Machiavelli: The Novel

by Joseph Markulin

  When Callimaco swabbed the offending tooth with his miracle salve, Niccolo became aware of an intense, tingling alcohol-and-mint taste spreading throughout his mouth, not at all unpleasant. He made no effort to distinguish the secret ingredient in the balm.

  “There,” concluded the doctor, “In less than a minute, you’ll be fine. No trace of a toothache.”

  When the dental man pulled his head away, and Niccolo looked up, something untoward swung into his line of vision. A robe, topped by a grotesque mask was suspended from the rafters, a carnival costume, hung in effigy.

  The mask, which could be pulled down to cover the entire head and shoulders, had two eyeholes closed with what appeared to be crystal lenses and a large yellow horn protruding like a beak from the front. It looked like some oversized, mawkish bird, eyes bulging with surprise and fear. Both mask and robe were made of fine, supple leather. In a room full of strange and remarkable things, this was one of the strangest.

  “That’s a rather extravagant costume, isn’t it?” asked Niccolo, thinking to himself that it was ultimately no more gaudy or attention-getting than what passed for everyday street clothes with his new friend.

  “Costume, indeed!” retorted Callimaco. “That is professional garb.”

  “Oh, really, what do you peddle when you’re dressed up in that? Fresh eggs?”

  Callimaco let his friend laugh as he got down the costume. He showed Niccolo how the neck and sleeves could be strapped tightly to the body with leather thongs. At the bottom, the robe had been sewn shut, sealed off except for two openings for the feet, which likewise fastened snugly around the ankles. There were gloves that covered the hands, also made of soft, black leather.

  He let Niccolo try on the mask. There was an intense, aromatic odor inside the hood. The beak was hollow and had been filled with herbal gums. Niccolo was surprised at how clearly he could see through the eye lenses. Removing the thing, and handing it back to his friend, he said, “So, what is it for?”

  “You notice that with the mask and gloves in place, you are completely cut off from contact with the outside world?” said Callimaco in a serious tone that Niccolo had not heard him use before. “Sealed in this leather sheath, the animalcules that cause diseases cannot touch you. This ‘costume,’ as you call it, is what I use to go among victims of the plague.”

  Niccolo shuddered at the images of death and devastation that the word plague always invoked. The Black Death. And now, for a fleeting moment, he saw this black leather bird with its grotesque yellow bill treading quietly through the houses and streets of the dead and dying.

  “You’ve lived through the plague? You’ve seen it?”

  “On more than one occasion,” said Callimaco.

  Niccolo was eyeing his new friend with curiosity. He said, “There’s only been one outbreak in Florence, that I remember, and it was a minor outbreak. But my father took no chances. He brought the whole family out of the infected city, immediately. The country is the only place to be when the plague rages.”

  “Perhaps,” said Callimaco, “but not for a physician.”

  Niccolo said nothing, but he was thinking that there was more to his new friend than he had originally anticipated. He had pegged him for a dandy, a confidence man, probably a charlatan, and a scurrilous, flippant profiteer. But now . . .

  As Callimaco was slowly rising in Niccolo’s esteem, there was a violent pounding at the door. It was the hard sound made, not by fists, but by the hilts of drawn swords. Niccolo sprang to his feet. Callimaco reacted even more quickly. He bounded to a table placed under one of the windows. “This way,” he hissed. “Hurry.”

  They both scrambled out the window and dropped to the sloping, red-clay roof. With Callimaco in the lead, they clattered across the tiles. “Where in the hell is he going?” thought Niccolo as they headed precipitously toward the end of the roof. Are we going to throw ourselves down into the street?

  When they reached the end of the roof, Callimaco pulled up short and fell to his knees. Stretching himself out on his belly, he shinnied as close to the edge as he dared. He reached out and under with one arm and pulled hard on something. A rope, about fifteen feet in length, uncoiled itself. Slipping over the edge and finding the rope with his feet, he smiled apologetically at Niccolo. “This kind of thing happens all the time around here.”

  The alacrity and the surety with which Callimaco had extricated himself was proof to Niccolo that his friend had indeed availed himself of this avenue of escape before. The rope enabled them to climb down and swing through a window in a staircase at the opposite end of the courtyard. In no time they were rushing out into the street.

  But they rushed headlong into an agitated group of men, a small mob moving with determination down the street, some brandishing weapons. Before the two escapees could turn and flee, or even think of doing so, the mob was on them. But the excited men showed no interest whatsoever in Callimaco and Niccolo and swept right past. Out of breath, the two young men stood looking at each other in amazement.

  Recovering their senses and their better judgment, they made off quickly, hoping to put some distance between themselves and the assailants at Callimaco’s door. But as they went, they saw other groups of angry men shouting, “In piazza! Tutti in piazza! Everybody to the main square!”

  Something was up. “More rioting,” thought Niccolo. And indeed he could hear other shouts rising up from the streets—among them, “Popolo e libertá!”

  “Come on,” he said, tugging at Callimaco’s soiled, pink doublet. “I want to see what’s going on at the Signoria. Nobody will spot you there in the confusion. We’ll be safe in the crowd.”

  As they pressed toward the heart of the city, there were more and more people in the streets. Frantic activity was everywhere. Niccolo managed to grab hold of one of the less hysterical members of the mob around him. “What’s going on? What happened?” he demanded, almost shaking the man and having to shout to make himself heard.

  The man looked at Niccolo as if he thought he had just fallen to earth from the moon. “You don’t know?” he said wide-eyed. “The French army has just crossed the Alps into Italy!”

  “Oh God,” thought Niccolo, relinquishing his grip on his informant. “It is coming.”

  Louis XI of France came to be known as the Spider King. Through a skillful combination of diplomacy, intrigue, treachery, and naked force of arms, he had succeeded in forging a great, united kingdom that stretched from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. From his seat in Paris, the Spider had spun his web, gradually encircling the feuding duchies of Burgundy, Artois, Picardy, Anjou, Orleans, Franche-Comte, and Provence. One by one, he subdued these independent kingdoms. One by one, with insidious threads of steel, he bound them fast to himself and his authority. What had been a collection of small realms, endlessly warring among themselves, was now a powerful and consolidated kingdom with a central administration. As a result of the Spider’s efforts, at the close of the fifteenth century, France was a united country, a nation-state at peace with itself—one people, one government.

  When Charles VIII succeeded his father, he did so as undisputed monarch of all France. He inherited a secure throne, a full treasury, a strong army, and an economically prosperous nation. Charles could have lived out his days serenely, content with the bounty that had been bestowed upon him. But he was young and twitching with ambition. He dreamed large dreams. He listened to voices that whispered in his ear, whispered of conquest, of greatness, and of empire. And so it was that the Son of the Spider, burning with a desire for glory, turned his gaze south, to Italy.

  In looking across the Alps, he saw the splendor of a bright sun, warm breezes, blue skies, and the smell of pine and cedar in the air. But he also saw that all was not well in this earthly paradise. He saw cruelty and unbridled ambition. He saw atrocity and calamity at every turn—betrayal, bad judgment, all-consuming greed. In short, he saw utter disarray, vulnerability—and opportunity.

  On the ninth day of S
eptember 1494, the Son of the Spider, at the head of an army of over thirty thousand men, took the decisive step. At Monginevra, he crossed the Alps and entered the northern Italian province of Asti.

  The fateful passage of Charles into Italy was accompanied by the usual ominous signs and wonders. In Puglia, three suns appeared in the night sky, flashing with thunder and lightning. Men and beasts gave birth to monstrous offspring. The ghost of Ferrante, recently deceased king of Naples, was said to wander in his garden repeating obsessively to his son, Alfonso, one word and one word only—France.

  More than anyone else in Italy, Alfonso, indeed, had cause for alarm, for it was Naples that was the announced object of Charles’s Italian expedition. That a foreigner should aspire to the throne of an Italian kingdom was nothing unusual. Divided and lacerated, Italy had for centuries been the battleground where conflicts of European dimensions were fought out. Naples, in particular, had been under almost-continual foreign domination since the fall of the Roman Empire. Over the centuries, even the Moors had managed to gain a foothold in this lush southern Italian kingdom.

  Unlike France, Italy was not a nation. She was a hydra-headed geographical entity cut off from the rest of Europe by a mountain range. Although she had attained some degree of cultural and linguistic homogeneity, politically, she was a house divided and subdivided against herself. Confusion reigned. Alliances between the city-states were made and dissolved from month to month, and even week to week. The duplicity inherent in the Italian states’ dealings with one another conspired to produce a can, not of worms, but of snakes.

  For the Son of the Spider to reach Naples, then, at the very southern end of Italy, he had first to traverse the entire length of the peninsula. In the north, he found no resistance. Milan welcomed him, and Venice chose to ignore him. In the south, the pope was already scrambling to come to terms, no matter how ignominious, with the invading Frenchman.

  Everywhere, tributes were being paid, treaties concluded, safe-passages arranged. Italy cowered before Charles. His path to the coveted plum of Naples was being smoothed for him as he went. There was only one obstacle, one unresolved problem. That path led directly through Florence.

  Debate raged in the city. Traditionally friendly to French interests, Florence had in a large measure depended on outside support from France to maintain her independence in the perilous Italian political climate. But now things were different. Charles was demanding from the Florentines, not only passage through Tuscany, but major territorial concessions with rights to income and huge contributions to finance his war on Naples. It was the arrogance of Charles’s demands that inflamed many Florentine tempers. He was coming, not as an ally, but as a conqueror.

  Florence was torn between accommodation or resistance. Piero de’ Medici, after voicing vague sentiments in favor of an alliance with Naples, betook himself to his new passion, tilting matches.

  The voice of Savonarola certainly made itself heard, and with even more power and conviction than before. After all, another of his prophecies was being fulfilled. The scourge was coming. But absent from the preacher’s homilies were any prescriptions as to how to meet that scourge. If he had told the people to arm themselves, they would have done so. If he had told them to hurl themselves from the walls on the backs of the enemies with nothing but their teeth and nails for weapons, they would have obliged him. But he did nothing of the kind. In the face of a very real, earthly threat, Savonarola exhorted his flock to lift their eyes to heaven. “It is coming,” he assured his flock. “And there is nothing you can do about it. In vain do men seek to guard a city not guarded by God.” He was waiting for a miracle.

  Other citizens, less likely to rely on divine intervention, were growing more and more alarmed at Piero de’ Medici’s lack of leadership in the crisis. Piero Capponi and Francesco Valori were two such concerned citizens, frantically trying to do everything in their power to ready the city for the onslaught of the advancing hordes.

  It was an uphill struggle. The best citizens looked only to their own interests, secreting away valuable possessions and planning how best to survive the inevitable sack of the city. Florence had no standing army. If she were to be defended, it would be necessary to hire one, and money was in short supply.

  In their desperation, Capponi and Valori implored Savonarola to use his tremendous influence to help them. But the friar was adamant. It was at their second meeting with him that one of the friar’s protégées came to their attention, an eager young man who followed their arguments with keen interest, and whose consternation at the friar’s obstinacy was scarcely concealed. The day after that meeting, Niccolo Machiavelli presented himself to Francesco Capponi, offering his services to the cause of the republic and volunteering to do what he could to save her from destruction. It was selfishness and the abandonment of the public good on the part of far more capable men that explains why young Niccolo was subsequently entrusted with an important mission. At twenty-five years of age, he was living out one of his childhood fantasies. He had become a spy.

  In making its way into Italy, the French army had taken the mountain pass at Monginevra. It was not the most direct route, but it was the widest and the easiest to negotiate. This was why Hannibal had chosen the route over a thousand years ago—so that his elephants, those mighty, lumbering engines of war, might pass easily and quickly through the steep, treacherous mountains. It was generally assumed that Charles had followed the same route so that his lumbering engines of war—unwieldy iron cannons—could likewise pass through the mountains with a minimum of difficulty and loss.

  But now a rumor was spreading through Italy like wildfire and had reached Florence. Charles had no cannons! So certain was he of the capitulation of the Italian states that he had not even bothered to provide himself with artillery. If this were true, the defense of Florence would not be an impossible undertaking. There was hope. If it were true. . . . In the confusion that reigned, with few willing to take responsibility and even fewer willing to take action, it was given to Niccolo Machiavelli to ascertain the veracity of this rumor.

  Niccolo took with him only one companion—his new friend Callimaco Guadagni, whose superb command of the French language he thought might prove a valuable asset in his intelligence-gathering operation. Callimaco, for his part, was more than willing to go. In fact, he judged it the prudent course. At the moment, it was probably more dangerous for him to remain in the city than to take his chances against the French.

  They traveled on horseback, north through the Apennines. Niccolo had seen to it that his friend was more soberly and inconspicuously attired than usual. Despite the gravity of their mission and the precarious situation in which they were about to place themselves, the two were in high spirits. Callimaco talked freely about his past and the rather startling circumstances that had led to his unfortunate persecution in Florence. As Niccolo had suspected, dalliance with a client and a jealous husband were at the root of his friend’s problems.

  The French host moved slowly. Charles seemed to be in no hurry and was taking time to enjoy himself in this exotic, lovely land. Rumors of his addiction to sensual pleasures preceded the army, and strange tales followed in its wake. Niccolo and Callimaco had no trouble making rendezvous with the advancing army. Its leisurely pace allowed them to track it, at a distance, with surprising ease. What they wanted to know became quickly apparent. Although neither was an expert in military affairs, the situation would have been obvious to a child. The huge, conspicuous carts and the teams of enormous oxen needed to transport heavy artillery were entirely absent from the French ranks.

  Having determined this to their satisfaction and great relief, Niccolo and Callimaco felt free to return to Florence, but they decided to follow in the French train for a few days, hoping to learn anything that might be potentially useful. They even discussed the possibility of going down into the French camp for a closer look at the enemy. Nor was this a particularly bold proposition, since Charles made little secret of his doi
ngs and security was notoriously lax. By design, of course. Italians were graciously admitted to the French encampments. Peddlers, merchants, peasants, tradesmen, and of course, women. Let them come and see for themselves the spectacle of thirty thousand warriors, thought the king of France—hardened, professional soldiers, grisly and well-armed. Let them come and look. And let them tremble!

  Observed from the hilltops, the discipline of the army was impressive, the Swiss, especially, in their patterned red-and-yellow uniforms. They marched in blocks, walls of men in tight formations. Niccolo marveled and wondered idly to himself, did they sleep in those formations?

  Once Niccolo and Callimaco had gotten a good look at the entire length of the column, they made it their practice to shadow the army, staying behind it, and lingering in the towns after the French left. Thus, they were free to ask questions and gather information from their fellow Italians without risk. This procedure also allowed them to seek comfortable lodgings and spare themselves the ordeal of sleeping on the damp ground.

  They learned that the French soldiery was arrogant and uncouth in their dealings with the “conquered people.” Charles himself kept out of sight and treated only with the leaders and the most prominent citizens. Needless to say, they went to him; he did not come to them. But in every town, every night, Charles demanded the company of a young and fair Italian woman. And it was rumored that he had an artist, brought down with him from Paris, sketch a portrait of each and every one. He was going to put them in a book, to help him remember his passage, his lovely, uncontested passage through this docile, gentle land.

  The army continued through Imola and Faenza and entered the province of Forli. They set up camp on a broad plain before the fortress of Mordano. The two young Florentines, competent spies now, remained a step behind, in Faenza, drinking in taverns whose customers were their primary sources of intelligence on the habits of the French. Machiavelli and Guadagni were relaxed. Their fears had subsided, and both had come to believe that the danger to Florence was now minimal. The French king had demanded a huge sum of money. Florence would swallow her pride, offer half what he wanted, and they would come to terms. What choice would Charles have? His soldiers could sack the countryside, and their mere appearance terrify a small castle, but a fortified city, well provided, could hold out for months, even years before an army with no artillery. A lengthy siege of Florence was unlikely, especially given that the king’s real target was Naples.