Leo Africanus

by Amin Maalouf

  Once more that stubborn mark on his sleeve. He rubbed it even harder and dusted it off energetically before directing towards me a look without kindness.

  ‘Listen to me, Hasan! If you want to recall our friendship, our years at school, our family, the impending marriage of my son and your daughter, let’s talk about such things in peace around a full table and, by God, I should enjoy that moment more than any other. But if you are the envoy of the Pope and I am the envoy of the sultan, then we must discuss things differently.’

  I tried to defend myself:

  ‘Why should you reproach me? I only spoke about peace. Is it not right that the religions of the Book should cease to massacre one another?’

  He interrupted me:

  ‘You must know that between Constantinople and Rome, between Constantinople and Paris, it is faith which divides, and interest, noble or base, which brings together. Don’t talk to me about peace or the Book, because they are not in question, and it is not about them our masters think.’

  Since we were children I had never been able to keep up an argument against the Ferret. My reply had the ring of capitulation:

  ‘All the same I see a common interest between your master and my own; neither the one nor the other wants Charles V’s empire to spread throughout Europe, or Barbary!’

  Harun smiled.

  ‘Now that we are talking the same language I can tell you what I have come to do here. I am bringing the king gifts, promises, even a hundred or so brave horsemen who will fight at his side. Our struggle is the same; do you know that the French troops have just captured Ugo de Moneada, the man whom I myself defeated before Algiers after the death of ‘Aruj? Do you know that our fleet has been ordered to intervene if the imperial troops try to take Marseilles again? My master has decided to seal an alliance with King François, and to this end he will continue to multiply his gestures of friendship.’

  ‘Will you be able to promise the king that the Ottoman offensive in Europe will not continue?’

  Harun seemed exasperated by my naïveté.

  ‘If we attacked the Magyars, whose sovereign is none other than the brother-in-law of the Emperor Charles, the King of France would not think of reproaching us for it. It would be the same if we were to besiege Vienna, which is governed by the emperor’s own brother.’

  ‘Won’t the King of France be criticized by his peers if he lets Christian territories be conquered in this way?’

  ‘Probably, but my master is ready to give him in exchange the right to protect the destiny of the churches of Jerusalem and the Christians of the Levant.’

  We were silent for a moment, each immersed in our own thoughts. Harun leaned back on a carved chest and smiled.

  ‘When I told the King of France that I had brought a hundred soldiers for him, he seemed embarrassed. I thought for a moment that he would refuse to let them fight at his side, but eventually he thanked me most warmly. And he made it known in the camp that these horsemen were Christian vassals of the sultan.’

  He continued abruptly:

  ‘When will you return to your family?’

  ‘One day, certainly,’ I said hesitantly, ‘when Rome has lost its attractions for me.’

  ‘ ‘Abbad the Soussi told me when I saw him in Tunis that the Pope had imprisoned you for a year in a citadel.’

  ‘I had criticized him sharply.’

  Harun was overcome by a fit of merriment.

  ‘You Hasan, son of Muhammad the Granadan, allowed yourself to criticize the Pope right in the middle of Rome! ‘Abbad even told me that you criticized this Pope for being a foreigner.’

  ‘It was not exactly that. But my preference was certainly for an Italian, if possible a Medici from Florence.’

  My friend was dumbfounded that I should answer him in all seriousness.

  ‘A Medici, you say? Well, as soon as I return to Constantinople I shall suggest that the title of caliph should be taken away from the Ottomans and restored to a descendant of ‘Abbas’

  He cautiously stroked his neck and collar, repeating as if it were a refrain:

  ‘You prefer a Medici, you say?’

  While I was conversing with Harun, Guicciardini was concocting the most elaborate plans, convinced that my relationship with the emissary of the Grand Turk presented a unique opportunity for papal diplomacy. I had to moderate his enthusiasm, to make him aware, in particular, of the complete indifference which my brother-in-law had displayed. But the Florentine dismissed my objections with a wave of his hand:

  ‘In his capacity as ambassador, Harun Pasha will undoubtedly report our overtures to the Grand Turk. A step has been taken, and we shall receive an Ottoman emissary at Rome before long. Perhaps you and I will also take the road to Constantinople.’

  But before going further, it was time to give the Pope an account of our mission.

  We were hastening towards Rome when the snowstorm which I mentioned took us by surprise a few miles south of Bologna. With the first blasts, the drama of the Atlas broke in upon my memory. I felt myself brought back to those terrifying moments when I had felt myself surrounded by death as if by a pack of hungry wolves, only linked with life by the hand of my Hiba, which I held savagely. I repeated over and over again to myself the name of my beautiful Numidian slave, as if no other woman had ever taken her place in my heart.

  The wind redoubled its force, and the soldiers of our escort had to dismount to try to shelter. I did the same, and so did Guicciardini, but I quickly lost sight of him. I thought I heard shouts, calls, yells. From time to time I saw some fleeting figure which I tried to follow, but which vanished each time into fog. Soon my horse ran away. Running blindly, I collided with a tree, which I clung to, crouching and shivering. When, after the storm had died down, someone finally found me, I was stretched out unconscious, deep in the snow, my right leg fractured by some maddened horse. Apparently I had not remained covered up for long, which saved my leg from amputation, but I could not walk and my chest was on fire.

  So we returned towards Bologna, where Guicciardini put me in a little hostelry near the Spanish College. He himself left the next day, predicting that I would be on my feet within ten days and would be able to join him at the papal court. But that was only to make me feel better, because when he arrived in Rome he immediately advised Maddalena to come and join me as soon as possible with Giuseppe, and to bring my papers and my notes so that I could overcome my boredom by writing. In fact I could not get used to being unable to move, and at first I was in a perpetual temper, all day long cursing the snow, destiny and the unfortunate hotel-keeper, who nevertheless served me patiently.

  I was not to leave my bedroom until the end of that year. First I was nearly carried off by pneumonia and I had hardly recovered when my leg began to bother me again; it was so numb and swollen that I feared amputation once more. Out of rage and despair I worked and worked, day and night, and in this way I was able to finish the Arabic and Hebrew translations which I had promised the Saxon printer. I also managed to write the first volumes of my Description of Africa that year. After a few months I eventually began to get used to the advantages attached to my condition of sedentary scribe and penitent traveller, and to experience the everyday joys of my little family. But not without keeping an anxious eye on what was happening around me.

  I was still between two fevers at the beginning of March when Maddalena told me the news that was already shaking Italy: the imperial troops had crushed the army of the King of France before Pavia. At first it was rumoured that François had been killed; I soon learned that he had only been captured. But the situation was only a little less disastrous; whatever the fate of the monarch, it was clear that the French would not be able to stand in the way of the emperor’s ambitions for some time.

  I thought of Clement VII. He had shown too much favour to François not to suffer his part of the defeat. How would he extricate himself from his false step? Was he going to make peace with Charles V to avert his wrath? Or would he make
use of his authority to gather the princes of Christendom together against an emperor who had become too powerful, too dangerous for them all? I would have given a great deal to be able to talk to the Pope. And even more so to Guicciardini, particularly after a letter from him reached me at the beginning of summer, containing this enigmatic sentence, fearful in its irony: ‘Only a miracle can save Rome now, and the Pope desires that I should accomplish it!’

  The Year of the Black Bands

  932 A.H.

  18 October 1525 – 7 October 1526

  He was standing in front of me, a statue of flesh and iron, with a powerful laugh and enormous outbursts of rage.

  ‘I am the armed might of the Church.’

  Men though called him the ‘great devil’, and loved him for it, indomitable, intrepid, hot-headed, taking women and fortresses by storm. They were afraid of him, and prayed to God to protect him and to keep him far away.

  ‘My incorrigible cousin Giovanni,’ Clement VII would say, with tenderness and resignation.

  Condottiere and Medici, he was the epitome of all Italy. The troops he commanded were like him, venal and generous, tyrannical and lovers of justice, indifferent to death. That year, they had entered the Pope’s service. They were called the Black Bands, and their leader was soon no longer known as Giovanni di Medici but Giovanni of the Black Bands.

  I met him at Bologna. For my first outing I had decided to go to the palace of Master Jacopo Salviati, a venerable gentleman of the city, who had showered me with kindness all through my illness, constantly sending me money, books, clothes and presents. Guicciardini had asked him to take me under his protection, and he acquitted himself of that office with fatherly diligence, never letting a week pass without sending one of his pages to inquire after my health. This Salviati was the most prominent person in Bologna, and he lived in a luxurious manner worthy of the Medicis. It is true that his wife was none other than Pope Leo’s sister, and that his daughter Maria had married Giovanni of the Black Bands. Unfortunately for her, it must be said, since she saw him very rarely, between two campaigns, two idylls, two affairs.

  That day however he had come, less for his wife’s sake than for their son, aged six. I was walking towards the Palazzo Salviati, leaning on Maddalena’s shoulder, when the procession came within earshot. The condottiere was accompanied by a good forty of his faithful followers on horseback. Some passers-by murmured his name, some cheered him, others hurried past. I preferred to draw back to let him pass, as my gait was still slow and uncertain. He cried from far off:

  ‘Cosimo.’

  A child appeared in the embrasure of a window on the first floor. Giovanni set off at a trot, and then, when he was underneath the boy, drew his sword, pointed it at the boy and shouted:

  ‘Jump!’

  Maddalena almost fainted. She covered her eyes. I myself stood rooted to the spot. However, Master Jacopo, who had come out to welcome his son-in-law, said nothing. He certainly seemed extremely annoyed, but as if at some everyday misfortune rather than at a drama. Little Cosimo seemed no more surprised nor impressed. Putting his foot on the frieze, he jumped into the air. At the last moment, his father, throwing his sword away, caught him under his arms, held him at arms’ length and raised him above his head.

  ‘How is my prince?’

  The child and the father laughed, as well as the soldiers in the escort. Jacopo Salviati forced himself to smile. Seeing me arrive, he took advantage of this to relieve the tension by introducing me formally to his son-in-law.

  ‘Master John-Leo, geographer, poet, diplomat at the papal court.’

  The condottiere leaped to the ground. One of his men brought him back his sword, which he put back in its sheath while presenting himself to me with excessive joviality.

  ‘I am the armed might of the Church.’

  He had short hair, a thick brown moustache cut at the sides and a look which transfixed me more surely than a lance. At the time, the man seemed to me most unpleasant. But I soon changed my mind, seduced, like so many others, by his astonishing capacity to leave his gladiatorial soul behind to become a Florentine, a Medici of astonishing sensitivity and insight as soon as he entered a salon.

  ‘You were at Pavia, someone told me.’

  ‘I stayed there only a few days, in the company of Master Francesco Guicciardini.’

  ‘I was far away myself. I was inspecting my troops on the road to Milan. When I returned the Ottoman envoy had left. And you too, I think.’

  He had a knowing smile. To avoid betraying the secret of my mission I decided to keep silent and to turn my eyes away from his. He continued:

  ‘I have heard that a message left Paris recently for Constantinople asking the Turks to attack Hungary to force Charles V to divert his attention from Italy.’

  ‘Isn’t the King of France a prisoner in Spain?’

  ‘That doesn’t stop him from negotiating with the Pope and the sultan or from sending instructions to his mother, who is regent of the kingdom.’

  ‘Wasn’t it said that he is on the point of death?’

  ‘He is no longer. Death has changed its mind.’

  As I persisted in not expressing any opinion of my own, confining myself to asking questions, Giovanni asked me directly:

  ‘Don’t you think that it seems like a very curious coalition: the Pope allied to François, who is allied to the Grand Turk?’

  Was he trying to sound out my feelings for the Grand Turk? Or to find out what could have taken place with Harun Pasha?

  ‘I think that the Grand Turk, however powerful he may be, is not in a position to decide the outcome of a war in Italy. A hundred men taking part on the battlefield are more important than a hundred thousand men at the other side of the continent.’

  ‘Who is the strongest in Italy, in your opinion?’

  ‘There was a battle at Pavia, and we should drawn our conclusions from it.’

  My reply evidently pleased him. His tone became friendly, even admiring.

  ‘I am happy to hear these words, because, in Rome the Pope is hesitant and your friend Guicciardini is pushing him to attack Charles and ally himself with François, at the very moment when the King of France is the emperor’s prisoner. In my position I cannot express my reservations without giving the impression of fearing a confrontation with the empire, but you will soon realize that this mad Giovanni is not entirely devoid of wisdom and this great sage Guicciardini is on the point of committing a folly and of making the Pope commit one as well.’

  Thinking that he had spoken too seriously, he began to tell a succession of anecdotes about his latest wild boar hunt. Before returning abruptly to the charge:

  ‘You should say what you think to the Pope. Why don’t you come back to Rome with me?’

  I had in fact intended to put an end to my seemingly endless enforced stay in Bologna. I hastened to accept his offer, telling myself that a journey at Giovanni’s side would be extremely pleasant, and without danger, since no brigand would dare to approach such a procession. And so, the very next day, I found myself on the road again with Maddalena and Giuseppe, surrounded by the fearsome warriors of the Black Bands, who became, on this occasion, the most attentive of companions.

  After three days’ march, we arrived at Giovanni’s residence, a magnificent castle called Il Trebbio, where we spent a night. Early the next morning we reached Florence.

  ‘You must be the only Medici who does not know this city!’ exclaimed the condottiere.

  ‘On the way to Pavia with Guicciardini we almost stopped here, but we had no time.’

  ‘He must be a real barbarian, that “time” which prevents you seeing Florence!’

  And he added immediately:

  ‘Time presses on this occasion too, but I would not forgive myself if I did not show you around.’

  I had never before visited a city with an army as a guide. All along the Via Larga to the Palazzo Medici, where we burst into the colonnaded courtyard, it was a regular morning parade
. A servant came to invite us in, but Giovanni refused curtly.

  ‘Is Master Alessandro there?’

  ‘I think he is asleep.’

  ‘And Master Ippolito?’

  ‘He is asleep too. Should I wake them up?’

  Giovanni shrugged his shoulders disdainfully and turned back. Leaving the courtyard he went several paces to the right to show me a building under construction:

  ‘The church of San Lorenzo. This is where Michelangelo Buonarotti works now, but I don’t dare to take you there because he could easily show us the door. He has little love for the Medici and besides he has an unpleasant character. Indeed, that was why he came back to Florence. Most of our great artists live in Rome. But Leo X, who gathered so many talented people around him, preferred to send Michelangelo away and give him a commission here.’

  He resumed the tour in the direction of the Duomo. On both sides of the road the houses seemed to be well laid out and tastefully embellished, but there were very few as luxurious as those in Rome.

  The Eternal City is full of works of art,’ my guide acknowledged, ‘but Florence is itself a work of art, and it is to the Florentines that we owe the best in all disciplines.’

  I thought I was listening to a Fassi talking!

  When we reached the Piazza della Signoria, and when a notable of a certain age, dressed in a long robe, came up to Giovanni to exchange a few words with him, a group of people began to chant ‘Palle! Palle!’, the rallying cry of the Medici, to which my companion replied with a salute, saying to me:

  ‘Don’t think that all the members of my family would be acclaimed in this fashion. I am the only one who still enjoys some favour with the Florentines. If, for instance, my cousin Julius, I should say Pope Clement, were to decide to come here today, he would be booed and jostled. Moreover, he knows it very well.’

  ‘But isn’t it your native city?’

  ‘Ah, my friend, Florence is a strange mistress for the Medici! When we are far off, she calls us with loud cries; when we come back, she curses us.’