“Shut up, Secretary.” It was the young Albizzi who spoke. “The gonfaloniere—or should I say ‘the ex-gonfaloniere’—has asked that you be present. You may confer with him until we’re ready to begin.” So declaring, he ambled off, making a great show of his disdainful airs and his superiority.
“Piero,” said Niccolo urgently when they were alone. “What happened?”
“They broke in on me. They were very resolute.”
“I told you to strengthen the guard,” said Niccolo angrily.
“But I never thought there was any danger here, in my own office.”
“Never mind that now, Piero. What do they want?”
“They demanded that I release all the prisoners we took the other day, the Medici partisans.”
“And you’ve ordered the release?”
“I have.”
“Do the guards still obey you then?”
“They look to the young firebrand before executing my orders. They’re caught in the middle. They don’t know whom to obey.”
“And what else does the young firebrand want?”
“He wants me dead,” said Soderini.
As Niccolo and the gonfaloniere talked, there was a ruckus at the door as a group of corpulent, officious gentlemen bustled into the room in a great cloud of scarlet and dark-blue robes. They were the recently imprisoned leaders of the resurgent Medici party and the fathers of the gilded pups who were holding the gonfaloniere prisoner.
Anton Francesco degli Albizzi was the first to speak. “Piero, you’ve been ill-treated,” he said solicitously to the fallen gonfaloniere. “Please, I’m terribly sorry. This should never have happened.”
The son of the prudent old politician, emboldened by his successful seizure of the gonfaloniere, and perhaps by the splendor of his dashing yellow-and-purple equipage as well, spoke up. “Father, this is no time for pity. This is the time for action, rash action if need be. You lack the nerve! You lack the will, you and your generation. Step aside now, and let us bring things to a fitting conclusion. The gonfaloniere is no longer of any use to Florence. Let us dispatch him. Don’t stand in our way!”
“Is that a threat?” said the older Albizzi, glaring at his impetuous offspring.
“Chi ha orecchie, intenda,” said the young man smugly. “But if Soderini lives, sedition lives. We’ll never be free of his plotting and scheming.”
The elder Albizzi regarded the broken gonfaloniere. Then he took in his son and the fidgeting crowd of high-strung champions he had gathered around him. He spoke to the hot-headed young tribe: “I counsel prudence. After all, Piero, for all his republican sympathies, is one of us. He merits some consideration, some mercy on that account.”
“He’s betrayed us all by siding with the vulgar and the low born! He’s dragged the name of Florence in the muck. He deserves death.” Young Albizzi was not to be denied. His band of intrepid civil warriors eagerly seconded his sentiments, and a fierce round of inter-generational conflict was set off. To all this, Niccolo and the gonfaloniere remained mute witnesses.
As the battle of words over Soderini’s destiny raged between the peacocks and patriarchs, Niccolo noticed that there was another silent observer, who also remained at a distance. Young, but not dandified, he was dressed plainly, in a simple brown lucco. And he wore a beard, which was unheard of for any self-respecting Florentine of the day.
The vociferous argument had reached an impasse, and the hot-blooded youths were on the point of driving their sires from the room with their stiff little daggers, when the bearded stranger rose. He approached the front lines of the battle, where the two Albizzi squared off as respective champions of their generations. The shock of recognition registered first on the face of the older Albizzi, who ceased arguing and assumed a posture of respect. “Ser Giuliano,” he muttered. One by one, the older men fell silent until only the screeching voices of their angry offspring filled the air.
The purple-and-yellow Albizzi had worked himself up to a pitch approaching rabidity when his father suddenly turned on him, put his heavy, sagging but still authoritative, face within an inch of his son’s and shouted, “Shut up, you fool!” A loud slap that sounded like a thunderclap brought the message home and stunned the boy into silence. “Now show some deference in the presence of my lord, Medici.”
Turning to the bearded man, he said, “I apologize for my son, Mio Signore, please forgive his impetuosity.”
“No apologies are necessary,” said the man in an even voice. “Unless they’re addressed to the gonfaloniere. He seems to have been badly used.”
In a matter of seconds, the blustering army of youth was reduced to a pack of groveling courtiers, fawning, pawing for favors at the feet of Giuliano de’ Medici. Respects were paid and repaid and paid again for insurance. All this, Giuliano received graciously, not arrogantly, and when the little pageant of obeisance had played itself out, he turned to the problem of the gonfaloniere.
“Piero,” Giuliano called him by his first name. “I have no grudge against you, but as you can see, it would be awkward to allow you to stay on here in an official capacity. You have—ahem—made enemies,” he indicated the pack of would-be lions, chaffing in the corner.
Then, approaching them, he said, “And you, do you think that you can win the backing of the people by murdering their gonfaloniere? Who among you is going to replace him in their affection? You? You?” Heads bowed. Rakishly shod feet shuffled uncomfortably.
To Soderini, Giuliano de’ Medici continued, “You’ve given much to Florence in the past, and perhaps you deserve more from her now than I or anyone else can offer. But we’re on opposite sides in this quarrel, and now my party is in the ascendancy. If we struggle with one another, if our supporters fight, it will tear the city apart. More blood will be spilled, Piero.”
Soderini stood up. He shot a fierce glance at his young tormentors. Then he spoke. There was a tremendous amount of dignity in his voice, in his bearing. He spoke to Giuliano de’ Medici not as a defeated man but as an equal: “For the good of the city, I yield. The reins of government are in your hands now. Use them wisely. Listen to the voice of the people.”
“I promise you that much, Gonfaloniere,” said the younger man solemnly. “And I promise you my protection, if you accept a sentence of exile.” There was grumbling from the revolutionaries at the offer of exile. Soderini only smiled in response. He knew he had no other choice.
“This man is someone you trust?” asked Giuliano, indicating Niccolo.
“Above all others,” acknowledged the gonfaloniere.
“Then let him act in your behalf to arrange for your departure.”
Two days later, escorted by a troop of forty horsemen, still clad in the colors of the republican militia, the Gonfaloniere Soderini rode out of Florence and into exile.
In the wake of Soderini’s abdication, a Ridolfi, one of the innumerable Medici cousins, was chosen as gonfaloniere. The Great Council was well stocked with Medici supporters long excluded from the government, and, of course, their salaries were raised. But aside from these changes in personnel, little else was altered. The institutions of Soderini’s government and the old republican forms were maintained. Giuliano de’ Medici seemed determined to remain, as he had promised, a private citizen among other citizens in Florence. He eschewed inhabiting the sumptuous Medici Palace and, instead, set up temporary quarters in the house of the elder Albizzi. He even shaved his beard to accommodate Florentine tastes.
At first, it was with an understandable degree of trepidation that Niccolo returned to the chancery after Soderini’s departure, but it soon became apparent that the massive and intricate bureaucracy that actually ran the day-to-day affairs of the city would remain in place. Letters still needed to be written, and thousands of petty foreign and domestic matters had still to be settled daily. For the most part, chancery business proceeded as usual, and if Niccolo had yielded some of the enormous influence he enjoyed under Soderini, he was nevertheless consulted f
requently on the many routine administrative matters that fell within his jurisdiction. In addition, his work at the chancery was rendered easier and more enjoyable by the presence of his friend Michelozzi, who now worked alongside Niccolo. But in mid-October, about two months after Soderini’s downfall, something happened to upset the delicate balance that had been struck between the new regime and the old. The Cardinal de’ Medici came to Florence.
He entered the city in triumph, reclining on his litter and looking for all the world like an enormous roast pig on a giant platter. He was swathed in yards of dazzling, loose white silk and crowned with his red cardinal’s hat. He was accompanied by four hundred arrogant Spanish lances and one thousand Spanish foot soldiers—those who had most distinguished themselves in the carnage at Prato. The undisputed head of the Medici family had arrived. The experiments in civic reconciliation were about to come to an end.
A balia was a sort of emergency government proclaimed in times of great crisis or civil strife. The balia was given extraordinary powers, for a short period of time, so as to be able to meet the crisis without submitting to the normal, and often-cantankerous, workings of parliamentary government. Only the assembled people had a right to call for a balia and demand the convocation of one of these short-term provisional governments.
A rather tawdry and mercenary assemblage of drunks and paid hangers-on in the Piazza della Signoria was represented as just such a spontaneous public outcry. It was called a tumultuous, explosive outburst, a unanimous expression of the popular will, a cri de coeur, a groan from the belly of the people, a rousing call to arms, a plea for change. . . . The cynical exploitation of this staged event knew no bounds.
In response to this clamoring from below, the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici—what choice did he have?—dissolved the Great Council and proclaimed the appointment of an interim balia to superintend the formation of a new government. The list of those who made up the balia, they were forty-five in all, read like an excerpt from the Medici family album. How could it be otherwise? They were all chosen personally by the cardinal.
“Reforms,” for so they were designated, followed rapidly. The militia was abolished. Citizens were denied the right to bear arms. All powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—were concentrated in the hands of the narrow forty-five-member balia, and the balia answered only to the Cardinal de’ Medici. This entire process took less than two weeks.
Niccolo, along with his colleagues in the chancery, watched these developments with a growing sense of hopelessness and impotence. Just like that, it was over. The republic had evaporated before their very eyes. And there was nothing they could do to stop it. Their reactions to this remarkable chain of events varied, ranging from outright collaboration and slavish prostration before their new masters to bitter denunciation and self-imposed exile.
And Niccolo? He did what was required of him, rendering accounts to the new council members when requested to do so. He burrowed into his work and wrote his letters. And he waited and hoped. He was determined to come to some sort of working relationship with the Medici, to hang on, and eventually, he thought, some form of republican government might be established under their protection. The younger brother, Giuliano, especially was open to the idea.
“Besides,” Niccolo said to himself, “what else can I do?” In fact, he had never had any other sort of employment except in the chancery. He hardly fancied the idea of becoming a wool merchant or a money changer or a locksmith or a stonemason or a barrel maker . . . The chancery and the Signoria were in his blood, and he would stay on and do what he could. He would bide his time and watch for an opening. And then Niccolo recalled a promise he had made long ago. He heard in his mind once again, the soft voice of the dying prophet—“Carry on my work. You will carry on my work? Won’t you?” Savonarola had been right. For people like himself and Niccolo, there was no other way. He would carry on the prophet’s work. Somehow.
While Niccolo was thus engaged in thought, a messenger darted into his study and off-handedly flung a letter on the table. The paper was of a rich, creamy vellum, hardly the stuff of routine diplomatic correspondence. Turning it over idly, Niccolo saw the red wax seals and the impression left in them by the signet—the balls. The wax was still warm and soft to the touch. It was only a brief note in an elegant hand, requesting his presence in the Via Larga, at the newly restored Medici Palace.
The austerity of the building’s exterior gave no clue whatsoever as to the sumptuousness that lay within. Although many of the art treasures from the days of Lorenzo de’ Medici had been lost to looters, his son the Cardinal Giovanni had been more than energetic in his efforts to restore the glories of the past. While in Rome, the cardinal had been an astute dealer in stolen antiquities and objets d’art, and now the palace was filled with his purchases. Niccolo was led through gleaming, gilded corridors, past fountains, past statues carved a thousand years ago by some unknown Greek hand, past paintings, and under ornate arches inscribed with the Medici balls.
Niccolo was told that the cardinal would receive him in the dining room, as he and his familiars were just concluding their midday meal. As they neared that room, roars of laughter could be heard. Niccolo thought he heard a great hoarse chorus shout, “Thirty-four!” Then “Thirty-five!” accompanied by another rousing burst of merriment. “Thirty-six!” What was going on?
Nobody paid the least bit of attention to Niccolo Machiavelli as he was ushered into the hall. “Thirty-seven!” “Thirty-eight!” The excitement was mounting. The spectacle that had the gay company enthralled was that being provided by a rotund man seated at a table behind a huge pile of eggshells. Next to the shells on the table were two hard-boiled eggs. As he popped one of them into his mouth, whole, the diners roared, “Thirty-nine!” And when the last egg disappeared a moment later, a resounding, delirious chorus of “Forty!” filled the air. There was wild applause. Apparently the man had just eaten forty eggs.
The bleary-eyed champion sat back in his chair and ran two small hands over a massive, distended belly. He was being showered with confetti. His triumph was complete. As Niccolo watched with a sort of detached amusement, the cardinal rose, banged repeatedly on a silver goblet, and called for silence. Gradually the delirium diminished to a point where he could make himself heard. “Mariano Fetti,” he proclaimed. “The undisputed king of jesters!” More cheers. The cardinal continued, “Who doubted my word? Who said he couldn’t eat forty eggs? Pay up! I’ve won the wager!”
Several of his fellow diners reached into pockets and purses and grudgingly extracted gold coins. These were passed down to the cardinal, who counted them carefully, looked around the table, and, with a burst of laughter, flung the handful of money recklessly over his shoulder. The entire company joined him in another round of laughter. Banging again for silence, the cardinal called for the prize to be awarded to the irrepressible Fetti, consumer of forty eggs. Two servants went scuttling off and returned a minute later with a large pie, which was placed in front of the champion. “Go ahead, Mariano,” said the cardinal with a mischievous grin. “Cut it open. It’s yours.”
With a long silver knife, Mariano Fetti bisected the pie, and, to the delight and amazement of all, two live nightingales flew out. As they circled the cavernous dining hall, the lusty cheers and cries of assembled diners rose and mixed with their joyful song. Breathless and red-faced from laughter, the jolly cardinal sank back into his ornately carved and gilded chair.
The chamberlain who had kept Niccolo waiting, not wanting to interrupt these capital festivities, now approached the cardinal and whispered something in his ear. The cardinal was wagging his great, flabby face up and down as he listened. He looked over at Niccolo and squinted in his direction with his one good eye. He stuck his pink tongue out between his teeth in the effort. Still squinting, he reached under the table and extracted something, a long tube that he raised to that blue, watery eye. It was a spyglass, and he trained it on his newly arrived guest. Thus he conducted a
leisurely examination of Niccolo from a distance of about twenty feet. The cardinal was almost blind.
Satisfying his curiosity, the cardinal rose abruptly, excused himself, and disappeared through a doorway behind the table. The chamberlain motioned for Niccolo to follow. When he reached the antechamber, the cardinal was already reclining on a day bed in the little room.
“Come in, come in, Machiavelli,” he said effusively. “Did you see Fetti? Isn’t he superb? Did you see he ate forty eggs?”
“Quite remarkable, Your Excellency,” said Niccolo.
“He can also eat twenty chickens in a sitting. Twenty chickens! And he has the most vile, outrageous sense of humor. He can keep you laughing for days.” The chubby cardinal chuckled at the mere thought of his superb jester. Niccolo said nothing. He watched the cardinal’s hands. For the moment, Florence was in those hands. His swollen, stubby fingers looked like sausages with gold rings on them.
The next time the cardinal spoke, he was holding several sheets of paper in those pink hands. “Did you write this?” he asked, handing the sheets to Niccolo.
“These are the letters I addressed to Your Excellency’s brother, Giuliano.”
“And they contain advice? That’s your word, ‘advice’ about how to reorder the city government?”
“That’s correct.”
“Some of this is really very astute, quite astute,” said the cardinal, chuckling again. “You warn us against confiscating a man’s property. He’ll feel more grief at the loss of his farm than at the loss of his father or brother, you say. Quite amusing. You don’t have a very high opinion of your fellow man, do you Machiavelli?”
“On the contrary, Your Excellency,” said Niccolo respectfully. “I have a tremendous amount of confidence in the people.”
“Yes, that comes through in these letters too,” said the cardinal thoughtfully. “You advise us to seek the people’s support. And Giuliano agrees with you. He thinks the support of the people is vital, if we are to remain in power here.”
Machiavelli: The Novel Page 64