by Peter Walker
A few days after reading the Lippomano letter, I went out hunting as usual and in the course of the afternoon I happened to emerge from the reeds near an old church, called Maria della Grazie, a few leagues from Mantua. I had heard of the place, and went in to look around. It was very curious within: ancient, august in atmosphere, with dark red walls, and cluttered with innumerable images, statues of stone, of tow, rags and paper, waxworks in niches, wooden hearts, breasts, babies, garlands and boils, votive offerings and crutches – objects of every size, shape and age, and yet strangely all of a piece, like things cast up by the sea.
Among them I noticed the tomb of Castiglione, the author of the famous book Il Curtigiane, or The Courtier. Lord Bembo had composed the tomb inscription.
Here lies a Mantuan adorned with all
the gifts of nature and of art.
In Latin, Greek and in Tuscan learned,
a poet known to all, in Toledo he died.
This summary, I knew, had been criticised as frigid and flat. Almost as soon as he wrote it, Bembo followed his subject into eternity. One should be more fulsome to the dead, people said, as you are bound to run into them shortly. For me the effect was different. Standing in front of that scroll of cold marble, I suddenly became resolute. For years I had heard Pole refer to The Courtier: ‘Here is the great difficulty for princes . . . They lack above all what they need more than anyone else, namely, someone to tell them the truth.’
And at that moment I saw that this applied to no one more urgently than to Pole himself. It is true that he was not exactly a prince – although the Venetian ambassador said that, with King Philip away, Pole was now more or less the King of England, being always at the Queen’s side. In any case, whether he was a prince or not, he surely now had greater need of a courtier who would put the truth before his eyes than ever before in his life.
In short, standing at the tomb of Catstiglione I decided that that was my task, the duty clearly fell to me, who had for so many years served and protected Pole. And there and then I decided to translate Lippomano’s absurd letter into English and publish it in my name, with the hope that this might make Pole see what was happening under his own eyes in England.
Leaving the church I noticed a group of young people who had gone there for what purpose I don’t know – to meet, to whisper, flirt, make love. One of them, a young woman of exceptional beauty, slim and straight-backed as Minerva, was sitting slightly apart from the others. As I passed she lifted her head and looked at me with a full gaze. Her eyes were blue. For a moment it seemed that I too, there in Maria della Grazie, was lifted up by a wave of the sea.
I took this as a good sign for my project. It was remarkably easy to carry out. I had a copy of the letter. I translated it in half a day. Portaleone knew all about publishing, and could send it off to Germany in no time. The only thing that took some effort was the dedication.
There I was harsh and violent in my language. I remembered what Pole himself had said of Henry long ago. ‘He must be made to see what he has done’ and ‘Flattery is the source of all the problems’ and ‘Lift up your voice like a trumpet!’
Well – my voice is no trumpet. Lippomano’s letter in any case spoke for itself. But I tried my best: I spoke as bitterly as I could. I felt my rage rise as I thought of those churchmen, puffed up with pride, whose titles and robes themselves seem to have driven them mad and made them cruel. How was Pole any different, I asked, from such prelates? ‘You will go on as you have begun, in chopping off the heads and hanging up for holidays the favourers of the gospel? . . . Your handling of the Pope’s affairs has brought misery and dissension to the realm . . . Beware lest the visor of hypocrisy is plucked off and your bribery and blood-letting come to light . . .’
I wrote all this – it was a page and a half – with Portaleone chafing at the door. Then I sent it off. The title page was as follows:
A copy of a very fine and
witty letter sent from the right
reverend Lewes Lippomane
translated out of the Italian lang
uage by Michael
Throckmorton.
And beneath my name, so that he might remember all the years I faithfully served him in exile, I signed myself:
Curtigiane, at Rome
Chapter 9
A few days after this was sent off, a message came from the Regent asking me to come and see him at once. This alarmed me. I thought he must have somehow seen my manuscript or by some gift of second sight he knew the language I had used against prelates. Then it suddenly struck me how little I myself knew about the whole affair. Was that Lippomano letter itself real? How could I be sure that it was not a forgery or a satire published by the Pope’s enemies? Even the stories which Courtenay had told me, the boy, for instance, whipped to death by cruel priests – what proof was there that that had really happened? In short, I was suddenly overwhelmed with uncertainty, and I made my way to the palace with profound misgivings. When I went in, I saw at once that the Regent was very agitated. He was sighing and walking up and down and as soon as he saw me he came up and began to speak in sorrowful and upbraiding tones.
‘He is old,’ he said, ‘he is old, he is very, very old – and that’s a blessing, yes, at least there’s that to be said for it.’
Now the Regent is one of those people who often launches forth on a subject without any introduction, assuming by some miracle that you have been thinking about exactly the same thing, which is never the case in my experience. All the same, I felt vastly relieved at his words. Whatever he was talking about this time, it seemed to have nothing to do with me. In this I was right. The source of his unease was in Rome. I should have said that a year before a new Pope had been elected. Pole had not come from England for the conclave. In his absence, the terrible Carafa had been chosen and had ascended the throne of Peter at the great age of eighty or eight-one.
Almost at once, alarming events were reported from Rome. But it now appeared that something new and worse had happened.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Regent, still sighing and shaking his head, ‘these mad pranks he plays are surely the result of extreme age. Truly he may be said to have now arrived at that stage of life called second childhood.’
And then, leading me to the window, and leaning in the marble frame, the Regent began to outline the lamentable events in Rome.
The latest policy, he declared, was so bizarre, so dangerous, there could be only one explanation: the Pope had lost his reason. To put it simply, he had decided to declare war on the Emperor.
He had taken into his head that the time was ripe to set Italy free of the imperialist yoke. In other words, with a few thousand troops at his disposal, mostly Lutherans and the mercenaries from Gascony – a rabble more like devils than human beings – the Pope planned to attack the greatest power on earth and chase its armies from Naples and other Italian cities which the Emperor ruled.
This had been brewing for a few months, but no one could quite bring themselves to believe it. But then – and this was why I had been summoned – the Pope had suddenly arrested the Emperor’s ambassador and his postmaster in Rome, and also the Mantuan envoy there, who was another of the Capilupo clan, named Hippolito.
These prisoners, the Regent told me, were now in the Castle S. Angelo, and being subjected to the torture of the cords to force them to reveal the strength and secret plans of the Imperialist forces in Naples.
‘That is the information I have,’ said the Regent. ‘The cords are being tightened every hour. It is beyond madness. It is that wretched little idiot Carlos who is behind this. For thirty years, Carafa would not let his nephew darken his door. He knew very well what sort of soldier he was – his arms were dyed red to the elbows. But now he has made him a cardinal and listens to no one else. You may depend on it, Carlos has dreamt up this war. He thinks that if he brings the whole house of Italy crashing to the ground, he will somehow emerge a duke. As if dukedoms grows up in one night, like mushrooms!’<
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Then, leaning out in the open air and looking across the lake, the Regent asked me to undertake a most delicate task. This was to go to Rome, to contact various cardinals and make sure Capilupo was not harmed, and find out what was happening on the military front. Mantua, being in alliance with the Emperor, could not send one of its own citizens without exposing him to great danger. I, by contrast, an English subject, should be quite safe.
‘You know your way around Rome,’ said the Regent. ‘You know these people I want you to talk to. Is there some innocent reason you can think of that might take you there?’
Well, I said, there was a chest of books which I had left there five years before and always meant to collect.
‘Excellent!’ said the Regent. ‘Your books should certainly be here in Mantua!’
I left almost at once. I did not hesitate to carry out the commission, partly out of love for that excellent Regent, and partly out of relief to know that I was not in trouble for my words against prelates in general, in the preface to the ‘Fine and Witty Letter’.
Chapter 10
By the time I reached Rome, the papal army had already marched south towards Naples. The war had begun. I made careful enquiries about the prisoners. It was true what the Regent had told me: they were under torture. Only the postmaster of the embassy, however, was tied to the cords. The two ambassadors, out of deference to their rank, were merely fed salt meat and given nothing to drink. These measures, it was announced, were highly effective: detailed plans for an Imperialist invasion of Rome were now known. These were wholly fanciful, though it was true that Rome had been sacked by the Imperialists thirty years before. A furious programme to fortify the city was now underway. Houses and vineyards, even those belonging to the most illustrious citizens, were being demolished to improve lines of fire. The most beautiful trees in the city were being cut down to no military purpose, but it is well known that Mars, the god of war, hates the green groves and will use any excuse to destroy them.
In all my travels I had never seen a city in this mood before. War had already planted her standards, as it were, on every face: fear, surly resolve, and, here and there, irrational hilarity. The public prostitutes were required to donate one mattress each for the soldiery, the Jews were harnessed to the guns to drag them to the bastions, and the priests and monks had been put to work with picks and shovels, under pain of ten years in the galleys for truancy.
In Naples the imperial commander, the Duke of Alba, issued a statement: ‘We are like a man who is attacked by an elderly parent with a naked weapon, and who reaches lovingly to take it from his hand.’
On 6 September 1556 two companies of imperial cornets crossed the frontier into papal territory. The news caused uproar in Rome. Drummers perambulated the streets shouting ‘Who will take soldiers’ pay?’ Only women and children were allowed to leave the city.
The next night, all the bells began to ring madly. Shrieks were heard, women ran dishevelled through the streets with infants at breast, several miscarriages were recorded. The men, however, mustered bravely enough.
Later it was given out that this was a false alarm, ordered by the authorities to see what they might hope for.
Then there came a curious lull. I had little to do. I wandered around to inspect Rome in her new guise. The city in the heat suddenly became silent and forlorn. I felt as though I was roaming about during a siesta before a great ball. I went to visit M. Michelangelo but was told he had left Rome and gone to visit hermits in the woods, the only place, he said, where a remnant of wisdom might be found. I heard that he had become more withdrawn than ever. His beloved Urbino, the colour-grinder whom he expected to look after him in his old age, had gone and died before him. The Pope had threatened to whitewash over the Last Judgement or at least have breeches painted on the naked angels and martyrs.
M. Angelo was still, however, in charge of building the new St Peter’s.
‘I am at the twenty-fourth hour,’ my friends quoted him as saying. ‘I still serve God with my body, but my memory and judgement have left and gone ahead to wait for me. We will meet again at the hour when death and my soul contend for my final state.’
I went to see how the building of the cathedral had progressed in the last few years. All work had stopped. The workmen had gone away. Grass was growing in the nave. It was a windy day: high above my head, the cornice of the new drum was filled only with blue sky and flying clouds.
On the tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth of September, the papal fortresses south of Rome surrendered to Alba’s army. On the sixteenth, the sound of distant cannons could be heard from the heights of the city.
That same day, the Emperor left Flanders and set sail for Spain. For a year he had been meaning to abdicate, but the crisis in Rome held him back. Once the decision to invade was taken, there was nothing to detain him. He left Brussels, turning back again and again and weeping bitter tears at his last sight of the walls of that city where he had lived so long and been so happy, and done so much mischief to mankind.
Reaching the coast he set sail for Spain alone with his thirty-six servants, his collection of twenty-eight clocks and a Fleming, named Manolo, to read aloud to him.
His son, Philip, was now in charge of all. His army drew closer to Rome. At dawn on 14 November, the boom of the cannon could be heard all over the city. It was strange to think that those thuds, growing louder, were the footsteps of the Catholic King of England, coming to pay a visit to His Holiness.
The port of Ostia fell the following day. And that same morning, seven hundred cavalry under the command of Marcantonio Colonna – he was the Marchioness’s nephew – were seen on a hillside not a mile beyond the walls.
That evening I paid my first visit to Bernardo Navagero, the Venetian ambassador to Rome. Navagero had sent me a message to come and see him; he would be pleased to help me, he said, and tell me what he knew about the general situation on account of the great affection he had for Capilupo, the imprisoned Mantuan ambassador, ‘than whom,’ he said, ‘no one is more beloved in this whole court’.
Now the Pope was anxious for Venice to join the war and therefore Navagero was welcomed into the inner counsels, and heard everything that was being said.
Navagero was a remarkable figure himself – tall, austere, with thoughtful, deepset eyes in which, however, an unexpected, additional spirit flickered. If he had not been an ambassador he could certainly have been an impresario or actor on the stage. Reporting the talk in the papal palace, he unwittingly took on the character of the speaker; with the flash of eye or movement of mouth or wrist, he became the Pope (whom he rather resembled) or one or other of the dignitaries around him, and yet he did so very gravely, like a man adding important information to serious matter.
Despite the military setbacks, the Pope remained obstinate and full of contempt for the enemy: ‘We used to hold the Duke of Alba in some consideration,’ he said, ‘because his grandfather was a good man, but now I deem him the silliest person living – so ignorant and inconsiderate that we anticipate certain victory by reason of his stupidity. Why, if he advances another foot, or by so much as this’ – here Navagero laid a toothpick on the table – ‘we’ll show him.’
‘Who is this “we”?’ asked Cardinal Farnese.
‘The French are behaving well, they will come to our aid,’ said the Pope. ‘They are the sort of men who do whatever is wished for. Of course one must cultivate them, and every now and again make some small demonstration of love, and then they behave themselves. When they arrive, you will see how easily we will drive away all these Spanish ruffians. Perhaps we may allow a few to remain in Italy as stable boys or cooks – but as our masters? It is unthinkable. Their iniquities are such that we nauseate at the mere mention of them. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! To set free the noble province of Italy from this race of men by making them unbearable in the first place! I knew the Emperor when he was a boy and even then detected in him certain flowers of evil – an insuff
erable pride, a rage for domination, a contempt for religion. Now you see he has been punished, for he is dead – yes, I regard him as dead, although he still exists in that filthy body of his, but God has certainly deprived him of his wits, just as he did his sister and the mother who were both quite mad. And now here is this accursed son of his, the King of England, who secretly supports the Lutherans and eats meat in public on Fridays. “Oh, but my stomach does not permit me to fast.” Scoundrel! Eat in your chamber! What sort of men are these? And who are their forces? A mix of uncircumcised Jews, Moors and Lutherans. They did far worse to this city the last time they came a-calling than ever the Goths did. Is Rome one of their woods which they may come and fell every thirty years? Are we a meadow to mow whenever the grass grows high? At least when the French run over Italy in their fury, they afterwards go back where they came from. But when these demons grapple, they never let go – unless their knuckles are very smartly rapped.’
‘In alliance with my king,’ said du Bellay, one of the French cardinals who was present, ‘you have nothing to fear.’
At that the Pope flew into a rage.
‘Who needs your king? We have the Emperor right where we want him under these feet,’ and he danced with rage on the marble floor.
‘The King of France is your faithful servant, that’s all I meant to say,’ said du Bellay humbly, although by nature he was very proud and haughty.
‘Very well,’ said the Pope, somewhat mollified. ‘We love your king. He is an obedient son and does what is required of him. But it is not your business to speak when we are speaking. In any case you are always tedious, and no one else ever gets a word in when you’re around.’
‘But Holy Father,’ said Farnese, retuning to the point, ‘there is no sign of the French.’
‘Very well! The Turks will not fail us!’
