Leo Africanus

by Amin Maalouf

  Kneeling facing the altar, clad in a long white woollen cloak, I was bemused by the odour of incense and crushed by so many undeserved honours. None of the people assembled in this place was unaware that this ‘Magian King’ had been captured on a summer night by a pirate on a beach in Jerba, and brought to Rome as a slave. Everything which was said about me and everything which was happening to me was so insane, so immoderate, so grotesque! Wasn’t I the victim of some bad dream, some mirage? Wasn’t I really in a mosque in Fez, Cairo or Timbuktu, as on every Friday, my mind affected by a long sleepless night? Suddenly, in the heart of my doubts, the voice of the Pope rose again, addressing me:

  ‘And you, Our well-beloved son John-Leo, whom Providence has singled out among all men . . .’

  John-Leo! Johannes Leo! Never had anyone in my family been called thus! Long after the end of the ceremony I was still turning the letters and syllables over and over in my head and on my tongue, now in Latin, now in Italian. Leo. Leone. It is a curious habit which men have, thus to give themselves the names of the wild beasts which terrify them, rarely those of the animals which are devoted to them. People want to be called wolf, but not dog. Will it happen to me one day that I shall forget Hasan and look at myself in a mirror and say: ‘Leo, you have shadows under your eyes?’ To tame my new name I soon arabized it; Johannes Leo became Yuhanna al-Asad. That is the signature which can be seen under the works which I have written at Rome and at Bologna. But regular visitors to the papal court, somewhat surprised by the belated birth of a brown and fuzzy Medici, immediately gave me the additional surname of Africanus, the African, to distinguish me from my saintly adoptive father. Perhaps also to prevent him making me a cardinal as he had done for most of his male cousins, some at the age of fourteen.

  On the evening of the baptism, the Pope called me to him. He began by telling me that I was henceforth a free man, but that I could continue to live in the castle while I found lodgings outside, adding that he was anxious that I should continue to pursue my studies and my teaching with the same assiduity. Then he took a tiny book from a table which he placed like a host on my open palm. As I opened it I saw that it was written in Arabic.

  ‘Read it out loud, my son!’

  I did so, leafing through the pages with great care:

  ‘Book of the prayers of the hours . . . completed on 12 September 1514 . . . in the town of Fano under the auspices of His Holiness Pope Leo –’

  My protector interrupted me in a trembling and unsteady voice:

  ‘This is the first book in the Arabic language which has ever come off a printing press. When you return to your own people, take it carefully with you.’

  In his eyes, I saw that he knew that I would go away again one day. He seemed so moved that I could not prevent my own tears from flowing. I bent to kiss his hand. He pressed me to himself and embraced me like a real father. By God, I have loved him since that moment, in spite of the ceremony which he had just inflicted upon me. That a man of such power, so venerated by Christians in Europe and elsewhere, should be so moved at the sight of a tiny book in Arabic, produced in the workshops of some Jewish printer, seemed to me worthy of the caliphs before the age of decadence, such as al-Ma’mun, the son of Harun al-Rashid, may the Most High bestow His mercy upon the one and the other.

  When, on the morrow of this interview, I left the walls of my prison for the first time, free, my arms swinging, when I walked across the bridge of San Angelo towards the Ponte quarter, I had no feelings of resentment or bitterness about my captivity any more. A few weeks of heavy chains, a few months of soft servitude, and lo and behold I had become a traveller again, a migrant creature, as in all the lands where I had sojourned and obtained, for a while, pleasures and honours. What a lot of streets, of monuments, men and women I longed to discover, I who in a year knew of Rome only the cylindrical silhouette of Castel San Angelo and the endless corridor which connected it with the Vatican!

  I was probably wrong to let myself be accompanied on my first visit by the irrepressible Hans. I immediately made my way straight ahead, towards the Via dei Banchi Vecchi before turning left into the famous Via del Pellegrino, to admire the shop windows of the goldsmiths and the displays of the silk merchants. I would have stayed there for hours, but my German was becoming impatient. Eventually he pulled me by the sleeve, like a hungry child. I forced myself, even apologizing for my frivolity. Were there not so many churches, palaces and monuments to admire in our neighbourhood? Or perhaps he wanted to take me to the Piazza Navona, quite close by, where, it was said, there was a ceaseless spectacle, of tumblers at least, at all times?

  Hans was not thinking about any of this. He led me through narrow alleyways, where it was impossible to pass without stepping over heaps of rubbish. Then, in the darkest and most foul-smelling place, he stopped dead. We were surrounded by filthy, skeletal idlers. From a window, a woman called us to join her in exchange for a few quattrini. I felt terrible, but Hans did not move. As I glared at him he thought it as well to explain:

  ‘I want you to keep this vision of wretchedness constantly in front of you when you see how the princes of the Church live, all those cardinals who own three palaces each, where they compete in sumptuousness and debauchery, where they organize feast after feast, with twelve kinds of fish, eight salads, five sorts of sweets. And the Pope himself? Have you seen him having the elephant which the King of Portugal gave him paraded up and down with great pride? Have you seen him throw gold pieces at his jesters? Have you seen him hunting on his estate at Magliana, in long leather boots, riding behind a bear or a wild boar, surrounded by his sixty-eight dogs? Have you seen his falcons and goshawks, brought for gold from Candia and Armenia?’

  I understood his sentiment but his behaviour annoyed me:

  ‘Show me rather the monuments of ancient Rome, those of which Cicero and Livy have spoken!’

  My young friend seemed triumphant. Without saying a word, he started to walk once more, with such a firm step that I barely managed to keep up with him. When he decided to come to a halt, half an hour later, we had left the last inhabited streets far behind us. We were in the middle of a vast empty space.

  ‘Here was the Roman Forum, the heart of the old city, surrounded by bustling quarters; today it is called the Campo Vaccino! And, in front of us, do you see Monte Palatino, and over there, to the east, behind the Coliseum, Monte Esquilino? They have been empty for years! Rome is no more than a large market town camping out on the site of a majestic city. Do you know what its population is today? Eight thousand souls, nine thousand at most.’

  That was far fewer than Fez, Tunis, or Tlemcen.

  Going back towards the castle, I noticed that the sun was still high in the sky, so I thought it as well to suggest to my guide to take a walk in the direction of St Peter’s, going through the fine quarter of Borgo. We had hardly arrived in front of the basilica when Hans launched once more into a crazy diatribe:

  ‘Do you know how the Pope wants to finish building this church? By taking the Germans’ money.’

  Several passers-by were already congregating around us.

  ‘I have visited enough monuments for today,’ I begged him. ‘We shall come back another time.’

  And, without waiting for him for a single moment, I ran to take refuge in the calm of my former prison, vowing never to go walking around Rome with a Lutheran guide.

  On my next visit I chanced to have Guicciardini as companion, who had just returned from a long visit to Modena. I imparted to him my deep disappointment, particularly after my visit to the Campo Vaccino. He did not seem particularly affected by it.

  ‘Eternal city, Rome, but with lapses,’ he declared with wise resignation.

  Before continuing:

  ‘Holy city, but full of impieties; idle city, but one which gives the world a masterpiece every day.’

  It was a joy for the spirit to walk alongside Guicciardini, to take in his impressions, his comments, his confidences. However, there were certain in
conveniences: thus, to get from the Castel San Angelo to the new palace of Cardinal Farnese, less than a mile away, took us nearly two hours, so great was the fame of my companion. Some people greeted him as they passed by, while others dismounted in order to engage him in long private conversations. Having extricated himself, the Florentine would return to my side with a word of apology: ‘That is a fellow countryman who has recently set up in Rome’, or ‘That is an extremely influential bursar’, ‘That is the postmaster of the King of France’, and even, on two occasions, ‘That is the bastard of Cardinal So and So.’

  I had shown no surprise. Hans had already explained to me that in the capital of the Popes, though teeming with men of religion, nuns and pilgrims from all countries, the mistresses of the princes of the Church had palaces and servants, that their offspring were destined for the highest posts, that priests of lower rank had their concubines or courtesans, whom they flaunted without shame in the streets.

  ‘Lust is less of a scandal than sumptuous living,’ said Guicciardini, as if he had followed the development of my thoughts step by step.

  He continued:

  ‘The lifestyle of the prelates of Rome costs vasts sums, while nothing is produced in this city of clerics! Everything is bought in Florence, Venice, Milan and elsewhere. In order to finance the excesses of this city, the Popes have started to sell ecclesiastical titles: ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand ducats for a cardinal. Everything is for sale here, even the post of steward! As that was still not enough, they started to sell indulgences to the wretched Germans! If you pay, your sins are forgiven! In short, the Holy Father is seeking to sell off Paradise. It was in this way that the quarrel with Luther began.’

  ‘So this monk was right.’

  ‘In one sense, yes. Except that I cannot help thinking that the money collected in such a questionable fashion goes towards the completion of the Basilica of St Peter, and that part of it is devoted not to banquets but to the noblest creations of the human spirit. Hundreds of writers and artists are producing masterpieces in Rome before which the Ancients would turn pale with envy. A world is in the process of being reborn, with a new vision, a new ambition, a new beauty. It is being reborn here, now, in corrupt, venal and impious Rome, with money wrested from the Germans. Is that not a very useful sort of waste?’

  I no longer knew what to think. Good and Bad, truth and untruth, beauty and rottenness were so muddled up in my mind! But perhaps that was it, the Rome of Leo X, the Rome of Leo the African. I repeated Guicciardini’s formulations out loud, in order to engrave them upon my memory:

  ‘Idle city . . . holy city . . . eternal city . . .’

  He interrupted me in a voice grown suddenly despondent:

  ‘Accursed city as well.’

  While I gazed at him, awaiting some explanation, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

  ‘I have just copied out some lines written by Luther to our Pope.’

  He read in a low voice:

  ‘You, Leo, the most ill-fated of all, you are seated upon the most dangerous of thrones. Rome was formerly a gate of Heaven; it is now the gaping abyss of Hell.’

  The Year of the Conversa

  927 A.H.

  13 December 1520 – 30 November 1521

  What a Saturday of happiness in my life was 6 April of that year! However, the Pope was angry. He thundered so loudly that I stayed motionless for a long moment in the antechamber, protected from his shouts by the heavy carved double doors. But the Swiss who accompanied me had his orders. He opened the door of the study without knocking, almost pushed me into the room and closed the door firmly behind me.

  When he saw me, the Pope stopped shouting. But his eyebrows remained knitted together and his lower lip was still trembling. He indicated that I should come nearer with a signal from his smooth fingers, which were drumming feverishly on the table. I leaned over his hand, and then over the hand of the person who was standing on his right.

  ‘Leo, do you know our cousin Cardinal Julius?’

  ‘How could I have lived in Rome without knowing him?’

  This was not the best reply in the circumstances. Julius de Medici was certainly the most flamboyant of all the princes of the Church, and the Pope’s trusted associate. But the latter had been reproaching him for some time for his escapades, his love of ostentation, his rowdy love affairs, which had made him the favourite target of the Lutherans. On the other hand, Guicciardini had spoken well of him: ‘Julius has all the qualities of the perfect gentleman, a patron of the arts, tolerant, good company. Why the devil should anyone want to make a man of religion out of him?’

  In a red cape and skull cap, a fringe of black hair across the breadth of his forehead, the Pope’s cousin seemed engrossed in a painful meditation.

  ‘The cardinal must speak to you, my son. Sit yourselves together on those chairs over there. I myself have some mail to read.’

  I do not believe that I am mistaken in stating that the Pope did not miss a single word of our conversation that day, since he did not turn a single page of the text which he had in his hands.

  Julius seemed embarrassed, seeking some sign of complicity in my eyes. He cleared his throat discreetly.

  ‘A young person has just entered my service. Virtuous and beautiful. And intelligent. The Holy Father desires that I should present her to you, and that you should take her to wife. Her name is Maddalena.’

  Having delivered himself of these words with a visible effort, he turned to other matters, asked me about my past, my travels, my life in Rome. I discovered he had the same appetite for knowledge as his cousin, the same rapture at hearing the names of Timbuktu, Fez and Cairo, the same respect for the things of the mind. He made me swear that one day I should commit an account of my travels to paper, promising to be my most eager reader.

  The great pleasure which this conversation gave me did not however greatly reduce my profound suspicion towards the proposal which had been made to me. To state matters frankly, I had no desire at all to find myself the belated husband of some adolescent girl whose advanced state of pregnancy would set all the tongues of Rome wagging. However, it was difficult for me to say ‘No’ in a single word to the Pope and his cousin. Hence I formulated my reply in sufficiently roundabout terms to enable my feelings to show through:

  ‘I put myself in the hands of His Holiness and His Eminence, who know better than I what is good for my body and my soul.’

  The sound of the Pope’s laughter made me jump. Putting down his mail, he turned round to face us squarely.

  ‘Leo will see the girl this very day, after the requiem mass.’

  In fact that day was the commemoration, in the Sistine Chapel, of the first anniversary of the death of Raphael of Urbino, whom Leo X used to cherish more than all his other protégés. He often called him to mind with an unfeigned emotion, which made me regret having known him so little.

  Because of my long period of seclusion, I had only met Raphael twice; the first time briefly in a corridor of the Vatican, the second time at my baptism. After the ceremony he had come up, like so many others, to offer his congratulations to the Pope, who had put him beside me. A question was burning on his lips:

  ‘Is it true that there are neither painters nor sculptors in your country?’

  ‘Some people do paint or sculpt, but all figurative representation is condemned. It is considered as a challenge to the Creator.’

  ‘It does our art too much honour to think that it can emulate the Creation.’

  He made an astonished and somewhat condescending frown. I felt I had to reply:

  ‘Isn’t it true that after having made the statue of Moses Michelangelo ordered it to walk or speak?’

  Raphael smiled maliciously.

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘That is what the people of my country seek to avoid. That a man should have the ambition to substitute himself for the Creator.’

  ‘And the prince who decides on life and death, does h
e not substitute himself for the Creator in a far more blasphemous fashion than the painter? And the master who possesses slaves, who buys and sells them?’

  The painter’s voice rose. I tried to calm him:

  ‘One day I should like to visit your studio.’

  ‘If I were to decide to paint your portrait, would that be blasphemy?’

  ‘Not at all. It would be as if the most eloquent of our poets were to write a eulogy about me.’

  I had not found a better comparison. He was content with it.

  ‘Very well. Come to my house when you wish.’

  I had resolved to do so, but death had overtaken me. Of Raphael I remembered only a few words, a frown, a promise. It was my duty to think of him on that day of commemoration. But very quickly, already before the end of the ceremony, it was towards Maddalena that my thoughts turned.

  I tried to imagine her, her hair, her voice, her figure; I asked myself in which language I should speak to her, with which words I should begin. I also tried to guess what Leo X and his cousin could have said to each other before summoning me. The Pope had probably discovered that the cardinal had just added a young and beautiful girl to his numerous retinue, and fearing some new scene, had ordered him to get rid of her, swiftly and in a dignified manner. In that way no one could claim that Cardinal Julius had shameful designs upon the girl; his sole concern was to find a wife for his cousin Leo the African!

  A priest whom I knew, whom I saw leaving the chapel, gave me some additional information which served to confirm my suppositions: Maddalena had lived in a convent for a long time. In the course of a visit, the cardinal had noticed her, and when he was to leave at the end of the day he had quite simply taken her away in his baggage train. His behaviour had caused a scandal, and a complaint had reached the ears of Leo X, who had reacted immediately both as head of the Church and head of the Medici.

  I believed that I was now in possession of the core of the facts, but I only held a little of the peel.