by Derek Wilson
‘They would be very grateful for any information of his days in Florence. Did you know him then?’
‘When was your friend here?’
‘Thirty or more years ago.’
‘I was little more than a child in those days before the Spanish invasion, and there were hundreds of foreigners here at that time. Florence was like a lodestone, attracting all manner of visitors.’
‘Men speak of it as a golden age,’ I said.
‘Aye and with reason. Walk around the city and you will see for yourself the churches and palaces built or extended in those years, and the wealth of paintings and sculptures created to grace them when Pope Leo the Tenth ruled in Rome and his Medici relatives were in charge of affairs in Florence. One of my earliest memories is of the great celebrations when Pope Leo came here to his home city in fifteen fifteen – processions, fireworks, parties. They went on for days. I have never seen the like of such public rejoicing, nor ever expect to see it again.’
The friar’s words excited me, because among the papers I had read and made rough notes on was a description of just such municipal euphoria. I felt sure (or perhaps I was just trying to convince myself) that Cromwell had indeed been a witness to Florence’s rejoicing at the election of one of its own sons to the papacy. That event, of itself, had no interest for me, but it seemed to bring me closer to my elusive quarry. The young Englishman had actually walked these streets and witnessed the wild rejoicing of the delirious Florentines.
‘Would you like me to gather together some of my older friends for you to meet?’ the helpful Franciscan continued. ‘It might be that some of them can recall meeting Signor Croomwell all those years ago.’
The offer was very tempting. Such a gathering might well save me several days of laborious enquiries round the city. But by now I had learned to be very cautious. Should I take this offer of help at face value, or would I do better to avoid a rendezvous with a stranger who obviously knew that Cromwell had been an enemy of the religious regime to which he was committed?
‘You are very kind,’ I said, ‘but regrettably I cannot linger here long. My enquiries about my Lord Cromwell were merely at the behest of a friend. My business will soon take me elsewhere.’
He responded with a ready smile. ‘Then I pray, Signore, that your business may prosper, wherever it takes you. If there is any favour you are in need of while you are in Florence you have only to call upon me. I am Brother Giulio and I may be found at the Santa Croce convent.’ He turned and retraced his steps along the street.
My prospects of gleaning information about Cromwell’s years here were, for the moment, confined to locating Francesco Frescobaldi, and shortly before noon I headed out of the city.
I was not altogether sorry to have to redirect my search. The city’s cheek-by-jowl palazzos, churches and municipal buildings were athrob with late autumnal heat, but pleasing breezes sighed through the regimented vines and sentinel pines as my horse ambled up the slope of Fiesole. Enquiries of workers in the vineyards brought me to the villa close to the summit by mid-afternoon.
Few sights more amiably peaceful could be imagined than the stuccoed walls, corner towers and arched cloister of the symmetrical villa that gazed paternally over its estate. A servant bustled out to greet me as I clattered up the drive.
‘The signore and the signora are in the apricot field,’ he explained as I dismounted. ‘If you will follow that path to the right you will find them with the harvesters. Meanwhile, I will see your horse watered.’
It was a pity, I reflected as I made my way downhill along an avenue flanked by fruit trees, that Frescobaldi did not encourage the same friendly courtesy among his bank staff as among his domestics.
Halfway down the slope I came upon the workers chattering and laughing together as they picked the bronze-coloured fruit and loaded it carefully into baskets hung round their necks. In a small clearing stood a wagon, on to which the filled baskets were being loaded under the watchful eye of a young taskmaster, whom I now approached.
‘Good day to you. I was told I might find Signor Frescobaldi here.’
He smiled, brushing back a lock of dark hair from his forehead. ‘Then you have found him. Good day, Sir, and welcome.’
‘Oh!’ I struggled to cover my confusion. ‘Excuse me, Sir. I was looking for Francesco Frescobaldi.’
‘Well, that is me, Sir. How may I serve you?’
Hurriedly, I unfastened my scrip and took out the copy I had made of Cromwell’s letter. I handed it to the harvest master. ‘I am looking for the addressee of this letter. You cannot, I think, be he.’
He ran his eyes quickly over the few written lines, and smiled. ‘Ah, I see what has misled you, Sir. This was written to my late uncle Francesco.’
‘Late uncle?’
‘Yes, sadly he died some three years since. In fact,’ he peered closely at the letter, ‘that was in June fifteen thirty-seven. Regrettably, he would never have received this.’
‘You are sure that it was sent to your uncle?’
‘He was the only Francesco in our family until I was born and now I am the sole bearer of the name.’ After a pause he continued. ‘I am sorry you have had a wasted journey. I think, from your accent, that you are not of these parts. Have you come far?’ He motioned me to some stools set among the trees already stripped of their fruit. ‘Come, Sir, rest yourself.’
As we sat in the shade I explained to Francesco what had brought me to Florence.
‘This is certainly the place we all think of as home,’ he responded, ‘but business takes most Frescobaldis away much of the time. Uncle Francesco lived for years travelling between Bruges and London.’
‘Arranging loans for kings and princes?’
The reply was part laugh, part sigh. ‘The days are gone when the Frescobaldis were the biggest moneylenders in Europe. Now we are as apt to borrow from rulers as to finance them. My uncle put us heavily in debt to the English king. We have much reason to be grateful to his minister, Cromwell, for settling our affairs there. Now it is my other uncle, Leonardo, who takes care of our banking enterprise. And that is only one part of Frescobaldi activity. In these troubled times diversity is the secret of survival. We have our fingers in many pies: Orient trade – spices, silk, gems; alum from the Levant; English wool, of course; silver from Germany and now Russia. That is all taken care of by my uncle and cousins. I, as you see, am the family’s farmer. We have five estates producing fruit, olives, wine, grain. Not as exciting perhaps as the world of counting houses and royal courts, but I have my own wars to wage – insects, birds, weather.’
‘In your position I would spend no time hankering after the mercantile life.’ I was rapidly warming to this wealthy Florentine who was content to be a husbandman. ‘As Virgil wrote,
“Since there are more than enough
Who desire to sing your praises, Varus,
And write about grim war,
I’ll study the rustic muse on a graceful lute.”’
Francesco nodded. ‘An apt allusion. Like Varus’s legions, our financial cohorts have known great victories and crushing defeats, though I think no Frescobaldi “general” ever contemplated falling on his sword like the Roman leader.’
For some minutes we sat in a silence broken only by the drone of bees, the muted conversation of the workers among the trees and the squawking of ravens from fields atop the ridge.
At last Francesco said, ‘This is very pleasant, Signor Bourbon, but I fear it is not aiding your quest. Is there any way I may be of help?’
‘Any true facts about Cromwell’s life would be of great value. At the moment I find myself trying to find a bridge across a chasm. On one side there is a young countryman, little more than a boy. On the other stands the king’s chief minister who, in a mere ten years, transformed his country out of all recognition. Between these two men t
here stands a wide gap – thirty years or so – and no one I have yet met knows how to cross it. There are stories, of course – many mutually contradictory. What I do know is that young Cromwell spent several years here in Florence and that he was employed by the house of Frescobaldi. Surely there must be some older members of your family or business colleagues who have memories of Thomas Cromwell in his time here.’
Francesco listened carefully, then said, ‘I applaud your pilgrimage. Cromwell was a highly valued friend to the house of Frescobaldi. We were much saddened to hear of his death. The years you speak of on the far side of that chasm were largely before my time. I only know that he came here to learn about international trade. He was recommended by business associates in London at a time when we were recruiting native agents to help with our expanding operations in England and the Netherlands. I know he made a very favourable impression.’
‘He had a good head for business?’
Francesco nodded. ‘I have heard the word “genius” applied to him. We still have a saying in the family: “to do a Cromwell”.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means to negotiate from a weak position and come out victorious. It means understanding your opponent better than he understands himself. It means leaving him mystified as to how he was outmanoeuvred. But all this I have only heard at second hand. I never met Master Cromwell myself. You will certainly need to meet older members of the family to gain more detailed information. I will make some enquiries.’ He paused. ‘I have a better idea: join us here for dinner on Sunday. Many members of the family gather here after mass to eat, drink, exchange news, do business and gossip. They would like to meet you, and some will, of a surety, have tales to tell about Master Cromwell.’
I thankfully accepted the invitation and, shortly afterwards, I took my leave.
Since there were two days to fill before my next visit to Fiesole, I decided to devote myself to meandering in a leisurely fashion around Florence, absorbing the atmosphere, eavesdropping on conversations, engaging in conversation with strangers over a flagon of wine. Cromwell had loved this place. A visitor only had to spend five minutes in his house close by the city wall in northern London to know why friends (and enemies) said of him that he was ‘more Italian than the Italians’. His pictures, sculptures, books all spoke of his love affair with this place and its hot-blooded people, so different from the moist-humoured denizens of his own mist-swathed island. I tried now to see and hear Florence as the eyes and ears of an inquisitive, impressionable young Englishman might have experienced the city more than thirty years ago. My own recollections as I write this account are like random pages torn from a book – the words disconnected and even seeming contradictory and yet all necessary parts of one discourse:
A profusion of churches – every spacious piazza and shaded via seemed to boast at least one. Nor did the humblest lack its devotees. Walls aglow with frescoes, and altars lavish with objects of the goldsmith’s art – evidence of the care and wealth of the guilds that maintained them. A procession of robed priests crossing the Piazza della Signoria shouldering a huge, gaudily draped statue of the Virgin, and followed by a shuffling column of friars and layfolk (mostly women). Respectful Florentine onlookers paused to cross themselves as the sacred image went past; disrespectful Florentines ignored the cavalcade or even regarded it with sneering contempt. A group of students shared a doubtless bawdy joke. One of them actually spat at the image before he and his companions ran off down a side street.
How can I properly describe the paved and spacious streets, designed in such a way that the traveller’s journey is impeded neither by mud when it rains nor by dust during the summer, so that his shoes are not dirtied? How can I sufficiently praise the grand temple supported by majestic columns consecrated to the Holy Ghost [S. Spirito], or the Church of San Lorenzo erected by the pious Medici . . . ? What can one say about the great Cosimo’s magnificent palace, or about the four large bridges crossing the Arno?
(Ugolino di Vieri (1438–1516), De illustratione urbis Florentiae)
Was this the Florence a young Thomas Cromwell had discovered? As I patrolled the streets with an appraising, analytical eye, I realized that structurally little had changed over the intervening decades. Cromwell would have walked these cobbles with self-confident strides, knowing clearly where he was going. His skyline, like mine, would have been dominated by the miraculous cupola of the Duomo. He would have bartered at the shopkeepers’ tables on the Ponte Vecchio, where I dawdled in search of books for the queen. He must have watched, as I did, the fishermen with their nets on the Arno, close to St Fredian’s Gate. Perhaps he even tried his luck there. The facade of Santa Maria Novella three decades ago would have been new enough and daring enough to catch the young Englishman’s eye, though perhaps he would not have appreciated its frescoes by Ghirlandaio, or Brunelleschi’s naked Christ crucifix (or had Cromwell’s aversion to ‘superstitious’ images come later?).
Being here, by imagination ‘sharing’ the reactions of the wide-eyed boy from Putney, brought me closer than ever before to the contrariety that puzzled all who knew (or thought they knew) Thomas Cromwell. He was a man of polarities: the aesthete who surrounded himself with beautiful things and the Bible-based ascetic who shunned religious adornment of all kinds. Some essential influences that had gone into the making of his complex character had been encountered here.
One lack in particular galled me. I did not know what the young Cromwell looked like. There was no image I could call up in order to clothe the speculations in the garderobe of my mind. Encountering an urchin as I strolled the narrow streets crushed between the Duomo and the Via della Condotta, therefore, had the aura of divine intervention.
‘Signore! Signore!’ The piping voice was as urgent as the grubby hand that plucked my sleeve.
My hand went automatically to my purse as I checked that I was not the victim of a robbery. Gazing round, I could see no knife-wielding accomplice, so I grasped the boy firmly by his loose jerkin. This produced a torrent of Florentine dialect words of which I could only make out the urgently repeated ‘Inglesi!’.
I thrust the wretched child away. ‘No! Not English! Go and pester someone else!’
By now a stocky, breathless man had approached, wheezing heavily. ‘Do not mind the boy, Signore.’ He tossed a coin to the little messenger. ‘Now be off,’ he snarled. Turning back to me, he said, ‘My name is Luigi Agostino. I have a modest shop back there. Are you the Frenchman come to Italy in search of an Englishman?’ He pointed back down the street to where a brown-robed figure was watching the action. Fra Giulio. Dimly I began to see why I had been accosted. I walked back along the via.
‘I was in Signor Agostino’s shop when I saw you pass by,’ the friar explained moments later. ‘It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. He tells me that he was one of the wild bunch your friend belonged to in those pre-war days. I am sure he can help you in your quest.’
Agostino’s was a very modest establishment offering visitors printed copies of some of the city’s famous artworks. Several engravings were hung upon a string stretched across the shop front.
‘How can Signor Agostino help me?’ I asked as we approached.
‘He has a portrait of your Croomwell.’
‘Better than that,’ the proprietor interposed. ‘Tom Crom was a dear friend.’
‘Tom Crom?’
‘It was what he liked to be called. He said it was what he described as a “nickname” given him by a woman he once loved.’
‘And you have a portrait of him?’ I asked eagerly.
‘I have two,’ Agostino said. ‘Both by Raphael Santi. Come and see.’
The day was dull with a suggestion of rain in the air, but I felt as though the sun had suddenly blazed forth, burning through the clouds of my uncertainty and frustration.
Entering the Botega Agostino was like steppi
ng into an atmosphere of welcoming, comfortable confusion. Three walls were piled with engravings of various sizes, each rolled up and tied with string. A large, square table occupied the centre of the shop, leaving just enough room for one person to walk around or stand behind it. It too was a store place for more of Agostino’s prints, stacked in the space between the legs.
Agostino unrolled a large engraving on the table. It had been done in sepia ink and covered almost the entire surface. We gathered round and peered down at the picture. Against a background of classical buildings a large group of men was shown listening to a speaker who was emphasizing his message with dramatic gestures.
‘This was Raphael’s design for a tapestry – one of a series he created for the papal apartments in the Vatican,’ Agostino explained. ‘It depicts St Paul preaching to the pagan philosophers in Athens.’ He looked across at me with a smile. ‘So,’ he said, ‘can you see your friend?’
I peered at the group of robed figures. Each face was carefully delineated, obviously drawn from life. ‘This was painted long before I met Cromwell,’ I said. ‘He must have been in his early twenties at the time.’
Agostino laid another engraving on top of it. ‘Perhaps this will help,’ he said.
It was a conventional half-length portrait. Or, rather, it was the beginning of a portrait. The artist had taken great pains over the face, but the shirt and doublet had been very sketchily brushed in. The copy was, in itself, a work of genius, for the engraver had perfectly captured the precise painting of the features and the looser brushwork of the dress.
‘You are sure, are you, that this is Thomas Cromwell?’ I asked.
Agostino turned the sheet over. In the top right-hand corner, clearly inscribed in black ink, was the name ‘Tom Crom’.
I reversed the paper again and studied the subject very carefully. Yes, it was easy to see how this young man had become the Cromwell I had met half a lifetime later. The face was thinner than that of the middle-aged Cromwell, but the lips displayed the familiar determination or stubbornness. And the eyes? The artist had taken great trouble over them and it was easy to see why. They stared, intelligent and searching, from expressionless features. It was almost as if the roles of sitter and viewer had been reversed. Cromwell was evaluating me shrewdly, as though from behind a curtain. And that was immediately familiar.
