well that otherwise the tax inspectors would attack him like rabid dogs. Such was the ignoble pax Medici. Not for them tournaments or spectacular duels, just grey civil servants applying tributary laws with maximum severity to those who dared to defy the Medici designs. When this occurred, those unfortunate enough to suffer an inspection had only two alternatives: shameful ruin or exile.

  Luca knelt before the Christ on the crucifix in his bedroom and prayed that Lorenzo had drawn his last breath. But an image was worrying him: the emerald Lorenzo wore on his left hand. From the side aisle where he had stood in the Duomo, he had seen it glint as Lorenzo swung his cape to repel the first assailant. No doubt it was the mythical jewel the Pazzi had described, the powerful family that kept so many secrets in the shadow of its glorious past.

  When the crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1088, the first to reach the top of the ramparts was a Pazzi. As a reward for this heroic deed, he received three stones from the holy sepulcher, which the Pazzi still rubbed together on Easter Saturday to light the holy flame carried on a float pulled by oxen in a procession to the Baptist church of San Giovanni, which faced the Florence cathedral. Throughout the centuries, the Pazzi had taken advantage of the friendships their presence in Jerusalem had won them to appropriate ancient documents. Among these was an old parchment, rolled up and tied with a dark red satin ribbon, that contained strange references from Genesis and a drawing of a ring identical to the one Lorenzo was wearing.

  How and why had it come into Lorenzo’s possession? The Pazzi had told him of a legend in which the emerald, encrusted in a ring, was a stone of great powers that had once belonged to Lucifer. As far as he was concerned, the Medici, those great patrons of paganism, were the ambassadors of Satan on earth. Luca was suddenly bathed in a cold sweat as a thought struck him with the impact of a certainty: the ring would either provoke the death of Lorenzo on this sunny morning in April, or it would raise him to the heights of the most absolute power.

  7

  A grimace of horror crossed Lorena’s countenance as she caught sight of the illustrious minister of the church hanging from one of the narrow windows of the Governor’s Palace. The miter crowning his head and his richly embroidered cape clearly distinguished him as a highly placed dignitary of the church. The naked body of another man was also swinging from the same window, as if in some macabre dance that Lorena observed with a confused mixture of repulsion and fascination. How was it possible that such a horrific spectacle was being so avidly followed by the multitude that was swarming in the immense Piazza della Signoria?

  Noon had hardly struck when Lorena and Cateruccia entered the apothecary they usually frequented when buying beauty-enhancing cosmetics. Lorena purchased bat blood, hemlock juice, and ash of cabbage mixed with vinegar: the ideal ingredients to prevent hair from growing on the upper part of her forehead that had been carefully plucked by Cateruccia. Displaying a broad and noble brow constituted a sign of great beauty, quite indispensable in any lady of rank: it made her eyes seem bigger and the hairline formed a seductive outline of a crown. Then, just as the apothecary offered her a powder made up of bees’ wings, cantharides, and roasted nuts with ash of hedgehog, the world suddenly exploded into madness.

  Lorena’s ears were full of the sound of the tolling bells announcing a state of emergency: this strange low-pitched sound, like an animal bellowing, had given this alarm signal the nickname “The Cow.” Its relentless echo would resound throughout the countryside and one church bell would call another until all the towns and villages of Tuscany knew that the Republic of Florence was in danger. Who could be attacking them? Venice, the kingdom of Naples, the Turks? Lorena froze on the spot, trembling with fear. Nor did the apothecary run into the street offering to take up arms in the service of the republic. Instead, he firmly locked the door with a great iron crossbar and anxiously waited for news. The first rumors, confused to begin with, suggested Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano had been assassinated during mass and that Jacopo Pazzi, at the head of more than a hundred armed men, was marching toward the Piazza della Signoria chanting “Freedom for the people.”

  If this were true, the Pazzi would take control of Florence. It was difficult for Lorena to imagine her future husband, the potbellied Galeotto, astride a horse with a sword in his hand. Could he have actively participated in the coup d’état? She doubted it. In any case, it was quite obvious that his social standing would notably improve should the operation be successful.

  Lorena and Cateruccia waited for two or three hours inside the shop. Not a sound could be heard. In the Piazza della Signoria, where the embattled Government Palace was being protected by its sturdy machicolations, there were skirmishes, but otherwise there were no sounds from the street indicating that the people had risen in revolt.

  “Until the winning side is clear, the people will not dare say where they stand,” Niccolò, the apothecary, predicted.

  “Now we know who won,” he would say later, w
ith undisguised satisfaction, when the shouts of “Palle! Palle! Palle!” (“Balls! Balls! Balls!” which referred to the balls on the Medici coat of arms) resounded with uncontainable strength from streets and windows.

  It was only then, when the result was decided, that they dared venture out into the street. Overcome by euphoria, neither Lorena nor Cateruccia wanted to return to the safety of the family mansion. On the contrary, caught up in the intoxicating emotion of the moment, they joined the vociferous multitude who, grabbing knives, hoes, hammers, and even kitchen implements, were marching toward the Piazza della Signoria.

  The dreadful spectacle left them speechless. Dozens of men garbed in rich attire were hanging from the mullioned windows of the Government Palace. This shameless exhibition in the very center of the city was unthinkable, considering the public gallows were located by the gates of the Palace of Justice on the outskirts of the eastern city walls of Florence. Her parents had never wanted her to witness an execution. Nevertheless, she had once managed to convince Cateruccia to accompany her to have a look at the scaffold. The mere sight of it, despite the fact no execution was taking place, had been enough to disturb her sleep for weeks to come.

  Lorena had never imagined in her worst nightmares how the excited multitude would roar like furious animals. Yet the people congregated there shouted, laughed, and took great delight in contemplating the last gasps of the condemned. She could not even tell whether these men had already died when the noose had been removed from their necks, causing them to drop down onto the cobblestones of the square.

  The multitude swarmed onto the spread-eagled bodies, fighting among themselves to seize some luxurious piece of clothing. Breeches, doublets, hose, girdles, and shoes were all stripped from the corpses amid squabbles and punches. One only had to glance at their strange attire to guess that these men were not natives of Florence.

  From what Lorena had heard, the majority of these men were mercenaries from Peruggia under the command of the archbishop of Pisa who had entered the Government Palace peacefully, only to later seize it by surprise. However, they, in turn, were surprised when they found themselves trapped inside the chamber of the chancellery, thanks to an ingenious system of automatic locks installed in its mighty doors in anticipation of the very situation that had arisen. Moreover, the astute gonfaloniere had been suspicious all along of the archbishop’s erratic behavior, visibly nervous at the lack of news concerning the death of Il Magnifico. Warned in time of the conspiracy, the palace guards, well-equipped with ammunition behind the machicolations, were able to repel the subsequent attack of the troops led by Jacopo Pazzi, hurling stones, arrows, and boiling oil down upon them.

  Lorenzo had survived the terrible conspiracy and now the people were thirsty for blood and revenge. “Death to the pope, death to the cardinal, long live Lorenzo, he is the one who gives us bread!” they shouted as one in the piazza, all pointing to the archbishop of Pisa and Francesco de Pazzi, two of the main conspirators. The clamor changed into an expectant silence when the priors cut them loose from the ropes from which they had hung. United in treason, they both fell together from the same high window.

  The archbishop of Pisa, barely alive, dragged himself painfully across the ground until he reached Francesco, whose eyes still moved although his body, lying face upward, lay motionless. Resting his head on the man’s naked chest, the archbishop suddenly bit him with such strength that his teeth stayed sunken in his torso as the blood started to flow. Francesco’s body lay still, as if petrified, without moving a single muscle, but Lorena could see that his eyes were no longer staring at the sky, but slowly swiveling toward the archbishop.

  “Time to go home,” suggested Cateruccia, taking her hand.

  8

  Mauricio endeavored to regain his composure by contemplating once again the Medici Palace chapel. Four days had passed since the failed coup d’état, and he had still not been able to talk to Lorenzo about the ring. Today, at last, he would see him again. They were to eat together along with other guests. Would he make him an offer for the ring? Or perhaps not even mention the matter? After narrowly escaping with his life from the cathedral, Lorenzo had thanked him for his decisive action and had even invited him to reside in his palace, but had made no mention of the ring. Nor had he returned it. Caught up in a whirlwind of increasing problems, he probably hadn’t even remembered a matter that would seem so trivial to him. Mauricio had thought of nothing else. His destiny literally lay in the hands of Lorenzo Il Magnifico.

  But who really was Il Magnifico? Mauricio scrutinized the palace chapel yet again in search of some clue that would reveal his personality. He had never ever seen the likes of such an oratory. The vivid paintings covering every bit of wall assailed the senses with their bold colors. They depicted the three wise men on the road to Bethlehem, accompanied by a spectacular retinue in the midst of a green mountain landscape.

  Nothing in the composition had been left to chance. All the characters were dressed in the elegant Florentine fashion of the day. Obviously the kings symbolized the Medici themselves. What a strange paradox.

  Florence was a republic. Government representatives were elected by the drawing of lots and periodically renewed. Lorenzo was nominally no more than a private citizen. Nevertheless, it escaped no one’s notice that his influence was decisive in the resolution of important matters, including everything relative to the republic’s foreign affairs. That fresco was meant to make ambassadors from other countries see that the Medici were the authentic kings and that the pope collaborated to a certain extent, as he only granted special dispensation to benefit from private chapels to the very highest dignitaries of Christianity.

  The Medici … Did they consider themselves kings? Did they take themselves for the wise men? Were they really bearers of magnificent gifts? Mauricio felt himself reeling as his eyes shifted from floor to ceiling. The harmonic geometrical contrasts between circles, squares, lozenges, and rectangles possessed a hypnotic quality. No, nothing had been left to chance, but this was not the time to delve into the enigmatic codes of the chapel.

  What he really needed was to receive a small fortune for that ring and start a new life in a less dangerous place. Although Lorenzo had survived, he was in an extremely vulnerable position. Those who had been involved in the plot to assassinate him were no less than the Papal States, the kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Siena, and Count Girolamo, Lord of Imola. Pope Sixtus, indignant because of the execution of the archbishop of Pisa and for the arrest of his nephew Cardinal Raffaele, was intent on war. Rome and the rest of the allies, who had already started reprisals against the Florentine merchants and bankers installed in their domains, were enemies even too powerful for Il Magnifico.

  Lorenzo’s star would be unable to shine so brightly for much longer. And what about his own? Was it condemned to flicker out before even having had a chance to shine? Was his destiny marked by some evil genie who derived pleasure in scattering his path with assassinations and deaths? Fatherless and motherless, without grandparents or siblings, had he been cursed since birth? In a flash, he had a vision of a young woman’s face in her death throes. The same image that was repeated in dreams he had had since childhood.

  Although the sight of the cross upon the altar usually calmed him, this time it only provoked more anxiety. Mauricio crossed himself, prayed for the salvation of his soul, and hurried to join Lorenzo at the table. As he was leaving the chapel, his father’s blessing came to mind: “All hopes for the future of our lineage reside in you, the last living Coloma of our household. May our past not prove to have been a voyage undertaken in vain.”

  9

  “We raise animals to steal their young and fill our stomach, which becomes the tomb in which they are buried,” asserted Leonardo da Vinci.

  Mauricio looked in astonishment at his flamboyant table companion. He was handsome, around twenty-five years of age, well-proportioned, and elegant. His carefully groomed curly hair reached halfway down his back. Both
these ringlets and the pink shade of the tunic he was wearing gave him a slightly feminine look. His ways were as gentle as his pronouncements were unexpected.

  Would this Leonardo object to chickens being castrated soon after hatching? Would he be against them being so lavishly fattened during their rearing only to have their throats cut while their flesh was still tender? Judging by his words and deeds, he seemed perfectly capable of upholding such odd opinions. Perhaps that was why he was eating two insipid gherkin halves on a lettuce leaf instead of enjoying those delicious capons. How on earth could he eat lettuce and gherkins at a princely table abundant with game forbidden to the common people? Such behavior in his father’s house would have been considered a lack of good manners!

  “An interesting comment,” remarked Marsilio Ficino. “I have often thought that, much in the same way we eat animals, we too are being fattened up to be enjoyed as food by other bodies.”

  Mauricio warily observed the other guest whom Lorenzo had invited. Although he looked solemn, he transmitted serenity. He was old. He must have been at least forty-five. Thin and frail, he was wearing a black cassock under which a small hump could scarcely be discerned. In the same way as Leonardo, he had not touched the kidneys, capons, ox tongues, sausages, or any other of the spicy meats displayed so temptingly on trays along the table. Both men shared singular characteristics. It was said of Leonardo that he was a promising artist whose talent was equal to and perhaps even greater than his eccentricities. As for Marsilio Ficino, he was a priest, doctor, and, according to hearsay, the soul of the Platonic Academy, which brought together the most illustrious minds of Florence.