Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici

by Carolyn Meyer

  10

  Ippolito

  POPE CLEMENT ALWAYS insisted on calling himself my uncle, although our relationship was not close; we were only very distant cousins. After our first emotional meeting, my “uncle”—or whatever he was—paid little attention to me. He informed me of his wishes through Cardinal Giovanni Salviati.

  “The Holy Father has decided that you must acquire a number of necessary skills, Duchessina,” said the cardinal. “These will prepare you for your eventual marriage to a nobleman who would expect certain talents in a wife.”

  Various tutors would be assigned as needed, he explained—one for Latin, who would also instruct me in Greek; and a mathematician to introduce me to the study of astrology. The needlework skills and “the virtues” I’d acquired at Le Murate were deemed sufficient.

  But, I wondered, what sort of man would expect his wife to have such an education? Passerini had insisted to Aunt Clarissa that women should not be taught to read. Why had this changed?

  “His Holiness gives no reason,” said the cardinal. Then he asked, “Can you ride horseback?”

  “A little.”

  “You must learn to use a sidesaddle,” he said.

  It was the custom for ladies to ride a horse or mule facing sideways on a wooden seat strapped to the animal’s back, while a groom led it at a walking pace. Why, then, did I need to learn this new style?

  “His Holiness gives no reason,” repeated the cardinal.

  How exasperating! Apparently I wasn’t to be given an explanation for anything. “Who will teach me?”

  “Your cousin, Alessandro.”

  “Alessandro? But that’s impossible!” I cried.

  The cardinal merely lifted his eyebrows. “It is as His Holiness wishes. Alessandro seems pleased by his assignment. Perhaps it will come to please you as well, Duchessina.”

  I rushed to Maria to complain, telling her how unhappy I was with this arrangement. “Alessandro used to enjoy tormenting me,” I told her.

  “Maybe he’s improved. Anyhow, it is as His Holiness wishes,” Maria said, sounding like the cardinal. “Wait, I have a gift for you.” She handed me some sort of linen garment, the like of which I’d never seen. “Short underbreeches gathered at the knee, to wear beneath your petticoat when you go riding, for modesty’s sake, in the event you fall off.”

  Glumly I prepared for my first lesson and dragged my feet to the palazzo stables by the Piazza Navona, trailed by my usual company of Lucrezia’s friends who chaperoned me while mostly gossiping among themselves. Alessandro was waiting for me, sprawled on a bench. He didn’t bother to rise.

  At nineteen, Alessandro was tall and thin. A few straggly hairs sprouted on his chin, and his teeth were as pointed as a rat’s. He wore a permanent scowl, his eyes bored and half closed. He greeted me with a croak, imitating a frog.

  “Hail to the Frog Duchess! You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Because you know it’s true.” He looked me over, his lip curled disdainfully. “So it has become my duty—no, my extreme pleasure—to teach the Frog Duchess to ride a horse.”

  I stood rooted to the spot, forcing myself to be still. My throat was dry, but I managed to speak. “I’m sure you’ll find me an apt pupil,” I said. To my horror my voice did come out like a croak.

  Alessandro called sharply for the groom to bring my horse, a pretty mare. Her leather saddle was equipped with a high pommel and two stirrups hanging to one side. She looked much taller than the dainty mules I was used to. The groom boosted me into the saddle and instructed me to hook my right leg around the pommel. I was grateful for the linen breeches.

  My feet had scarcely found the stirrups before Alessandro leaped onto his gray stallion and trotted off. My horse followed. The stallion broke into a gallop; my mare did, too. We tore through the Campo dei Fiori with its bustling market, knocking over baskets of fruit and fish, alarming housemaids doing their shopping, setting dogs off barking. We clattered over the Ponte Sisto across the Tiber to Trastevere, a neighborhood of poor merchants and craftsmen, plunged down the narrow streets, and emerged at last in the countryside. I hung on desperately, not daring to look back to see what had happened to the ladies who were supposed to accompany us. Although I was still rather small and thin, I was agile, and after a time I began to get the feel of horse and saddle.

  “Not bad for a Frog Duchess,” Alessandro muttered darkly when we’d passed the ashen-faced ladies at full gallop and returned to the stables. “Scared, weren’t you?”

  “Not in the least,” I lied, although my body ached from head to foot. Even if I had fallen off and shattered every bone in my body, I would not have admitted any fear to Alessandro.

  “Then I must try harder next time,” he said over his shoulder, tossing the reins to a groom and swaggering off.

  POPE CLEMENT required my presence at many of the elaborate dinners at his villa, Belvedere, or at his private apartment in Castel Sant’ Angelo. I made the short trip between the Palazzo Medici and the pope’s residences two or three times each week with Lucrezia, the pope’s official hostess. Sometimes Maria or moody Francesca came along.

  Advent began on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. At Le Murate we’d abstained from meat, eggs, and cheese during this period. I was surprised, then, that Pope Clement’s Advent dinners were as luxurious as ever, with stuffed capon and wild boar, as well as quantities of wine and exquisite sweets.

  When I asked Francesca why the Holy Father didn’t observe the Advent fast, she shrugged. “He’s the pope. He can eat whatever he wants.”

  By Christmas I had still not exchanged a single word with Ippolito, although I thought about him all the time. Every dinner at the Belvedere was an opportunity to look for him. If I had a glimpse of him, and if he actually looked my way and smiled, I counted the dinner a success, no matter what wheezing old bishop or shrill-voiced countess sat next to me and claimed my attention. If I didn’t see him, I brooded for days, until the next opportunity.

  Whenever I thought of Ippolito, I indulged in fanciful dreams of the future. Now twenty-one years old, ten years older than I, Ippolito had grown into a handsome man with intense dark eyes and a warm, bright smile. Watching him from far off, I believed I saw in him a good-humored zest for life. Surely, I reasoned, Ippolito would come to rule Florence, as Pope Leo had planned it before his death. The idea had even occurred to me that one day we might marry. But even as I nurtured these notions, I knew they were no more substantial than the morning fog: Regardless of what Pope Leo had intended years ago, Pope Clement had promised Florence to Alessandro and his future bride, the emperor’s daughter.

  But that doesn’t mean we can’t marry, I thought. And maybe in time the Holy Father will see that Alessandro isn’t suited—or worthy—to rule Florence, and that Ippolito is. I clung to that hope as though wishing could make it true.

  ALTHOUGH I WAS rarely alone, I was often lonely. Betta was the one steadfast connection to my childhood, but the gap between us widened as I grew older. Lucrezia treated me kindly enough, but she was caught up in her own affairs and often seemed distracted. Francesca’s moods were unpredictable, merry one day and glum the next as her plans to wed Ottavio kept changing. Pope Clement exercised complete control over my life, and I was often in his presence, but I was never alone with him—not once.

  “The Holy Father watches over you from afar,” Cardinal Giovanni told me piously, “just as the angels on high watch over every one of us.”

  I didn’t think Pope Clement could be compared to an angel, but Alessandro, on the other hand, did resemble one of those ugly demons that crawled up out of the depths of hell in religious paintings. Our gallops through the countryside had become wilder, but I got more confident at taking jumps over streams and logs; I learned to trust my horse, although I never trusted my cousin. Then, as winter closed in, my riding lessons came to a temporary end. “Until spring, dear little Frog Duchess,” said Alessandro with a mocking bow.

  The one person in whom I could
confide was Maria, but not even to Maria could I speak of my feelings for Ippolito and my dream of returning to Florence with him as his wife. I was afraid she would tell me I was being childish.

  DURING THE FIRST blustery months of 1531, I spent most of the day with my tutors in the library of the Palazzo Medici. The library had been established by Pope Leo, and he had continued to add to it even after he’d moved to the Vatican. After his death, much of his collection had been brought back to the family palace. Oddly, it had somehow survived the sack of Rome. Now it was seldom used. A fine layer of dust covered everything, the candles in the wall sconces were burned to the sockets, and the fire in the stove had been dead for a long time. When my lessons began, Lucrezia ordered the candles replaced and the fire lit. Here the mathematician spread his zodiac charts, and the tutor in Latin and Greek found books to suit his purpose. When the tutors had gone for the day, I thought of the library as my own private refuge, filled with treasures to be admired and mysteries to be explored.

  On a high shelf reached by a ladder, I discovered a portfolio containing a number of drawings of an elephant; some were in red chalk on gray paper, others were pen and ink sketches on parchment. According to notes in the portfolio, the elephant, named Hanno, had been a gift from the king of Portugal to Leo. Pope Leo had kept Hanno in an enclosure within the Vatican walls. I felt I had something in common with Hanno—the poor elephant must have been lonely, too. I moved the portfolio to a lower shelf where I could reach it easily.

  One day I arrived in the library and was startled to find someone already there, seated at the table near the window where I always sat.

  It was Ippolito.

  “Duchessina!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “How I’ve wanted to talk to you, ever since I learned you were here!”

  I thought I heard in his voice what I was feeling in my heart. “I’ve wanted to talk to you, too,” I said. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m working on a translation from Latin of the Aeneid, about the fall of Troy. I’m not sure I’m up to the task, although I do write a little poetry. And you, Duchessina? Some serious study for you, as well?”

  “I’ve come to study the pope’s elephant,” I said, immediately wondering why I’d said something so foolish.

  “Ah, you’ve learned about Hanno. Well, whatever reason brings you here, I’m glad of it,” he said. A smile lit Ippolito’s handsome face. I smiled back at him.

  We spread the drawings on the table, and together we examined them.

  “Everyone in Rome has heard of the great beast,” Ippolito said. “Leo loved him, the Romans loved him. Hanno was always at the head of the pope’s processions through the city. But Hanno died after he’d been with our uncle for only two years. That was before you were born. Pope Leo was deeply saddened. Of all the animals in the Vatican menagerie, the elephant was his favorite.”

  “Hanno must have been magnificent,” I said. “I’ve never seen an elephant.”

  “Nor have I. I was in Florence then, but even there he was talked about.”

  Discussing an animal that neither of us had ever seen: That was how our childhood friendship began to grow into something so much more.

  THROUGHOUT THE WINTER Ippolito and I met whenever we could at the library—it was not often—always careful to keep our meetings secret. The secrecy was Ippolito’s idea. “I’m quite certain the Holy Father would not consider me a proper companion for la duchessina,” he said. We took turns pulling volumes down from the shelves and studying them, using that as an opportunity to sit so close that our heads nearly touched. I can scarcely remember what we talked about—perhaps our days in Florence, perhaps our still formless dreams of the future. It didn’t matter. I was with Ippolito.

  On the Tuesday before the beginning of Lent we spoke for the first time of our feelings.

  “I’m not quite twelve years old,” I told Ippolito, “and yet I’ve lost nearly everyone close to me: my father, my mother, my aunt Clarissa, my grandmother, my great-uncle Pope Leo, Suor Battista at Le Murate—all people who truly cared what became of me. I wanted to stay at the convent, because I have friends there and the abbess is my godmother, but Pope Clement ordered me to come here. Aunt Lucrezia is kind to me, and I’ve become fond of Maria, and yet I’m lonely. Do you understand, Ippolito?”

  “Of course I understand, Duchessina. Pope Leo became like a father to me, after my own father died. He used to take me hunting when I was just a little boy, before he became pope. Now I, too, have no one. Clement assigns me a hundred duties to perform, yet I’m as lonely as you are.”

  “But you have Alessandro,” I suggested.

  “Alessandro hates me!” Ippolito exclaimed. “And I feel the same about him. But we must hide our real feelings.”

  “I hate him, too,” I said heatedly. “Alessandro calls me the Frog Duchess. He mocks me. I sometimes thought he would manage to kill me during those terrifying riding lessons.”

  “But you have the pope’s protection. The Holy Father gives every sign that you are cherished.”

  “I want to believe that Pope Clement loves me, but in my heart I know the truth: He only pretends to love me. His affection for me is as feigned as yours for Alessandro.”

  Ippolito shook his head sadly. “Clement doesn’t even bother pretending for me. Not only does he have no affection for me, he’ll do whatever he can to get me out of the way. Then Alessandro will have it all.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Alessandro is cruel and bad mannered, so why—”

  “Because Alessandro is Pope Clement’s bastard son!” Ippolito interrupted. “And that’s why he’s the favorite, and why he will one day rule Florence. You didn’t know that?”

  “No,” I said, shocked. “I knew that Alessandro’s father was a cardinal, but I believed that he was the son of Cardinal Passerini.”

  “You had the wrong cardinal in mind, Duchessina.”

  Ippolito’s hand had come to rest on mine. My heart was pounding so hard that I believed surely he could hear it. But then he caught himself and drew away.

  I changed the subject quickly. “The frescoes in the Chapel of the Magi,” I said. “Do you remember them, Ippolito?”

  “Of course I do, my dear Duchessina,” he said softly.

  My dear Duchessina! I could have wept with joy.

  “I used to go to the chapel often,” I rushed on, the words tumbling out. “I’d make believe that I was actually in the picture, riding a fine white horse in the procession.”

  Ippolito laughed and reached again for my hand. “And which member of the crowd were you?” he asked. My fingers curled around his.

  “I used to imagine myself as a little girl riding quietly off to one side. But now I believe I’d be a wise woman, taking my place with the three wise men. That would be interesting, don’t you think?”

  Ippolito gazed at me thoughtfully. “You, a wise woman? You are indeed a most unusual girl, Duchessina,” he murmured.

  I met his gaze—just what we had been cautioned not to do by Suor Paolina—and wondered if he would take advantage of this opportunity to lift my hand to his lips and kiss it. Oh, do, dear Ippolito! I begged silently.

  Ippolito bent closer. We were so intent on each other that neither of us heard the door of the library open. My fingertips were near Ippolito’s lips—I could feel his warm breath—when raucous laughter erupted behind us, startling us rudely.

  “Well, well, well!” roared the awful Alessandro. “What have we here? Have I happened on a tender moment with our little Frog Duchess? Per favore, don’t let me interrupt!” Alessandro slouched carelessly on a bench, propped his feet on the table, and leered at us. “As you were saying, Ippolito? Do continue your speech, cousin.”

  I was too stunned to utter a sound, but Ippolito quickly found his voice. “Duchessina and I have been investigating the stories of the Vatican menagerie collected by our uncle, Pope Leo. Duchessina is especially curious about Hanno.”

  “So the frog is now in love
with the elephant, is she?” He squinted, looking from Ippolito to me and back again with heavy-lidded eyes. “No doubt the Holy Father would be interested to hear this.”

  “And I doubt he’d be in the least interested,” I said, speaking up suddenly.

  Alessandro grinned. “You’re wrong about that, Duchessina. The thing he cares about most is finding you the perfect husband. Have you heard the list? Any number of fine gentlemen are willing enough to marry a Frog Duchess if her dowry is large enough. Shall I tick them off? Start with the Duke of Sforza, missing all of his teeth and most of his manhood. Philibert, Prince of Orange, who led the enemy troops against Florence, topped the list of suitors until he took a bullet in the head during the siege. Shall I go on? No?” Alessandro rose lazily and made a mocking bow. “Then I wish a good day to you both.” He saluted insolently and sauntered out of the library.

  Ippolito was white with anger. “He will certainly report to the pope what he believes he’s seen here today. And the Holy Father will do whatever he can to prevent us from being together. We must not meet again until it’s safe, Duchessina,” he said, adding sadly, “and it may never be.”

  I nodded dumbly and ran off in tears, my hopes fading like smoke.

  THERE WERE NO MORE chance meetings and only glimpses of each other at the pope’s entertainments. My studies did little to distract me from my unhappiness. Lent began, and Pope Clement suspended his dinners.

  On Easter morning Pope Clement was carried on a gilded throne from the Palazzo Vaticano through the narrow streets of Rome to the cathedral church of San Giovanni in Laterano, where he would celebrate the Easter mass. Crowds of ordinary people jammed the streets, while highborn gentlemen and ladies—including Lucrezia and her daughters—watched from the balconies and windows of palazzos along the winding route. I was with them. Every churchman of any importance was a part of the procession, along with musicians and choirs and jugglers and tumblers, and all of the Swiss Guards, followed by select members of the nobility on horseback. Alessandro was among them, on his prancing gray stallion. Ippolito, riding much farther back in the procession, passed directly beneath the balcony where I was standing. He didn’t look up. Leaning out for a better view, I watched him until he was out of sight.