The last man of the group, and the youngest, was an adolescent poet, Agnolo Poliziano. Uglier even than Lorenzo, he was wry-necked, crookedmouthed, beak-nosed and bandylegged.**
Yet, for all this sorry person and ungrown youth, he was eloquent and thoroughly educated. From him I was to learn, in after days, much of what a man must know to shine as cultured in Fifteenth-Century Florence.
•Botticelli's most famous paintings are .those of Giuliano's sweetheart, Simanetta Vespucci. He was a favorite of Florentine society, and a loyal friend of the Medicis.
** Poliziano. in later life, was a tutor to the children of Lorenzo, and remained in the Medici household until the death of his patron.
"A YOUNG sparkle-wit, friends," Lorenzo told the others in presenting me. "He was thrown in my way, I nothing doubt, with the thought that he might assassinate me. Yet am I drawn to him by the lustrant wisdom of his speech. ‘As well hang for a sheep as for a Iamb,' he defied me yesterday."
He paused, while the saying went around the delighted group, from mouth to merry mouth.
"If he is dangerous, yet shall I keep him, as I keep the lions at the Piazza del Signoria. Guard me, all of you, from any weapon save his tongue."
Once more he turned to me. "What of that sorcerer cousin of yours, Guaracco?"
To my own surprise I found myself pleading earnestly and eloquently for Guaracco. It was as if I had been rehearsed in the task, and indeed I probably was, by Guarracco himself. Hypnotists, I say again, can do such things.
In the end Lorenzo smiled, and seemed far less ugly.
"By the mass, I wish my own kinsmen spoke so well on my behalf," he said to the others. "Ser Leo, your eloquence saved you yesterday, and today it recommends Guaracco. He is dull, I have thought, but he knows something of science. I am minded to send for him, for all he is a wizard."
''Sorcery cannot prevail against pure hearts," contributed the Abbot Mariotto, at which all laughed heartily.
The equerry who had conducted me was dispatched to search for and bring Guaracco. Meanwhile I was served with wine by a bold-eyed maid servant in tight blue silk, and entreated to join the conversation. It was turning just then on the subject of a new alliance of the Italian powers against possible Turkish invasion.
"The threat of the infidel comes at an opportune time," Lorenzo pointed out. "Taunted and menaced, we Christians forget our differences and draw together for our common safety. The Sultan dares not attack us, we dare not quarrel among ourselves, and peace reigns." *
"Your Magnificence does not like war, then?" I ventured.
He shook his ugly crag of a head. "Not a whit. It is expensive."
"And vulgar," added Botticelli.
"Aye, and dangerous," chimed in the poet Poliziano.
"And in defiance of heaven's will," sighed the abbot, as though to crown the matter.
"And yet," Lorenzo resumed, "I bethink me that it is well for a state to prepare for war, that others may fear, and be content to keep peace. I have it in mind, Ser Leo, that you spoke yesterday of war engines."
"I did," was my reply, but even as I spoke I was aware how poorly my scrambled memory might serve me.
"For instance, I might design a gun that shoots many times."
"Ha, some of Guaracco's witchcraft!" exclaimed Lorenzo at once.
"Not in the least," I made haste to say. "Nothing but honest science and mechanics, may it please Your Magnificence."
In my mind the form and principle of machine-gunnery became only half clear. I wished that I had mentioned something else.
* Lorenzo was later able to bring about this alliance, both for peace among the Italian powers acid safety from the Moslem raiders.
BUT Lorenzo would not be dissuaded from knowing all about my oft-shooting gun. He sent Poliziano for paper and pencils, anfl ordered me to draw plans. I made shift in some fashion to do a picture of a guncarriage, with wheels, a trail and a mounting of, not one barrel but a whole row, ten or more.
"It is nothing of particular brilliance," objected the poet. "A rank of arquebusiers would serve as well."
"Aye, but if we have not overmany ranks of arequebusiers ?" countered Lorenzo, and gave me a most generous smile. "A single man, I think, could serve and aim and fire this row of guns. Ten such machines could offer a full hundred shot. Well aimed and timely discharged, that hundred shot might decide a great battle."
Encouraged, I offered a variation of the idea, a larger and wider gun emplacement with, not small barrels, but regular cannon placed in a row and slightly slanted toward the center. These.'I suggested, could be so trained as to center their fire on a single point. The bank of cannon, wheeled into position and the fuses lighted in quick succession, could throw a shower of heavy shot against a single small area upon a rampart or wall, battering it open.
"Right you are!" applauded Lorenzo. "It would outshine the greatest battering-ram in all Christendom."
"It may be improved," I continued, "by explosive shot in the cannon."
"Explosive shot?" Giuliano repeated in sharp protest. "How, Ser Leo? Is not all shot solid? Can lead and iron explode?"
"Yes, with powder and a fuse inside," I said at once, though none too surely.
"Now nay," he argued. "What would prevent such a shot from exploding in the very mouth of the cannon, belike splitting its barrel and doing injury to our own soldiers?"
I had to shake my head, saying that I coulinot answer definitely just then.
"Then answer another time," said Lorenzo kindly. "In the meanwhile" —he picked up my two drawings—"these will go to my armorers, for models to be made. Ser Leo can draw
us other things, as well."
"He draws notably," contributed Botticelli.
Evening had drawn on, lamps were lighted, and we had supper in the garden, a richer and spicier meal than I care for. There was plenty of wine, and all drank freely of it, not excepting the abbot. Finally some fruits and ice-cooled sherbet were brought, and at this dessert we were joined by five or six ladies.
Most beautiful and arresting among these was the famous Simonetta Vespucci, the reigning toast of Florence. She was no more than eighteen years old, as I judged, but mature in body and manner, a tall, slenderly elegant lady, a little sloping in the shoulders but otherwise beyond criticism in the perfection of her figure. Her abundant hair gleamed golden, and her proud face was at once warmly and purely handsome.
All the men were her frank and devoted admirers. I have heard that the very shopkeepers and artisans who saw her pass on the street were wont to roll their eyes in awe at her loveliness, and even to fight jealously over this noble creature they dared not address.
Of those present, she appeared to prefer the dark, dashing Giuliano de Medici.
"I FEAR that it will be a hot summer," she mourned as she finished her sherbet. "There will be little ice left in the storehouses, even now."
"Nay, then," I made haste to say. "Ice may be kept through the hottest months, if it is placed in houses banked with earth." I quickly sketched such a half-buried shed. "And also let the ice be covered deep with sawdust and chaff."
"How?" demanded the painter, Botticelli. "I have known chaff to be placed over fruit in a shop, and so keep it from freezing. If chaff keeps fruit warm, will it also make ice cold?"
I was on the point of launching into a discussion of refrigeration and insulation, but prudently stopped short. "It does indeed bring coldness," I assured him. "Or rather it keeps the coldness that is there already."
"Black magic/' muttered Abbot Marriotto, crossing himself with a beringed hand.
"Nay, white magic," decided Lorenzo, "for it does good on earth, does it not, and no harm to any creature? Ser Leo, do you guarantee that ice will thus remain through the summer, and not perish?" He turned to a servant. "Go you," he ordered, "and summon a secretary." And then to me: "He shall make notes of what you say, young sir, and tomorrow shall see the building of such a house. Therein my ice shall lie, with good store of chaff to i
nsure its cold."
"This strange young man is a learned doctor," said the silvery voice of a lady, who toyed with a goblet of jeweled gold.
"Does he not know of more exalted things than chaff and houses buried in the earth?" asked Simonetta Vespucci, deigning to smile upon me. "Ser Leo —for so you seem to be called—can you not tell us a tale of these stars, which now wink out in the sky and float above our earth?"
Her eyes and her smile dazzled me, understandably, along with any man on whom they turned. Perhaps that is why I ventured to dazzle her in turn.
"Madonna Simonetta," I said, "permit me to say that those stars are worlds, greater than ours,"
"Greater than ours?" she cried, and laughed most musically. "But they are no more than twinklets, full of spikes and beams, like a little shining burr."
"They are far away, Madonna," I said. "A man, if only at the distance of a hundred paces, appears so small that he can be contained within the eye of a needle held close before you. So with these bodies, which are like the sun—"
"The sun!" she interrupted. "The sun, Ser Leo, is round, not full of points like a star."
There was applause of her lively protest, from all the men and most of the women.
For answer, I took up a sheet of the paper on which I had been sketching, and asked for the loan of a pin. One of the ladies had a silver bodkin in her cap, and offered it. With this I pierced a hole in the paper.
"Madonna," I addressed Simonetta, "hold this hole to your eye, and look through it. The smallness of the opening will shut away the glitter . . . So, you do it correctly. Now"—I pointed to where, in the evening sky, hung shimmering Jupiter—"look yonder. Is that star, seen through the hole in your paper, a burr or a small round body?"
"This is marvelous," she exclaimed. "It is indeed round, like a gold coin seen from a distance."
THE others cried out in equal astonishment, and each must needs look through the hole in the paper at Jupiter. I turned over in my mind the possibilities of explaining a telescdpe, but decided not to offer another foggy theory that I could not suppolrt with exact plans or models. I contented myself with attempting to lecture on astronomy.
"Gentlemen and fair ladies," I said, as impressively as I could manage, "these stars look so small that nothing appears less, yet there are a great many that are far larger than our own Earth. Think then how trivial our own star would appear if—"
"Faith, Cousin," called out a voice I knew, "you seek to belittle the world, and Florence, and Lorenzo the Magnificent!"
It was Guaracco, absolutely overwhelming in green and gold, who strode forward and paid fulsomely cordial respects all around. "Forgive my young kinsman, Your Magnificence, if he has been impertinent," he pleaded eloquently. Then, turning to me : "Will you step aside, Leo ? I have a message for you, from Lisa."
At the mention of that name, a little murmur of laughing congratulation went up, to the effect that I must have a sweetheart. Indeed, I felt a quickening of my pulse as Guaracco and I walked a little away through the garden, out of the range of the lamplight.
"What is the message from her?" I asked him.
"That was but an excuse to get you alone," he growled. "I warn you, Leo, say no more of these matters of the stars."
"But why not?" I demanded, surprised.
"The stars in their courses are a specific knowledge of sorcerers. I overheard your teaching just now—"
"I was teaching truth," I broke in, warm to defend myself.
"I know it," he said. "I do not think this little mote, our planet, is the center of all things. But the old belief is part of my trade. I frighten or reward or guide men by horoscopes and prophecies—from the stars. Do you not show me a liar, else I may smooth your way to destruction."
I glared at him, but in my mind was more wonder than rage. Once again he showed himself a sound scientist; once again he showed that he hid his knowledge and fostered error for profit. Only some great evil wish dictated such action. I need not be too ashamed, I feel, to say that he made me afraid.
CHAPTER IX
The End of the Evening
GUARACCO did his best to be the lion of the occasion. Not that he did not merit attention; he could charm and astound and inform. Lorenzo publicly and good-humoredly withdrew his previous opinion that Guaracco was dull, and bade him talk on any subject he would. Strange, philosophy-crammed conversation intrigued Lorenzo, as the jokes of a jester or the gambols of jugglers might intrigue a more shallow ruler.
And Guaracco obliged, with improvements upon my discussion of war machines. To my multiple-fire device, he added a suggestion whereby the crossbows of Lorenzo's guard might be improved—a simple, quick lever to draw and set the string instead of the slower and more cumbersome moulinet or crank.
The company praised and approved the idea, and Guaracco beamed. He liked it less when Botticelli suggested, and Lorenzo agreed, that I make clearer his rough sketch of the lever action.
"I perceive"—Guaracco smiled satirically—"that you also admire my kinsman's drawing. Has he told you of that other talent he hopes to develop? Flying?"
"Flying?" repeated the beautiful Simonetta, her eyes shining.
"Aye, that. With a machine called an 'airplane'." He used the Twentieth-Century English word, and I must have started visibly. How did he know that name and invention? I did not remember telling him about airplanes. But Simonetta was already laughing incredulously.
"Belike this young man seeks to soar with wings, and reach those great worlds and suns he pretends to see in the sky," she suggested merrily, a twinkle in her eyes.
"It sounds like sacrilege." Giuliano garnished his sweetheart's apparent effort to embarrass me. "Flight is contrary to man's proper nature."
I was a little angry. "How contrary?" I demanded. "Is it more contrary or sacrilegious than to ride comfortably and swiftly on the back of a horse."
The abbot came to my support. "The young man says sooth," he pronounced. "Holy writ sings of the righteous: 'They shall mount up with wings as eagles,' and again, in the words of the Psalmist himself: 'O, that I had wings like a dove!' Surely such flight would not be ungodly, unless it were accomplished by the aid of black magic."
"Well, Ser Leo?" Lorenzo prompted me. He leaned back in his cushioned chair of state, crossing one long nobby leg over the other. His companions grouped themselves gracefully, if sycophantically, around him. All were waiting for my reply to the abbot's last suggestion.
"Your Magnificence, there is no such thing as black magic," I said, "either in my devices, or elsewhere."
Every eye widened, and Guaracco stiffened as though I had prodded him with a dagger. I remembered that he had come close to frightening me not an hour before, and determined to make some amends to my own self-respect.
"Of all human discourses," I elaborated warmly, watching him, "the most foolish is that which affirms a belief in necromancy." Guaracco glared, but I did not hesitate. "If this necromancy, or black magic, did truly exist, he who controlled it would be lord of all nations, and no human skill could resist him. Buried treasure and the jewels of Earth's heart would lie manifest to him. No lock, no fortress could remain shut against his will. He could travel the uttermost parts of the Universe. But why do I go on adding instance to instance? What could not be brought to pass by such a mechanician?"
AS I finished, there was a sigh, a mutter, and finally Lorenzo struck his hands together in applause. "Well said, Ser Leo!" he cried. "Do you not think so, Guaracco? Does this not prove that there are no sorcerers?"
"It proves, at least, my innocence of the charge of sorcery." Guaracco smiled, and bowed to give the reply strength. "If I could do such things, would I be so humble and dependent a servant of Your Magnificence? Surely"—and his eyes found mine once more—"nothing is impossible to a true necromancer."
"Nothing," I agreed, "except refuge from death."
His smile vanished.
Lorenzo lolled more easily in his chair. "This bethinks me," he remarked
. "One matter has not been settled. Ser Leo is a boy, a student of the arts, yet he conquers with ease my nonpareil swordsman. That smacks of enchantment."
I spread my hands in one of the free Florentine gestures I was beginning to use.
"I make bold to deny that it was aught but skill."
"We must make trial." His Magnificence permitted himself another faint grin. I must have shown an expression of worry, for Giuliano burst out into confident laughter and sprang forward, hand on hilt.
"Let me do the trying," he cried, his gay, handsome face thrusting at me in the white light of the lamps.
Simonetta's silvery chuckle applauded her cavalier. The abbot also called for this unecclesiastical performance to take place without delay.
Before I well knew what was happening, the chairs, benches and other furniture had been thrust back, the lamps trimmed to give more light, and I faced Giuliano in the center of the cleared space. Poliziano had run to fetch something, and he came close to me.
"Here, young sir," he said, "defend yourself." And he thrust a hard object into my hand.
Giuliano had already drawn his sword and wadded his cloak into a protection on his free arm. I transferred my own weapon to my left arm, and at sight of it my heart sank. It was a mere cane of wood, hard and round and of a sword's length, such as Florentine lads used for fencing practice. Giuliano, on the other hand, fell on guard with a blade that was one of the finest and sharpest I ever saw.
Plainly, I was to furnish sport for this gallant and his friends, and all the advantages were denied me.
Because I must, I lifted the cudgel to cross his steel. Lorenzo grunted. "Your cousin is sinister-handed, Guaracco," he observed. "Belike that is the secret of his skill."
"I fear not," said Giuliano, with unmalicious zest, and he disengaged and thrust at me.
Apparently he meant business, for the point would have nicked, wounded my breast had I not shortened my own arm and beat it aside. Cheers went up from the ladies—then slid into dismayed screams. For, extending my parry to its conclusion as a riposte, I smote Giuliano smartly on the inside of the elbow, and he wheezed in pain and sprang back out of reach. Had I followed and struck again, he might have been forced to drop the sword. But I realized that I had to do with the second greatest man in Florence, and only stood my ground.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 Page 6
