Seeds of Decline

by Edward Charles

  PALAZZO MEDICI

  14th November 1478

  ‘Forgive me if I seem a little cynical, Francesco, but what I don’t understand is why the bank – my bank – is being asked, for the third year running, to pay out a huge bonus to you when all around us I see failure and collapse?’

  Francesco Sassetti, general manager of the Medici Bank, squirms in his chair as Lorenzo points his finger at him. Lucrezia sits quietly in the corner. Much as she blames Sassetti for the mess the bank is in, she would not wish Lorenzo’s anger upon any man. It even frightens her.

  But Sassetti stands his ground. ‘Lorenzo, it’s merely my entitlement, under the terms of my contract.’

  Lorenzo’s fist hits the table. ‘Your contract as general manager does not tell you to drive the fucking bank into the ground.’

  Sassetti flinches, but recovers. ‘My contract as general manager tells me to implement the policies of the Maggiore. It’s them, the majority shareholders, who made the appointments you have been talking about. I didn’t appoint any of the Portinari brothers to their positions, nor did I overrule Leonardo Vernacci in Rome in his arguments with your uncle and cause him to leave.’

  In the corner Lucrezia squirms at the reference to her brother but says nothing. Lorenzo is in charge and it would be foolish to break his flow. She watches and waits.

  Lorenzo raises a hand. ‘Never mind Rome. We aren’t talking about Rome. We are talking about Milan. Why should I pay you a bonus when this afternoon I need to write to the Milanese Ambassador and break the news that we are closing the Milan branch because it’s bankrupt? Because, despite sending cartloads of Sforza jewellery to Venice as collateral against the duke’s loans, we can’t afford to pay the agreed interest on deposits, including those made by the Bishop of Cuenca.

  Lorenzo looks at his mother, then back to Sassetti. ‘Who, I may remind you, is about to receive his cardinal’s hat.’

  But Sassetti has worked for the Medici for a long time. He’s more than capable of keeping his head when a row is brewing. Especially when the outcome involves his own finances. Somehow, over the last twenty years, he’s amassed a fortune. ‘My bonuses are payable under my partnership agreements in the Avignon and Geneva branches. I receive only a salary as general manager of the Medici Bank.’

  ‘So you look after the interests of those two branches and allow the rest of the bank to go to hell in a hand-basket?’ Lorenzo points to his own chest. ‘My fucking bank!’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I didn’t make the appointments and I didn’t write the contracts either. And while we’re on the subject, and since you have brought the Geneva branch into the conversation…’

  ‘The so-called Geneva branch, which has actually moved with the trade fairs to Lyon.’

  ‘Yes. The same. Well perhaps I might remind you that although I am a shareholder in that branch, I did not appoint Lionetto Rossi as director of that branch.’

  ‘So what?’ There’s a vein pulsing on Lorenzo’s left temple, always a bad sign.

  ‘Only that Lionetto has recently married your sister, Maria.’

  ‘So what? She’s entitled to marry isn’t she?’

  ‘It’s just that, if my sums are correct, Lionetto in Lyon makes four branches in the hands of men who, being in the family, can’t be removed when they fail. And as general manager, in name only, it seems, these days, I just thought I’d point that out.’

  Lucrezia lifted her eyes across the pool and looked at the monk. ‘So at the very time when the bank was heading for disaster, Sassetti’s personal fortune was growing hand-over-fist. And my husband finished up presiding over a bank that was losing money and at the same time having to watch it pay out huge bonuses to the general manager.’ She shook her head, ‘The processes of collapse may have made themselves visible during his period of control, but the origins of those processes went very much further back.’

  Savonarola nodded, accepting the precision of what she said, but did not let her off the hook completely. ‘Did those origins also precede your brother-in-law’s period of office?’

  Despite her reclined position, Lucrezia managed to raise her head. She glared at him down the length of her characterful nose. ‘Completely. I can assure you that Giovanni remained blameless in all of this. Absolutely blameless.’

  All this time Lucrezia had been lounging beside the shallow pool and Girolamo Savonarola had been sitting opposite her, his feet occasionally paddling in the very edge of the water. But now, to his surprise and considerable interest, Mona Lucrezia gave up all pretence of lying beside the medicinal pool and relaxing. Now, instead, she stood up and began marching up and down.

  And as she continued to speak, her tone became more hectoring while he, the monk, still sat across the pool, close up against the steep cliff-face and listened. And absorbed. And thought. And learned.

  And the lessons she thought she was teaching him about the bank were going in and they were being assimilated with the other half-formed theories he had brought with him when he set out walking in pursuit of this woman. And out of them, slowly, a picture was emerging.

  But it was not a picture about the Medici Bank. Like her, he had written that off already as being on the path of self-destruction, and all this talk of rotten teeth had merely served to reinforce his decision. No, the rotten teeth taking shape in his mind were a rich family by the name of Medici and a cynical, corrupt city called Florence. For the lady, in her clarity of exposition, had exceeded all his expectations and the picture he was forming of her family and her city was clearer, and a great deal worse, than he had ever expected.

  She was off again now, waving her arms in frustration.

  ‘So I said to Lorenzo, “Don’t pour your new-found money into that deep well. And if you’re thinking of trying to turn the bank round and make it profitable again, forget it. The bank is fundamentally flawed and although your father and your uncle have both allowed matters to get much worse, the rot set in with Grandfather Cosimo. So don’t feel bad about it.”’

  ‘Is that what you told him?’ He was leading her now. Egging her on while he knew she had her temper raised and was likely to speak more openly than she had done in most of their previous conversations. And more openly than he knew she intended.

  ‘Indeed I did. I did not beat about the bush. And I also told him a few home truths about the political process he faced. “Remember this,” I said. “Democracy the way Florence designed it is unworkable, unless there is a rich man stupid enough to keep bailing it out.”’

  ‘And what did he say to that?’

  ’He said, “Cosimo managed it didn’t he?” And I said, “Cosimo tried to manipulate the democratic process to allow him to serve his community without losing all his money. And what did they do to thank him? They tried to finish him off more than once. Exile and attempted murder. That’s the thanks he got.” I told him. “It’s the resentment of smaller men, Lorenzo, that’s what it is.”’

  ‘Did he agree?’ By this time, Savonarola’s fingers were itching for want of a pen and paper. He was concentrating hard. He must remember this, exactly if he could. He was sure it was going to be important.

  ‘He had no choice but to agree. “Look what happened to your father with Pitti and the Party of the Hill” I reminded him. “It’s not over, you know.”’

  By this time, she was pacing up and down, up and down and turning so fast in her bare feet that he was sure she was going to give herself blisters. But she was also giving him gold and he had no intention of breaking her train of thought.

  ‘I made it clear to him. “Now, for the moment, we have the lid on and tightly screwed down, but it won’t last. So my advice to you is to be a prince – be an open prince and to make the people love you for it.” That’s what I told him.’

  He nodded, making mental notes as hard as he could.

  ‘“Oh and make sure it is they who pay for everything, not you.” I told him that as well.’

  ‘And did he take your advice?’
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  ‘This time he did. I had told him all these things before but Lorenzo, being Lorenzo, needed to work them out for himself. But by now he was ready. This time Lorenzo was delighted to receive the advice he wanted, as I had known he would be. He waited until I had finished and then he said “Once I have taken out all the money I can, they can chuck the bank into the Arno for all I care. I am going to be a great prince.”’

  For the first time, she stopped pacing and stood next to him, so that he had to squint against the strong sun as he looked up at her. ‘And I said, “Lorenzo, you already are.”’

  ‘And how did he reply to that?’

  Lucrezia’s face broke into a broad smile. ‘My Lorenzo? Why, he gave a great laugh and he said, “Yes I am, aren’t I?”

  Chapter 13

  Magnificentia

  This time, Lucrezia had decided to let him win.

  She had been amused when, perhaps conscious of having been on the receiving end of her lecture the previous day, he had come to her early with two stout sticks in his hand and had dared her to walk. And she, being competitive and, as he had rightly surmised, ready once again to escape from the confines of the Bagno, had taken one of the sticks, pointed to the upper path, curving up above the one they had taken days before, and they had set off.

  For an hour they climbed, she taking short steps and using her stick, he loping along beside her with the easy energy of youth. They had reached a promontory, a large flat rock with a second rock behind it and slightly higher forming a hard but level bench, and, feeling she had earned a rest, she leaned back and sat, feeling her breath recover and her heartbeat subside as it did so.

  Now she felt fully recovered.

  In front of them the broad sweep of a bend in the river gave an open vista, trees below them, packed tightly into the valley sides, but up here, where the slope began to ease and the valley opened out, the trees began to thin, giving way to scrub and rocks, purple and sage except for the line of an ochre path falling gently down the hillside opposite, leading back to the bridge below the Bagno.

  The shrill cry of an eagle caught her attention and she turned to see it glide, seemingly without effort, all the way down the valley, covering the distance they had just walked in a matter of minutes before turning into the column of warm air she knew was rising in front of the big yellow cliff opposite them. Then she watched as in three leisurely spirals it regained its height and began the easy traverse back again, up the valley. She saw the yellow eye tilt and take them in, but their presence seemed to invoke no response and the eagle continued, all-seeing and invincible, literally the lord of all it surveyed, past them and on into the wild country at the head of the valley, beyond what she knew were the boundaries of her land.

  ‘You look happy.’ His voice brought her back from her daydreaming.

  ‘I am happy. I was watching that eagle and thinking about freedom. That always makes me happy.’

  He smiled, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘Release from the imprisonment of the past.’ She shook her head, still smiling at the memory. ‘I’m thinking about eight years ago, about the time when we finally stopped pretending. Contessina de Bardi died in the October of 1473. She was barely missed and her funeral was a small and private one.’ She looked up, feeling the need to explain. ‘Lorenzo and I did not consider Contessina’s death to be a subject of public concern and we had her buried privately and without any fuss.’

  VIA LARGA

  12th October 1473

  ‘It’s probably Clarice who will miss her most.’ Lucrezia looks at Lorenzo and, absent-mindedly, he nods and smiles back.

  They are walking back, arm-in-arm, the short distance from Contessina’s funeral in the Church of San Lorenzo to the Palazzo Medici, as unobtrusively as the Medici can do anything. Along the street people are nodding, expressing their supposed grief, but really just hoping to be recognized, to be able to say, ‘I was talking to the Magnificent Lorenzo this morning.’

  But Lucrezia can see that Lorenzo’s mind is far away. He is nodding to left and right, automatically acknowledging the people, but she knows she might just as well have said, ‘Clarice looks good riding a camel,’ and his response would have been exactly the same.

  Poor Clarice. She and Contessina had always been very similar – pious and domestic in outlook, both committed to masserizia, paying attention to the small things of life – saving piccoli, and for that reason, both largely ignored by their husbands, who are invariably too busy spending gold florins. Both ignored by Lorenzo in particular, who is already deeply committed to the wider vista, to magnificentia, to being and being seen to be a great prince.

  She turns and looks at her daughter-in-law. As she turns back, she shakes her head. Poor Piero’s dream that in some way Clarice’s old-fashioned virtues might tame Lorenzo’s greater excesses have proved completely misguided. He has, of course, done what is expected of him, provided her with a good home, a status in society and a baby to look after once a year, and for the rest of the time he has almost forgotten she is there.

  She looks at Lorenzo’s blank face. He is far away, probably more concerned about his recent purchase of Poggio a Caiano. He calls it his possessione, probably because he has been unable to buy it outright and has only gained access to it in instalments. What a circus that has been. Bernardo Rucellai tried hard to prevent his father, Giovanni, from selling the estate to Lorenzo at all, and he has clung on desperately to parts of it for over five years now, after the original purchase agreement had been signed. But bit-by-bit, each a hard-fought clause in the legal agreement, Lorenzo has gained full control of it. Looking back it was probably his having to fight so hard to get it that made him appreciate it so much in the first place. There’s not much that Lorenzo has to fight for.

  It’s a farming estate near Empoli, and amid wonderful rich countryside. She and Lorenzo had quietly surveyed it together years before while the owner was in Venice. They knew from the first it had great potential and Lorenzo had plans to bring in special cattle from Milan long before he managed to buy the place. But first they knew he would have to tame the River Ombrone, and now that’s just what he has done. As soon as the purchase was finalized he called in all the experts he could muster: water masters, meadow masters and a canal expert from Viterbo.

  She has to admit he’d gone about it in a very professional manner, quite as carefully as she would have done. In overall charge of the works he had chosen Domenico, whom they all referred to as the captain, and between them they set to work on canals, embankments, dykes and channels, which they lined and strengthened with thousands of mulberry and pine trees. By the time they had finished the river flowed safely, even under flood conditions, while the meadowlands, although irrigated, were only allowed to flood in a controlled manner, thus ensuring the annual covering of fresh river silt was not all washed away again.

  There’s an old house on the estate that once belonged to Rucellai’s father-in-law, Palla Strozzi, and it’s where she now has a room. She loves it. There’s a calm richness to the place that is comforting as she gets older. She can look out of the window and see these fat cattle, as sleek as racehorses, and somehow, when she does, the world seems a better place.

  Lucrezia leaned back against the rock and closed her eyes. ‘Wealth and the freedom to enjoy it. There is no substitute.’ To her surprise, the remark was met with an almost deafening silence. She sat up, opening her eyes again and turned towards him. Beside her she saw the monk nod. But somehow he did not look convinced. She stood, thinking, and together they moved on again, climbing more slowly now, avoiding breathlessness and able to talk as they went.

  ‘Although not significant in itself, Contessina’s funeral probably signalled the end of an era. It was certainly a time of change. Another big change had taken place some time just before that. The Venetian pope, Paul II, had died and he had been replaced by a della Rovere – Sixtus IV.’ She shook her head. ‘Sixtus was to become the bane of Lorenzo’s life.’
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  PALAZZO MEDICI

  October 1473

  ‘It’s not all bad.’ Giuliano’s face does not match his words. But he’s doing his best. ‘Uncle Giovanni Battista was re-appointed as Depositor General of the Apostolic Chamber, so at least we’ve secured the Medici Bank as the Vatican bank once again.’

  Lucrezia nods. She knows why everyone else in the room is so unhappy. In that new capacity, and at Lorenzo’s request, her brother had approached Sixtus to look favourably at making Giuliano here a cardinal.

  At the time, Sixtus’s response had seemed favourable and they had all felt that it was just a question of time. Indeed, their confidence was increased when Sixtus extended the Medici Bank monopoly over the alum trade, based upon their mines, at Tolfa. It was an agreement that Lorenzo had originally negotiated six years earlier, on the same journey to Rome that been disturbed by Francesco Sforza’s death and which had thrown Lorenzo into the depths of a difficult negotiation. That contract extension had been good news. The alum business is still highly profitable and has been a mainstay of the Rome branch for a long time now.

  But then, she remembers, they had hit the first of the disappointments. Sixtus had begun appointing cardinals and one after another, they had all been ‘nephews’. Pietro Riario came first, in thanks perhaps for his services in handing out the bribes that got Sixtus appointed in the first place. At least he was a good diplomat, although why it was necessary to hand him quite so many clerical appointments and to make him quite so rich, and so soon, had not been clear to anyone.

  He was followed by Giuliano della Rovere. He had been the pope’s enforcer and one of the greatest soldiers ever to wear the scarlet cap, so once again, there was a degree of understanding when the announcement had been made. But when Raffaele Sansoni Riario came next and was followed by Cristoforo della Rovere and then by Girolamo Basso della Rovere, it was starting to look pretty certain that the Medici weren’t going to get anywhere with Giuliano’s red cap.