Seeds of Decline

by Edward Charles

  Nobility, he had thought, dismissively, at the time. But that had been before she had spoken to him, before he had experienced those hawk-like eyes upon him and that mind concentrating on his every word, and choosing her response with a precision that had shaken him from any lazy assumptions and made him, in turn, concentrate to the full.

  During her short interrogation of him at Casole d’Elsa he had hardly any opportunity to look closely at her. The candle-light in her Castello room had been poor and, in any event, he had been far too concerned with saying the right thing and convincing her to talk to him at all to worry about what she looked like.

  Now, for the first time, as she settled herself and placed her notebook and reading glasses on her lap, he found he had the leisure and the light and allowed himself to examine her features properly.

  Her face was by no means beautiful, indeed not even handsome, being narrow with a long chin and an even longer nose. A strange nose, he thought. Almost but not quite like a duck’s beak, low-bridged and then curving outward with a strangely flattened and pointed end. Her mouth could best be described as tight, thin-lipped, the very expression of silence. The eyes? He examined them as she sat, heavily hooded above and somewhat puffy beneath; small eyes (and, he supposed, short-sighted), careful if not distrustful eyes and, as far as he could tell, eyes without hint of merriment. There will be little laughter in this room.

  A pious face, perhaps? Hardly sad but certainly serious in its evident pre-occupation. A face for receiving rather than giving. A face in retreat from the world: watchful, careful, uncertain, almost hesitant and, if one were to guess, the face of someone who is, or who has been, disappointed with at least some aspects of life.

  Yet when she began to speak, as he remembered so clearly from their earlier conversations, he knew she would come alive and that plain exterior would quickly be forgotten. For it was then that the strength – the inner strength of the woman – would emerge.

  He sat back and smiled inwardly. It is not what she looks like that matters but what she knows, and what she thinks and what she says. He knew her voice, although soft and quiet, would be confident and her opinions, once expressed, would be clear and concise and decisive. An impressive woman then; once understood. A woman, he decided, as she took her hand from the arm of the chair and folded it over the other in her lap, to be under-estimated at your peril.

  Today she seemed nervous, but perhaps only with that degree of tension that infects a preacher before he goes before his congregation, aware that he has one and only one opportunity to get it right, to find the words, and to deliver them in a manner that will influence the crowd. It was a tension he knew well and it played no little part in the reasons he was here today.

  It appeared that she was as aware, then, of the importance of the opportunity, as he was, and, in her own way, was equally tense. Perhaps, after all, our conversations will be as important to her as I hope they will be for me.

  Lucrezia cleared her throat. ‘In trying to understand my family, the city and commune of Florence in which we live, and the actions we have or have not taken during our lives, I would like you to take some things into account.’

  Almost startled that she had begun speaking, he remained passive, not even nodding. He had not yet worked out his part in these conversations. Absorb. Bide your time. Observe and think. Think, and remember.

  ‘No man or woman has complete freedom. We are all constrained, by history, by circumstances, by the world around us and particularly by the presence of those who are closest to us.’ As she spoke, Lucrezia seemed distracted by a thought. She put her glasses on the table beside her and rose from her chair. She walked to the window and looked out, perhaps surveying her work in bringing back to life the thriving resort now spread out below them. Then she nodded to herself, a decision made, possibly, and turned back to him.

  ‘In this life, you have to play the cards you are dealt. In Florence, perhaps more than in any other part of Italy, family, and I mean that in the widest sense of parentado, is everything. One generation shapes the opportunity for the next and early in life you have to make an important decision: whether to live within the prison cell of your parents’ attitudes and actions on your behalf, or to break out.’

  Deep inside he felt his heart flutter. This was closer to home than he had expected. It was only by concentrating hard that he prevented his mind from drifting back to his own break with his parents and the agony it had caused all of them. But Madonna Lucrezia was moving across the room and the movement drew him back to the present.

  She paused, her hand on the back of her chair, and then turned. Again she walked to the window. Savonarola shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was going to take a long time. She began to speak again, turning as she did so, but this time remaining by the window. ‘Not all parental attitudes are beneficial. Our world is changing so fast that the previous generation is often left floundering by the circumstances we now face.’ The expression on her face hardened. ‘And not all parental actions are unselfish.’

  He nodded inwardly, remembering how his father had tried to re-establish his own reputation by pushing him into a position in the Este Court.

  But she was speaking of something different. ‘Fathers as well as husbands presume to make decisions on behalf of others, and too many women spend their lives playing a hand of cards dealt for them by a man. Please remember that when you judge us.’

  She crossed the room, seeming suddenly to relax after establishing her ground rules, and sat in the chair. Savonarola noticed the wince in her expression as she sat and wondered whether the rheumatism she had referred to as they were talking earlier was causing her pain, or whether she had sustained some injury.

  ‘The advice I am about to give you may be the most important advice anyone ever gives you, regarding your proposed stay in Florence.’ She looked at him intensely and he nodded, swallowing hard, listening. Concentrating. ‘Remember this. When dealing with the Medici, things are rarely as they seem. My advice to you, Girolamo, is always to judge us by our actions and not simply by our words.’

  As she said it, her eyes rested upon his, and opened wider. Wider than she had allowed them to do in their previous meetings. For a moment, she held him in a still, cat-like stare, and for the first time, he saw – really saw – the person behind them. His heart lifted. Yes, this is the woman. I have chosen the right one. She sees what others do not and as a result, she understands the depth of things that others merely ponder over. Yet at the same time, trapped motionless in that intractable gaze, he felt a silent shiver of fear. Be aware, there will be a price for such capability. This woman will be no passive commentator. She is a participant in the world I am asking her to tell me about and as such she will be assessing me, judging me, making decisions about what to tell me and what impressions to leave in my mind.

  So began Lucrezia’s story, in her own words, with Savonarola on his guard, repeating her phrases in his head, filtering, editing, already prepared to apply her advice to everything she said herself.

  Immediately he wondered why she had agreed to talk to him in this manner, how he could find the actions representing the truths behind her words, words that, if he took her literally, she had already admitted might sometimes be false, and would always need careful consideration.

  Lucrezia leaned back in the chair. ‘I shall start seventeen years ago.’ She smiled and closed her eyes as she searched for the memories. ‘I remember the back end of that winter well. It seemed endless, hanging on, cold and depressing, affecting everyone.

  ‘In early February there had been talk of an earthquake, somewhere to the north of the city, although none of us in the family remembered hearing or feeling anything in Florence. The snow up in the Mugello had been so deep that year that the confirmation did not come to us for weeks. The church in Borgo San Lorenzo, they said, had been damaged and a few small old buildings had fallen to the ground. But Borgo was beyond our lands in the Mugello, further north, past Il Treb
bio and beyond Cafaggiolo, and we thought little of it. Earthquakes are, after all, not uncommon in this part of the world, and the city had been unaffected.

  ‘Like everyone else, we were pre-occupied with the cold. The snow had begun falling shortly after Christmas and from that time onward it never left us. Not until the end of April. And then it only went because the winds were so strong that they blew the snow away from us. That spring there was no thaw, no melting snow, no flooding in the fields. Just dry cold replacing the earlier snow, the ground still hard as iron, and the Arno frozen solid for weeks on end.’

  CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE

  Sunday 19th February 1464

  ‘The snivellers are living up to their reputation.’ Contessina turns her head to the open nave of the church, where the popolani are crowding together. ‘It’s disgusting. The noise from their snotty noses and their coughing is so loud you can hardly hear the choir, never mind the preacher.’

  Lucrezia nods her agreement. Not for the first time she wonders why the Medici work so hard to give the pretence of democracy to such people. What do the popolani know of the great affairs of state? But Florence has declared itself a republic centuries before, and the city still takes such pride in its quaint belief that the rights of every man are being upheld, that it would be beyond heresy to suggest an alternative.

  ‘Maddalena believes it’s their diet that makes them so unhealthy. She says if wages were higher they would be better nourished.’ Lucrezia sees the anger rising in Contessina’s face and decides to tease her even more. ‘And then the churches would be places of silent worship.’

  ‘Pah!’ Contessina almost spits on the church floor in her disgust. ‘Maddalena thinks. I don’t give a fig for what that slave woman thinks, or says. Her opinions are of no value whatsoever. I don’t know why you waste time talking to her.’

  ‘Her father was a highly regarded physician. If he was here, I don’t believe Cosimo or Piero would suffer so from the gout. Apparently he cured almost all of the nobles in Palermo in his time.’

  A sniff from Contessina. ‘Who says so? Maddalena? I don’t believe she’s a doctor’s daughter. Never have. Black slave, that’s what she is. Only good for cleaning, if you ask me.’

  Lucrezia looks around to see if anyone is listening, but the ting ting of bells is competing with the row from the congregation and drowning out any murmurs of conversation. She’s used to Contessina’s bigoted comments, and considers they only diminish her in everyone else’s eyes.

  ‘Cosimo’s own physician would vouch for what she says. He knew her father. He has a great deal of time for Maddalena’s medical knowledge.’

  ‘Which physician?’ Contessina’s chin is high in the air, a sure sign she won’t change her opinion now.

  ‘Doctor Ficino. He told me himself.’

  ‘Diotifeci? You mean Marsilio’s father? Are you absolutely sure?’

  Lucrezia nods, if only to hide her grin. ‘Knew him personally. In fact, I’ve known him confer with Maddalena to ask about some of her father’s more successful remedies.’

  ‘Speak of the Devil.’ Lucrezia waves as Lorenzo, looking and acting much older than his fifteen years, eases his way comfortably through the congregation and up the steps to where the nobility have set themselves apart. Giovanni is with him, as is Carlo, and so is Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo’s closest friend. ‘Shall I ask him?’

  Contessina turns away, red-faced. ‘Don’t you dare.’

  She is saved from further embarrassment as the service begins.

  Lucrezia stopped and half-rose from her chair, as if changing her mind, and then sat back again, although now more upright. ‘But before we can speak of politics, I must talk of the bank, for at that time the Medici Bank was the seat of the family’s power and for much, if not most of the time, it was Cosimo’s quiet background generosity that kept the city solvent.’

  Savonarola nodded. People like you to nod when they tell you things. It confirms that you are listening and gives them confidence without actually interrupting their train of thought. He saw the tiny reaction on Lucrezia’s face and satisfied himself that it worked for her too.

  She continued, already appearing more relaxed. ‘I am sure history will remember Cosimo and his father, Giovanni di Bicci, as the great men who built one of the finest banks the world has ever known, and that view is, I am sure, entirely justified. But it is also incomplete. For I am equally sure that history will judge my generation as having destroyed what they had built up and such a judgement would be mistaken.’

  Savonarola allowed himself a raised eyebrow and she nodded as if in confirmation. ‘Incomplete, then. The seeds of the decline in the Medici Bank had been sowed by Cosimo and, to a degree, even by his father, Giovanni di Bicci, himself, long before.’

  CASA VECCHIA, FLORENCE

  11th May 1437

  ‘Come, children. It is time for a special lesson. Your father is going to talk to you.’

  Lucrezia looks at her brother Giovanni Battista and nods sagely. In the Palazzo Medici the phrase ‘your father’ means Cosimo to them too, as well as to Giovanni and Carlo and to Piero, although, being quite a lot older, Piero rarely spends time with his younger brothers or their adopted cousins.

  Carlo and Giovanni Battista drop their wooden swords and begin walking dutifully along the corridor.

  Giovanni runs across to Lucrezia and takes her hand. ‘Come on Krizia. Time for another boring lesson. I hope it’s not …’ he makes a loud snoring noise, ‘banking practice.’

  Lucrezia laughs, as she does at almost everything Giovanni says, then she pulls a serious face. ‘Actually, I think it’s quite interesting.’

  Giovanni lets go of her hand and starts mincing down the corridor. ‘Oh doo you? Actually? Well I think it’s boooring. Actually.’

  Happily she grabs his hand and they run up the stair to the studiolo two at a time, shrieking.

  ‘Today I want to talk about banking practice.’ Cosimo is sitting on a small stool and the children are arrayed around him, on the floor.

  Beside her Lucrezia hears a gentle snoring noise and has to pinch her nose to prevent herself from laughing. She can feel Giovanni vibrating with laughter beside her, but dare not join in, or even look at him. There seem to be special rules for Giovanni. He is able to get away with blue murder. But Cosimo is always strict with her.

  She looks at Cosimo and nods. It’s what you’re supposed to do when people tell you things. It’s good manners. Maddalena has told her it’s all right to do it. It doesn’t really signify that you agree with them, but if you really disagree you have to cross your fingers behind your back. Then it definitely doesn’t count.

  Maddalena knows these things. Maddalena’s special. You can tell because Cosimo treats her differently from everyone else. That’s because, secretly, Cosimo is in love with Maddalena. Girls can tell these things. Anyway, where else would Carlo have come from?

  ‘Never hang around the Palazzo della Signoria, as if it is the place where you do business. Only go there when you are summoned and only accept the offices that are bestowed upon you.’

  Cosimo is repeating the mantra. She’s heard it before. Many times. But grown-ups repeat things to children because they think youngsters can’t remember things. But it’s not true. Giovanni says it’s because they’ve forgotten they’ve told you before. Giovanni knows everything. The problem is, you can’t tell when he’s joking.

  ‘Never make a show before the people but, if this is unavoidable, let it be the least necessary.’

  Cosimo is still droning on. She catches Giovanni’s eye. He begins rolling his eyes and rocking his head from side-to-side. He’s managed to creep behind Cosimo’s shoulder, so his father can’t see what he’s doing.

  ‘Keep out of the public gaze and never go against the will of the people.’ Cosimo repeats the phrases often, always verbatim, and treats them with reverence – like quotations from the scriptures.

  Giovanni leans towards her and whispers.
‘The Word of God the Father.’ He looks at her with a cynical half-smile on his face. The blasphemy, she is sure, is intentional and designed to challenge her. Lucrezia listens and absorbs. There must be some reason why Cosimo keeps on repeating these phrases.

  The problem is, as Giovanni was the first to point out, Cosimo doesn’t always obey these rules himself. In the main, he follows his father’s guidance. He always rides a mule rather than a horse and is careful to present himself as a member of the popolari and not of the nobili when theyare out in public. But Cosimo’s father married his son to a Bardi – Contessina’s from one of the oldest noble families in Florence – and Giovanni says Cosimo will marry him to Lucrezia when they grow up. And she’s proud of her Tornabuoni name. And you could hardly argue that the Palazzo Medici shows people that you’re a commoner, can you?

  Lucrezia looked up at Savonarola and smiled. ‘So what they said, and what they did, were poles apart, and even as a child, I recognized that.

  ‘Likewise with the bank. Giovanni di Bicci had established his Principles of Good Management, and in the year following Cosimo’s exile, while he was still feeling the pain of that experience, Cosimo applied the principles even further. The careful structure of a holding company, itself a partnership and being in separate partnership with each of the branches, was made secure by establishing each of those branches as an accomanda, a special type of partnership with liability limited to the extent of the invested capital and no more.

  ‘Inside that legal structure the management was equally secure. The manager of a branch would be chosen from the ranks and always based on many years of proven ability. He would move from being a salaried clerk to his first management responsibility, his reward for the first time including a bonus reflecting the profitability of the branch. And once he became general manager of the branch, he would be made a full partner, his reward a share of the profits and wholly dependent upon them.’