The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  Isabella, who desires the best for your Excellency.

  Mantova, May 14, 1510.

  TO THE DOGE OF VENEZIA

  . . . as to the demand for our dearest, firstborn son, Federico, besides being a cruel and almost inhuman thing for anyone who knows the meaning of a mother’s love, there are many reasons which render it impossible to hand over to strangers a child of his tender and delicate age. And you must know what comfort and solace we find in the presence of this dear son, the hope and joy of all our subjects.

  However reluctant I am, I must frankly inform you, once and for all, that we will suffer any loss rather than part from our son, and this you may take to be our deliberate and unchanging position.

  Most respectfully,

  Isabella, Marchesana of Mantova

  May 12, 1510.

  TO POPE JULIUS II

  THE VATICAN, ROMA

  . . . and although we are quite sure that his person would be well cared for and protected in the Vatican palace, to deprive ourselves and Mantova of our son and heir would be to deprive us of life itself and of all we count good and precious. If you take Federico away you might as well take away our life and state at once.

  FRAGMENT OF A REPORT

  FROM THE MANTOVAN AMBASSADOR TO THE VATICAN

  TO MARCHESANA ISABELLA D’ESTE DA GONZAGA AT MANTOVA

  JUNE 1, 1510.

  . . . I have never seen the Pontiff in a worse rage. He shook like a vessel in a great storm, twisting his wrists together as if to tear his hands off and quite truthfully foaming at the corners of his mouth. “That whore of a Marchesana refuses my offer!” (These were his words, madama, not mine, I assure you.) “I will never forgive this defiance. And when her husband comes out he will punish her, I promise you. Poor Marchese Francesco is the prisoner not only of the Venetian signoria but of a rebel wife. She is a whore . . .”

  44

  As Madama feared, our efforts to keep her son were finally overcome by the unholy alliance against her. Not one to waste her rage, she instantly turned to delaying Federico’s departure by every ruse she knew. There was so much to be done; so many letters to be written; so many arrangements to be made. Grazia the scribe soon became indispensable.

  In the pressing urgency of these multitudinous tasks my heroines slipped from the notice of their sponsor. But every so often the purpose of my visit did rise to the surface of her attention and my heroines were most fondly recalled, only to be confided to the ministrations of Messer Equicola.

  “Confer with him, Grazia,” Madama urged me. “Hear his opinions on the selection of your women. Regard him as your tutor. Take his advice in matters of taste as I do.” But ten minutes with this arbiter was enough to convince me that what passed for his taste consisted mostly of an unerring instinct to ferret out any word or phrase or, indeed, any anecdote or even any of the heroines of my choice who might incur Madama’s displeasure.

  On the inclusion of Diamante he expressed doubt, “. . . for with all respect, Madonna Grazia, what place has a no-account Jewish matron between the same pages as our own illustrious princess?”

  And discussing a recent addition of mine, a certain Christine di Pisan, “. . . as you yourself admit, madonna, she lived in Paris, and you know our honorable patroness’s opinion of French letters.”

  It was only a matter of time, I felt, before he would suggest replacing Caterina Sforza with Madama’s little dog Aura, “. . . for she is a female, after all, and a great pleasure and delight to the illustrissima.” These traveling humanists write by the yard for whoever offers them a hearth and a living. Like chameleons, they change the color of their views to suit the landscape. Were there a single motto on the escutcheon of all humanists, it would surely be “Never offend.”

  Obviously between Maestro Equicola and myself a meeting of minds was impossible. Not being a stupid man, he quickly realized it and became as assiduous to avoid meeting with me as I was with him. In truth neither of us wished to offend Madama. And in the hysteria that mounted as the day for young Federico’s departure for Roma came closer, we found reason enough to avoid each other.

  My Sabbath absences also contributed to the cause. From the beginning of my visit I insisted that one day of the week belonged to my family. Each Friday after dinner I cleaned my quills, scrubbed the ink stains off my hands, donned my tabi-cloth gown, and, accompanied by one of Madama’s hulking palace guards, walked through the town to the house on the Via Sagnola to spend the Sabbath with my brother and his harem, of which I quickly became a delighted member.

  I might never have known how fragile this structure was had not Madonna Isabella offered me some fishes fresh from the waters of Lake Garda one warm summer day. Anxious to preserve their freshness, I set out to deliver them to my brother’s household without troubling to announce my visit.

  I came upon Penina in the garden with all four children gathered around her. Where, I asked, was Ricca?

  To my surprise, I got no straight answer but a series of obfuscations and evasions that only exacerbated my curiosity.

  “Oh, Grazia, it would have been better for everyone had you not come here today,” she finally admitted.

  “You mean I have intruded in some way? Am I not welcome?”

  “Welcome in your own house? Of course you are. That is a silly question, Grazia, and you know it.”

  “What then? Why would it have been better had I not come?”

  “Because now you will have to know,” she answered. “And because we had decided not to trouble you. But now . . .”

  “Now what? Where is Ricca?” She turned her face away. “Tell me,” I urged her. “I have a right to know.”

  “Very well.” She sighed. “But believe me, Grazia, nothing can be done. Gershom and I have tried every way to persuade her out of this madness but we cannot. And if we cannot you surely cannot.”

  “What madness?”

  “Ricca no longer lives here. She does not live in this house any more than you do. She only comes on Fridays, as you do. And she stays over the Sabbath, as you do. And on Sundays, just after you have left she leaves. And we do not see her again until the next Friday.”

  “Where does she live, then?”

  “With a merchant. A rich German. From Dusseldorf. He has taken over a big house in the Via San Giacomo. She lives there. With him.”

  “She lives with this man openly?”

  “Well, we haven’t exactly sent forth a grido to that effect,” she answered tartly.

  “But people know?”

  “People understand. They see her as a deserted woman, neither wife nor widow.”

  “Still, when the children go out to school they will be the butt of jokes and scorn,” I surmised.

  “We reminded her of that,” she answered.

  “What excuse does she offer?” I asked.

  “That if she had to live one more day in this nunnery, she would slit her own throat.”

  “Not a bad solution,” I remarked.

  “Grazia! Bite your tongue!”

  But I could not apologize. For I believed then as I do now that death is preferable to dishonor. If that makes me a turnip of a woman without sweetness or juice, so be it.

  We left it there, Penina and I agreeing to disagree for the sake of family amity. And the next Friday, I managed to greet Ricca cordially although I would sooner have spat in the harlot’s face than clasped her hand. But I did extend my hand to her and so we trudged along in sweet hypocrisy. But even that tainted sweetness was not destined to last. For, not more than two weeks later, a letter was forwarded to me from Venezia which fractured the little household into so many jagged pieces that not even that expert diplomatist Gershom could put it back together.

  I recognized the hand at once from the flourish that embellished the G in my name. Only one person besides myself made such G’s — my brothe
r Jehiel.

  His letter, sent from Salonika, was short and to the point. He was homesick for Italy and wished to return. He missed his family. Would I intercede on his behalf with Madonna Isabella? The letter read as if he had been away on a pilgrimage or a pleasure trip; no mention of his offenses, of the pain he had caused others, or of the cousin whose life had paid for his folly. Still, he was my brother and I loved him. So, I laid plans to trap Madama at a time most felicitous for my presentation of his case.

  The opportunity came a few evenings later when she invited me into her grotta to sing and make music with her and some of her ladies. “For even a virago like me must temper her embattled life with some beauty, Grazia,” she explained. It was there after the music was done that I managed a moment alone to beg her to intercede with her brother Duke Alfonso on Jehiel’s behalf.

  “And what makes you think that what I have to say will move my honorable brother the Duke?” she asked, not sourly but as a practical question. “You remember that I did intervene once on your cousin’s behalf with no result.”

  “But time has passed since then, illustrissima,” I urged. “Perhaps your honorable brother has softened. By now his Duchess has given him two healthy boys. Does that not make a difference?”

  “In logic perhaps,” she replied. “But men such as my honorable brother are not ruled by logic. You do not understand princes. Let me remind you that my honorable father was named for the god Hercules. Such men think themselves at least half gods. They do what they will and brook no interference, not from counselor nor from wife nor from sister.”

  “But a good word. A plea for caritas . . .”

  “Caritas!” She shook her head from side to side in exasperation. “Have you learned nothing of the world from observing my failure to save my son from the clutches of that beast of a Pope? Come. Sit here. Close. I will tell you a tale. It is a tale that must not be repeated, you understand.”

  I nodded my obedience to her command. And I have not repeated her story from that day until now.

  “Some five years ago,” she began, “just after my honorable brother Alfonso had succeeded to the dukedom of Ferrara, a terrible quarrel broke out between two of my younger brothers, Don Giulio and Cardinal Ippolito. The cardinal had fallen under the spell of a little Borgia witch named Angela who attends upon my sister-in-law the lady Lucrezia. Not content with refusing the cardinal, this Angela took pains to inform him that she preferred my brother Don Giulio and, out of sheer bitchery, added that his whole person was not worth Don Giulio’s eyes. I need not tell you what came out of this wicked tease. You must have heard of it at the Aldine Press.”

  I confessed that I had not and begged her to finish the story.

  “My brother Cardinal Ippolito was wild with jealousy and hurt pride,” she continued. “The next day, as Don Giulio was riding home from the hunt, he was attacked by a bunch of ruffians whose clear aim was to put out his eyes. And they very nearly succeeded. He did lose the sight of one eye and most of the sight of the other, poor fellow.”

  “His own brother hired men to put his eyes out?”

  “It was the Borgia bitch who goaded him on to it and of course my brother the cardinal has inherited the Este temper and the Este pride,” she replied, as if somehow this excused him.

  “Quite correctly, my wounded brother Don Giulio appealed for justice to my brother Alfonso, head of the family and of our state,” she continued. “But the Duke did not act and that is where folly took over. Don Giulio entered into a conspiracy with my unfortunate half brother Ferrante against Alfonso.”

  “No wonder,” I commented, “with such provocation . . .”

  “Perhaps no wonder, but treason nevertheless,” she retorted in a censorious tone. “Treason of the worst sort,” she went on, “because my younger brothers were inept at the game of conspiracy and their plot was discovered. Ferrante was caught. Don Giulio escaped and took refuge with me here in Mantova.”

  Now the point of the story was beginning to emerge. “So you were torn between your loyalty to one brother and another,” I commented.

  “I felt a sisterly duty to shield Don Giulio from Alfonso’s wrath,” she replied primly, then added with a sudden softness, “He did have the most beautiful blue eyes.”

  “But Duke Alfonso would not be moved . . .” I prodded her.

  “I wrote him long letters. I pleaded. I begged. But in the end I had to turn Giulio over to the Duke’s justice.”

  “Is he dead, then?” I asked.

  “Not dead but might as well be. On the eve of his execution he and Ferrante were marched to the scaffold and blindfolded, to prepare them for the executioner’s axe. But at the last moment my brother the Duke relented and altered the sentence to life imprisonment in the dungeons of the castello. And that is where they languish now and will until the day they die.”

  She paused. “I see them through the bars when I visit my honorable brother’s court at Ferrara. They are a most pathetic pair. Pale. Ragged. Forsaken.” She paused again. “I tell you this, Grazia, in greatest confidence. It is a subject not easy for me to dwell upon. But I have recollected it today for your sake so that you may understand how limited is the influence of women over princes. Though the woman be called La Prima Donna del Mondo and rule as marchesana, still she has no weapons to fight the outraged pride of a prince even if he be her brother.”

  45

  The ever-whimsical Madama, having spent a morning giving me the best reasons in the world why a plea from her could do my brother’s cause no good at all, then spent an afternoon dictating a letter to her brother Duke Alfonso, putting forward an excellent case for Jehiel’s reinstatement at the Este court. She even went so far as to suggest that in his present embattled state the honorable Duke might have use for “a foundryman of proven ability with not a little genius for making siege machines and designing earthworks.”

  Wonder of wonders. A letter flew back from Ferrara exonerating Vitale the Jew on all previous charges and reappointing him to the position of chief foundryman at Alfonso d’Este’s cannon foundry. Whether it was the compassionate argument or the practical one that reached the Duke’s heart, we will never know.

  Of course, Fortuna is never as generous as she likes to appear. To give with one hand while she takes with the other is her way of going. Less than a week after I announced Jehiel’s rehabilitation and only a few days before his expected arrival, I received an urgent summons from Penina to come at once to the house in the Via Sagnola. My only thought was that one of the children must be ill. I left off my copying and ran all the way there.

  When I arrived Penina and Gershom were seated side by side at the table in the sala grande, their faces grim. There was no mention of children. Ricca was the subject.

  “She has bolted,” Gershom announced. “Taken off without even a goodbye to her own children.”

  “To where?”

  “We do not know,” Penina answered. “She has gone off with the German.”

  “What will we tell Jehiel?” I asked them.

  “The truth, of course.” Gershom’s tone was as hard as a note from Tromboncino’s trumpet. “That his wife is a whore and that he is well rid of her. That is what we all feel, is it not?”

  Penina and I nodded our agreement although neither of us would have stated the case so baldly.

  “What about the children?” Penina asked. “What are they to be told?”

  “The children are already delighted that their father is returning to them,” Gershom replied in the same metallic tone. “As for the loss of their mother, Penina is more a mother to them than the harlot who bore them.”

  I could not argue the point. But I promised to be present when Jehiel arrived, so that we might share the burden of breaking the news to him.

  It was a strange welcome. We must have expected the old Jehiel to gallop up in his laughing way on a fine steed, fo
r none of us recognized the slack figure sauntering toward us on a reluctant mule until he waved. Of course, once he had identified himself we adults shouted halloo and the children followed suit. But when he dismounted and went to pick them up and kiss them, they turned shy and ran away and hid behind Penina’s skirts.

  “They will need time to get to know me again,” was his only comment. Surprisingly, he displayed little distress when told that his wife had run off. Nor did he put up even a token resistance to Gershom’s suggestion that he get a divorce at once. What consumed his mind was his determination to arrive in Ferrara in time for the feast of Rosh Hashanah.

  “From the time of Ptolemy until now,” he explained, “men have sought out the most propitious moment at which to embark upon new ventures. This year the New Year commences on my most favorable day. For the Hebraic and the Ptolemaic calendars to coalesce in this way is extraordinary. I take it as a sign that my new life will be blessed with prosperity and success if I commence to live it on that propitious day.”

  “Surely you are not still looking for guidance in the stars,” I berated him. Whereupon he flushed red and went silent. The wild spirit in my brother was not completely extinguished yet.

  He had changed in some ways. No longer did he defer to my judgment. Coming hard on the heels of Gershom’s recent emancipation, I found this uncharacteristic independence difficult to accept. And my feeling of being cast aside was exacerbated by my discovery that without telling me he had made plans to take Penina with him to Ferrara. Between themselves my little brother and my mouse of a cousin agreed to set up house together in Ferrara, and had made that decision without asking for my advice or even bothering to inform me. Even though the pill was sweetened by their obvious happiness, it was a little hard to swallow.

  After that there was nothing to keep me in Mantova except the ostensible purpose of my visit: the preparation of my Book of Heroines. And my hopes for that project had receded with each week that passed. If it was true, as Madama insisted, that Ser Equicola’s mind was a mirror of her own, could I in conscience cut my creations to suit those two mentalities? No. I could not lend myself to the corruption of my own words, however unworthy they might be. Perhaps I had spent too long at Ser Aldo’s fount imbibing the doctrine of textual integrity. Whatever the reason, I resolved to announce my departure to Madama, the sooner the better. And to be sure, Fortuna obliged. That very evening a summons was delivered by a smirking lady-in-waiting with the admonition to be quick as Madama had a special surprise for me. What surprise? Another humanist “tutor” to adulterate my text and disarm my heroines?