The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  Written in haste by my own hand . . .

  FROM MARCHESANA ISABELLA D’ESTE AT MANTOVA

  TO HER HUSBAND, THE MARCHESE OF MANTOVA, IN THE FIELD

  WRITTEN ON THE 15TH OF MAY, 1495.

  Most Honored Lord:

  I am of course always ready to obey your Excellency’s commands, but perhaps you have forgotten that most of my jewels are at present in pawn at Venezia, not only those you have given me but those I brought with me as a bride to Mantova or have bought myself since my marriage. I say this not to make a difference between yours and mine but to show you that I have parted with everything and have only four jewels left in the house — the large balas ruby which you gave me when we married, my favorite diamond, the small diamond I received from my mother, and one other. If I pledge these I shall be left entirely without jewels and shall be obliged to wear black, because to appear in colored silks and brocades without jewels would be ridiculous.

  Your Excellency will understand that I say this out of regard for your honor and mine. On this account I will not send away my jewels until I have received your Excellency’s reply.

  By her own hand.

  from the marchese francesco gonzaga in the field

  to his wife, marchesa isabella d’este da gonzaga, at mantova

  written on the 19th of may, 1495.

  Pawn the jewels and be quick about it!

  (signed with his initials, F.G.)

  34

  Peasants customarily arrive to borrow money at our banco with sacks containing their pitiful capital: two pots, five linen towels, a few worn garments. Princes send emissaries bearing their treasure in gilded casks to demand outrageous sums for allowing Jews the honor of taking their goods in pawn. The Gonzagas sent us a swaggering courtier with a long plume in his hat and an arrogant expression on his face.

  “Fetch me Maestro Daniele, girl,” he ordered me. Not a greeting, not a “good day.” This fellow needed taking down.

  “Maestro Daniele is indisposed. I am his daughter and his deputy,” I replied softly.

  “No, girl. Get the Jew.”

  “I do apologize, sir,” I answered, even more compliant than before. “But my father is ill. If you would be gracious enough to tell me the nature of your business with him . . .”

  “Regular banking business,” he replied, with that particular disdain that Christian knights take on when they lower themselves to dabble in commerce. “Her Excellency the Marchesana Isabella wishes him to take some articles in pawn. She has temporary need of fifteen thousand ducats.”

  Beside me Asher paled at the mention of so large a sum. But I remembered the lessons learned at my father’s knee and kept myself from displaying anything more than a routine interest in the transaction.

  “May I see the contents of the cask, sir?” I inquired humbly.

  “They are for the eyes of Maestro Daniele,” he insisted.

  “My father has instructed me to handle all business that comes to our door,” I answered. “So I fear, sir, that either you conduct your business with me or not at all.” And I turned away to other business to drive my point home.

  Of course, after a moment or two of indecision he opened the little box and turned out the contents.

  Taking my time about it, I began to inspect the treasures one by one. Two immense diamonds, one with a flaw visible with a jeweler’s glass but the other seemingly perfect. Madonna Isabella must have paid dearly for that one. Five thousand ducats at least. And a thousand, I would have judged, for the other. She had also sent five large rubies, unset. Ten thousand for those on the open market. And these were not the whole of it. There were also a few small pieces — one I especially remember, an amazing Saint George paved with diamonds, riding astride a dragon carved from a single pearl with a glittering tail of emeralds wound around the saint’s foot. But most valuable of all was the necklace, a masterpiece of the goldsmith’s craft forged from links so cunningly entwined that no one without a glass could ever know where they were joined. This must be the illustrissima’s Necklace of a Hundred Links, celebrated as a triumph of the art of Maestro Fidele, the Jewish goldsmith who glittered up half the princes of the peninsula with his inventions. I daresay so much wealth had never resided at one time in the dei Rossi Mantova branch as did that morning.

  “Nice little trinkets,” I commented to the courtier. “But not worth anything like fifteen thousand ducats to us. Take them back to your mistress. Tell her we cannot supply her with the money she requests. With regrets.” And to underline my point I began to place the stones back in their satin bags.

  “But madonna . . .” I had suddenly come up in the world. “The stones alone are worth at least twenty thousand ducats and the necklace is priceless,” he sputtered.

  “As a sentimental piece, of course,” I replied. “But when it is melted down we are not likely to extract more than a few hundred ducats’ worth of gold from the thing.”

  “Melted down!” He was genuinely horrified by the suggestion. “This is the illustrissima’s Necklace of a Hundred Links, famous throughout Europe. Copied by queens and empresses.”

  “That may be, but to us it is merely gold.” I threw the thing on the scale as if it were a dead fish. “No more than three hundred ducats’ worth there. See for yourself.”

  “You will not take these pieces, then?” he asked, by now quite drained of his arrogance.

  “Not for fifteen thousand ducats. Five perhaps. Eight at most.”

  “Eight thousand ducats for all of this?”

  “Maybe,” I answered. “You may tell the great lady that Grazia dei Rossi is managing the banco due to her father’s indisposition and that she knows her father would never countenance the payment of a penny more than eight thousand.”

  “Well . . .” The fellow began to gather up his baubles. “I certainly cannot accept eight thousand ducats for this lot. The lady would have my head for it.” He scratched his pate, perplexed. “I might take twelve . . .” he ventured.

  “Do not bargain with me, sir.” I fixed a steely eye on him. “Eight I said and eight it is.” I could hear a little hiss of astonishment from my cousin behind me. But I knew Madonna Isabella and the sharp bargaining for which she is as celebrated as for her marvelous collections. And I did not doubt that she had primed this jackanapes for just such a contest as we were now engaged in.

  “Eleven?” he asked, diffident.

  “Eight,” I answered, implacable.

  “Ten?”

  “Nine,” I offered. Now that I had him in my territory, it was time to give a little. By my most conservative estimate, the stuff was worth at least forty thousand ducats. So we stood to lose nothing should the Gonzagas default. And to gain thirty-five percent in interest should they not.

  “I cannot go below ten.” He squared his shoulders. And then, in an attack of candor, he added, “Those are my orders.”

  “Very well.” I turned away, as if bored by the entire procedure. “I know that my father bears nothing but the most loyal feelings for the Marchese. I think he would not object too strenuously if I were to extend myself beyond what is prudent in this case. We will give the ten. Asher . . .”

  The plump face bobbed up from behind me.

  “Make a receipt for this gentleman,” I instructed him. “Jehiel!”

  “Yes, Grazia.” My brother bounced out from behind the door to the strong room.

  “We will need to count out ten thousand ducats in coin. Can you and the clerk manage it?” I knew him to be an accurate counter, albeit no bargainer.

  “You will have your ducats within the hour, sir,” I advised the courtier. “Would you care to sip a glass of wine while you wait? With a biscuit?”

  “Thank you, madonna.” He was tame as a house cat by now, bargained down to his absolutely final position. And he would report the interview to his mistress, laying much
stress on the little Jewess with the small stature and the will of steel. Had I known that the money was needed to equip the Marchese’s men for the battle so soon to be joined at Fornovo, I would have shaved my offer even finer. But I had not yet received Judah’s letter telling me that the King of France had left Napoli and was marching north.

  FROM DANILO’S ARCHIVE

  TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI AT MANTOVA

  Dearest wife:

  The King departed Napoli this day without me in spite of my pleas to accompany him. I have doctored the man too well. He no longer needs my help to shoot off his pitiful cannon. My reward is to be left in this pestilential sink to minister to two thousand ailing and unpaid men while he fucks his way back to France, accompanied by the portion of his army that has been spared by God — and with all modesty, by my ministrations — from the crippling effects of the love disease.

  As I write, Montpensier — another who has been left behind by the careless King — is scouring the Calabrian hills for a safe bivouac in case his pitiful remnant of an army is forced out by the Neapolitans. They now hate the French as much as they loved them six months ago. “What’s to become of my men?” Montpensier asks me. “The King has left us no money, no food, no tents . . . We will end our days here foraging for food and living in caves like animals.”

  Poor Montpensier. His case is too far gone to respond to my mercury treatment, and the best comfort I can offer him is to audience his reminiscences of his little son, the child to whom we brought the toy soldiers.

  “Does he not resemble me?” he asks. “Can you not see the soldier in him?”

  I nod my acquiescence and refrain from expressing my hope that if little Charles Bourbon does become a soldier, he will find a better master than his namesake, the King of France. We are told that the whimsical Charles VIII has washed his hands of Italy. How can a king worthy of his title abandon half an army to wait endlessly for reinforcements that will never come, because he has lost interest in war?

  I had hoped to make one last visit to Daniele before his end. Now it appears you may have to face the sad moment alone. Be brave, good wife. Dip into your well of courage which is boundless. I am with you in spirit.

  Your devoted husband, J.

  Napoli, May 12, 1495.

  TO GRAZIA DEI ROSSI AT MANTOVA

  Darling Grazia:

  Your favorite mare, Carlinga, foaled last night and you not here to celebrate because poor Daniele is dying. It is all too sad. Sad. What a weak and puny word! Damn it, Grazia, your friend and comrade Diamante misses you. For the rest of my feelings, I have no words. Pity? Ugh! Admiration? Too stiff. Maybe I can cheer you up with the news of the day. You always did appreciate Isaachino’s gossip.

  You must know from Judah that Messer Charles VIII of France has left Napoli and turned tail for France. And that his former allies are lying in wait to trap him along the Taro River at Fornovo. Poor little king, about to be chased out of Italy by the very friends who imported him, with nothing to remind him of his Italian campaign but a record book of the ladies he has fucked.

  Next a marriage announcement. I include it because Isaachino urges me to pass it on to you. Last week Philip the Handsome, son of the Emperor Maximilian and known to his admirers as the Burgundian Stud, was married to Joanna, the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. It is a marriage made in heaven. He is a reprobate; she is mad.

  These names mean little to me. But Isaachino says you will understand that this marriage is certain to have far-reaching dynastic consequences. A child of this union, he says, stands to inherit not only the crown of Spain but also the vast Habsburg holdings in Burgundy and Germany. If this charming couple perform their dynastic duty satisfactorily, the fruit of their labors may well become a future Charlemagne, God help us all.

  Why do sensible nations entrust themselves to these royal monsters and half-wits? You must instruct me at length on this subject during our next canter over the Tuscan countryside.

  I miss you too much, Grazia.

  Your loving sister, Diamante. (Written in her own hand at Firenze, May 15, 1495.)

  35

  At first the battle of Fornovo was celebrated in Mantova as a personal triumph for the Marchese. Bonfires were lit in every square and the people danced in the streets. But as time went on we began to hear a different story. More than one foot soldier reported that their own cavalrymen used their horses to make off with booty while they stood firm awaiting reinforcements. From others came tales of Swiss stradiots more devoted to raping whores than to fighting the enemy. And from every quarter we heard reports of League soldiers running for their lives. Running for their lives? Who in the history of warfare ever ran away from a victory?

  At best the outcome of the battle was equivocal. But the Gonzagas needed Fornovo to be seen as a triumph. Why else had the Venetians hired the Marchese as their Captain-General but to win? And how could the Mantovan exchequer survive without infusions of cash from the exploits of its invincible condottiero? The stability of the little state depended on a glorious victory. If Fornovo proved to be something less — as indeed it did — then they would damn well make it a victory. With the help of his advisers, Francesco Gonzaga devised a distracting public spectacle together with a plan to get it paid for by that never-failing source of cash, the Jews.

  The letter that came addressed to my father was short, curt, and brutal. Daniele dei Rossi’s insult to the Virgin, it said, had not been satisfied by a mere apology. Her glory must be restored in a more palpable form. In furtherance of this high purpose, Daniele, the Jew who had shamed Her, was ordered to commission from the finest artist in all Italy an altarpiece to memorialize and celebrate the victory gained in Her name at Fornovo, this tribute to be presented to the city in a public ceremony.

  The second paragraph of this document instructed the Jew to carry 55 ducats to the home of Maestro Andrea Mantegna without delay as a down payment on the final price for the altarpiece of 110 ducats.

  My first thought was to keep the affair from my father. The second was relief that we were to be let off with nothing more than the loss of a hundred ducats. The third was that there was a proud obverse to the humiliation. Not everyone got the chance to become a patron of the celebrated maestro Andrea Mantegna.

  Before the banco closed that day I took my cousin Asher aside and showed him the letter. No further words were needed. He understood at once what had to be done. I slept with fifty-five golden ducats under my pillows that night. At dawn Asher met me at the front portal and together we went in search of Messer Andrea’s house near the Pusterla Gate.

  I had heard tales of the aftermath of the battle at the Taro, but nothing prepared me for the misery that saturated the streets. Beggars in torn uniforms grabbed at us pitifully, many armless or legless. Crippled men lurched about drunkenly, cursing the Marchese and the Venetians and the French in one breath. And there were women everywhere — respectable-looking women — holding up fatherless babes to ask for a few pennies to feed them. No wonder the author of this disaster had chosen to placate the Virgin. It would take a blessing from above to redeem this poor city.

  Mantegna’s dwelling was not hard to find. There was no mistaking it. Designed by his own hand, the maestro’s house resembled no other house in the world. From the outside it was a perfect cube. But inside, one stepped into a circular atrium — a perfect circle described within a perfect square. Not a statue, not a fountain, not a tree or bench, marred the austerity of the circle. And the effect was amplified by the pattern of the terrazzo floor, an eight-pointed star set so that four of the points led to four arched portals leading to four of the rooms on the ground floor. To stand in that space was like inhabiting geometry.

  “What are you gaping at? Have you never seen a circle before?”

  The maestro was an ugly little monkey of a man with a harsh voice and leathery skin. But he did have an air about hi
m.

  “I am struck dumb by the symmetry, maestro,” I answered, determined not to be cowed. After all, I was the patron here.

  “The symmetry, eh?”

  “Yes, maestro. I have long admired your work but I did not know you were also an architect.”

  It was meant as a compliment but he took it ill. “I have built many buildings in my time, lady. Have you not seen them, you who are such an admirer of my work?”

  “No, I have not, sir. I have only seen your ‘Triumphs’ and the Camera degli Sposi in the old Saint George Castle.”

  “And when you were in the Camera, did you find the putti on the ceiling adorable?” Every question was like a prod with a pointed stick.

  “No, sir,” I answered. “‘Adorable’ was not the word I would use. I found them miraculous for I felt that, at any moment, they might fall over the railing and bash me on the head.”

  This answer seemed to please him for he nodded and replied, quite pleasantly, “It is a trick. A way of fooling the eye.”

  “I have never seen anything like it, maestro,” I said.

  “Live long enough and you will, lady, you will. How old are you now?”

  “Seventeen years old, sir,” I answered, adding more than a few months to give myself additional dignity.

  “Mark me. Before you die, you will see such ceilings everywhere in Italy. In every church, in every castle. A little false oculus in every cupola looking up to a piece of false sky. And around the edge a painted railing with all manner of creatures hanging over it, looking as if they were about to fall over and bash you on the head.”

  “But none will equal yours, maestro,” I made bold to say.

  “That depends,” he corrected me, “on who paints ’em. If that fellow from Vinci takes it into his head to do one, he might give me a contest. But he won’t. He’s too proud to imitate me. And the rest aren’t good enough. But that won’t stop ’em from trying. Have you brought the money?”

  I motioned to Asher to present the bag of coins. “We will need a signed receipt, sir,” I told him, fearing his displeasure, which indeed was forthcoming.