Duchessina - A Novel of Catherine de' Medici

by Carolyn Meyer

  A few days after Easter I received an invitation to a festive dinner at Castel Sant’ Angelo. For the first time I was appearing without a concealing head covering. Maria had arranged my hair, still quite short, with a garland of jewels. I had another new gown, this one of rose damask. The light of hundreds of candles shimmered on the gilded walls.

  I ignored Alessandro, seated far away from me, but could not resist gazing often in Ippolito’s direction. Once—only once—he glanced my way. He didn’t smile, but something in his look lifted my heart. I had a feeling that soon we might meet again. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope after all.

  My attention was claimed by the Frenchman on my left, Cardinal Gramont, who peppered me with questions in Latin until Pope Clement called for the attention of his guests. The busy hum of voices died away. “We are pleased to make to this distinguished audience an announcement concerning the appointment of a new cardinal to our Sacred College,” said the pontiff in his sonorous voice.

  Murmurs of speculation rippled among the dinner guests. A pope had the privilege of naming as many cardinals as he wished. The important families in Rome and Florence courted the pope’s favor, sometimes with large gifts to his treasury, hoping that one of their sons might wear a cardinal’s red hat. Many of the guests that day were surely expecting one of their own to be chosen.

  “It gives us great pleasure to inform you that the man to be so honored is one greatly beloved by us,” continued Pope Clement. “The scarlet hat of the cardinal will be presented to our dear nephew, Ippolito de’ Medici, dedicated to the service of God.”

  Ippolito, a cardinal? How could that be—he wasn’t even a priest!

  I gasped, “No!” I felt the blood drain from my face and thought I would faint. Not this! my heart cried. Now he’ll never he mine!

  The French cardinal looked at me curiously and asked if I were unwell. “It’s nothing,” I assured him, although in fact it was everything.

  Ippolito rose and approached the dais where the pope was enthroned. Cardinal Gramont applauded enthusiastically; I forced myself to join in with the others. Ippolito had never looked more handsome, more intelligent, more winning. He knelt before Pope Clement and kissed first the pontiff’s feet and then the Ring of the Fisherman.

  My head swam, and, pressing a starched white napkin to my mouth, I struggled to breathe normally. I’m not sure how I managed to get through the next few hours.

  I had no one in whom to confide my misery—not even Maria. Although I still felt quite unwell, I joined Lucrezia and her friends at dinner the next day. The conversation at the table startled me. The ladies were discussing Ippolito’s elevation to the College of Cardinals.

  “What can His Holiness be thinking?” demanded one woman, her fingers so laden with jeweled rings that she managed a fork with difficulty. “Imagine, deciding that such a handsome young man would enjoy devoting his life to the church! Why, I hear that he’s only twenty-one, extraordinarily young to be made a cardinal, and not even ordained a priest!”

  “And has no desire whatsoever to become a priest, from what I can tell,” a second lady offered. “What a pity! My youngest daughter would have made him a splendid wife, if he’d so chosen.”

  I stared at my plate, afraid my eyes would betray me, hoping the ladies wouldn’t notice my trembling hands.

  “And so gifted!” caroled a third. “Plays the lute, expert on the organ, a talented poet, a fine athlete—”

  “A priest can take pleasure in all of that, as can a cardinal, and even a pope,” Lucrezia interrupted. “My brother was pope for eight years before his untimely death and cardinal for many years before that, and I daresay he enjoyed every moment of his life.”

  I glanced up. The tone of the conversation had taken on an unaccustomed edge.

  “‘God has given us the papacy. Let us enjoy it!’” quoted the lady with the rings. “Isn’t that what your brother Pope Leo said about it, Signora Salviati?” she asked Lucrezia with a false smile.

  “As we are meant to enjoy all of God’s gifts, Signora Farnese,” Lucrezia countered sharply, with the same sort of smile, and then deftly steered the conversation in another direction.

  IT WAS URGENT now that I talk with Ippolito before we were driven apart forever. At the end of April, just after I observed my twelfth birthday and Ippolito his twenty-second, I made up my mind to speak to him face-to-face, no matter how risky or difficult. I made certain that Alessandro was absent; I couldn’t have borne his jeers and scathing remarks. I didn’t care if anyone else saw me with Ippolito. What shame could be harder to bear, what punishment worse than the one I had already received?

  After my tutors had gone for the day, I sat down on a bench outside the entrance to Ippolito’s apartment, determined to stay there as long as it took. I hadn’t long to wait before Ippolito emerged. He was splendidly dressed, and he’d grown a dark beard that made him even more handsome. I rose to greet him.

  “Duchessina!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting to speak to you, Ippolito. Is that not obvious?”

  “But you shouldn’t—”

  “Never mind what I should or should not do!” I said, my voice quivering, although I had resolved not to break down weeping. “Come with me to the library. No one will know. Alessandro is gone—I saw him ride off.”

  Ippolito hesitated. “The Holy Father expects me.”

  “Let him wait!” I said sharply. “Surely you can find an excuse this one time!”

  Ippolito’s serious face broke into a smile. “I hadn’t realized that you were so willful, Duchessina.”

  But my willfulness, if that’s what it was, was of little use to me when we reached the library and shut the door behind us. “So,” I began, before my decorum deserted me, “you will soon be a cardinal.”

  “It’s not my choice, you must know that,” Ippolito replied. He stood behind the table where we’d often sat side by side to study the drawings of the elephant and exchange words meant only for each other. Now the table was a barrier between us. “The Holy Father has determined this, and my protests mean nothing to him. I have no calling to the religious life—none! I’ve told him this, but he doesn’t care to hear. You well know that Pope Clement holds all earthly power over our lives. And you must also know how deeply I care for you, Duchessina,” he added softly.

  “And I for you, Ippolito.”

  “If I had my choice, at the proper time I would have asked for your hand in marriage,” he said. “It would have given me the greatest joy.”

  I gazed at him with a mixture of rapture and grief.

  “But I would have been refused,” he said. “The pope is your guardian, and he has grand plans for you. He’s not going to waste one Medici on another—he has said as much. And so, to make sure we don’t scheme to be together, he’s made me a cardinal, soon to be sent away. I don’t yet know where, but likely to some foreign country as a papal envoy. And you—” Ippolito hesitated. “Has Clement not yet spoken to you of this?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “I’ve already gone too far, said too much. As Alessandro told you the last time we were here, you’ve had a number of suitors. The most powerful families in all of Europe are competing to provide you with a husband. The English ambassador has met several times with the pope to discuss the possibility of your marriage to the English King Henry VIII’s bastard son, the Duke of Richmond. Another candidate is King James V of Scotland, although the pope believes England and Scotland are too far away to be considered.”

  “Can all this be true?” My legs felt so weak I had to lean on the table to keep from falling. “I care nothing for these prospective matches. I want you, Ippolito!”

  “The pope is considering every possibility,” Ippolito went on, “not in the light of what’s best for you but what’s best for him. Your future marriage is about Clement’s political power, not your happiness. And certainly not mine.”

  I reached across the table toward
my love, and he reached toward me. For one passionate moment that I knew I would never forget, our hands joined and we gazed into each other’s eyes with longing.

  “It cannot be, Duchessina,” he whispered.

  Ippolito let go of my hand, bowed deeply, and strode out of the library. The door closed behind him. I remained where I was, overwhelmed by feelings that didn’t matter to anyone but myself. Then I flung myself down at the table and wept.

  11

  Alessandro

  A TALL, THIN MAN with a long, mournful face arrived at Palazzo Medici carrying a sheaf of documents emblazoned with gilt seals. Sent by the new French ambassador to be my tutor in French, he was presented to me by Cardinal Giovanni.

  “But why has the French ambassador sent me a tutor?” I asked the cardinal.

  “His Holiness seeks to improve relations with France.” The cardinal hesitated. “Perhaps you are to play a role in this improvement. A matter of diplomacy, you see.”

  “But what have I to do with it?”

  “Perhaps it would be wise to wait and see,” he advised.

  The lessons began. His name was Monsieur Philippe, he told me with a bow that bent his narrow body nearly double. He spoke to me only in French. Slowly I began to understand and to respond, haltingly at first, and then with greater fluency.

  Monsieur Philippe had a habit of appearing when and where I least expected him, unfashionably dressed in brown velvet with a flourish of lace at the ends of sleeves too short for his long arms. I might be out walking near the Piazza Navona with Maria and Francesca when Monsieur Philippe would pop out from behind a fountain or a tree and subject us all to a short discourse on botany, or architecture, or whatever else came to his mind—always in French, of course. This amused Maria but annoyed Francesca.

  “He lacks manners,” Francesca complained. “Like all the French.”

  Soon I could read and write in French as well. Monsieur Philippe was pleased.

  “You learn quickly, mademoiselle,” he said. “You grasp the grammar and the vocabulary with ease. But”—he lifted his shoulders in an unhappy shrug—“I fear that you will never speak our beautiful language with the proper accent. You must make a much greater effort with the pronunciation. Form your mouth like this”—he pursed his lips—“or no French person will understand what you are saying.”

  I did try, but the tutor’s despair deepened. “Whatever you say always comes out sounding like Italian,” he said sadly. “Endeavor to sound French, mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît.”

  I still had not been told why, as “a matter of diplomacy,” I was being required to learn the language, or for whose benefit I needed to sound French.

  One day I asked Cornelius, my tutor in mathematics and astrology, to work out my horoscope. He had studied under the great philosopher-astrologer Marsilio Ficino of Florence, and I knew that the highest nobility of Rome consulted him for prognostications and guidance. “What does my future hold, maestro?” I asked. “I need to know.”

  Cornelius consulted the charts spread out on the library table and made numerous calculations, but the answer he finally presented was no answer at all: You are destined to experience both great happiness and great sadness. There will be periods of power and of weakness, of success and of failure, of joy and grief. And you will have a long life.

  The first part was true: I had already enjoyed great happiness and endured sadness that nearly overwhelmed me. As to the rest of it, he claimed that the heavens revealed no more of what was in store for me.

  Meanwhile, the pope likewise revealed no more of the life he was planning for me. Several times I made a formal request through Cardinal Giovanni or one of the other cardinals for a private audience with the Holy Father, but I was stalled—“His Holiness is a very busy man”—and finally refused outright. “His Holiness will summon you when he wishes to see you, signorina.”

  The summons did not come. I stopped asking.

  THE WEEKS PASSED. Ippolito, who now wore the red hat of a cardinal, no longer had his quarters at Palazzo Medici. I saw him at dinners and other occasions to which Pope Clement invited me. These distant sightings seemed to taunt me. He was always surrounded by other churchmen. There was no chance to exchange even a formal greeting.

  At the end of May the entire Salviati household moved to their handsome summer palace on a hill north of the city to escape the heat of the Roman summer. The villa was set among lovely gardens with cool breezes and sweeping views of the Tiber, the river that curled through the city like a silver ribbon. Musicians played at dinners served on the terrace after sunset. It was very pleasant, but my life felt like a huge empty drum. I yearned for Ippolito, sealed my unhappiness in a small chamber inside my heart, and waited for Destiny to show her hand.

  When the Salviati household returned to the city at the end of summer, I realized that my efforts to avoid Alessandro might not be the best course of action. I was fairly certain that he knew what plans the pope had in store for me, as he’d seemed to know about candidates for my hand in marriage. Maybe rather than avoiding him, I should try to ingratiate myself instead.

  I remembered lessons I’d learned when I was a child of six and Alessandro had called me “an ugly little thing.” Although I was older now and filling out in the feminine places, I recognized that I would never be a beautiful woman. But I was also aware that I had developed a certain kind of attractiveness—some call it charm—and I knew how to use that to my advantage. One didn’t have to like the person; one only had to be clever and pretend. Much as I loathed Alessandro, I would beguile him and bend him to my will.

  I began my campaign with warm smiles and nods and progressed to merry greetings: “Buongiorno, Alessandro!” I sang out. “Good morning! I trust that all goes well with you!” I bobbed a cheerful curtsy.

  Then, swallowing my distaste, I suggested that we go riding together. “I haven’t enjoyed a brisk gallop for some time,” I told him. “And I value your lessons in horsemanship most highly. Perhaps you’d consent to an hour’s ride with the Frog Duchess?” I flashed a winsome smile.

  “Conpiacere, Duchessina,” he replied. “With pleasure.”

  The unexpected invitation had the effect I wanted. He was so used to taunting me and enjoying my angry and sometimes tearful response that he seemed unsure what to make of the change.

  On a cool day toward the end of autumn, Alessandro ordered the grooms to saddle our mounts. Soon we’d crossed the Tiber, leaving the chaperoning ladies and their servants far behind. Peasants in the fields looked up as we galloped by in the warm autumn sunshine. We reined our horses to a walk and turned back to look over the city spread out below.

  “What a magnificent city,” I said with a heartfelt sigh, glancing sidelong at Alessandro. “Although, truly, don’t you think Florence is more beautiful? I do miss the hills of Tuscany. And the Duomo! Surely it’s the most glorious cathedral in all the world. I wonder,” I mused aloud, “when the Holy Father will allow me to return there. Florence is the city of my birth, and I can’t imagine spending my life anywhere else. Not even here in Rome.” My horse nickered and tossed her head, impatient to be moving again, but I kept a firm grip on the reins. “And what about you, Alessandro?” I asked, smiling. “Do you look forward to going back to Florence?”

  Alessandro’s brow furrowed. He was even uglier when he frowned, but I kept the insincere smile firmly pasted on my face. “Certainly I do,” he growled. “As Duke of Florence I will be lord over everyone. I’m to have a rich wife, the daughter of Emperor Charles. And I’ll be living in Palazzo Medici—your former home, Duchessina—and have as many country villas and servants and horses as I want.” A spiteful grin crept across his surly features. “Everyone in the family sings the praises of Il Magnifico, as though old Lorenzo was more important than anyone, more important than the pope. But I mean to show them that I am far more magnificent than Il Magnifico ever was,” he boasted. “His image will fade in comparison to mine.”

  Alessandro was
enjoying himself I strived to keep my composure. “I’ve no doubt you’ll bring even greater glory to Florence than our illustrious ancestor did,” I lied.

  He eyed me coolly. “And you, dear Duchessina?” he said scornfully, his lip curled in a sneer. “You, too, are destined for greatness, are you not?”

  I heard echoes of his past cruel taunts and felt my will crumbling. I wanted to lash out at him, to throw in his face that Pope Leo had always intended not him but Ippolito to rule Florence, and that he, Alessandro, was replacing Ippolito only because he was the pope’s bastard son. If Pope Leo were still alive, I wanted to say, it would be a different story altogether.

  I waited until I was sure of my next words. “I have no idea what lies ahead, cousin,” I said carefully. Then I turned to him with my most engaging smile. “But perhaps you can tell me?”

  “And what do I get in return, little Frog Duchess? Will you croak for me, if I tell you what I know?”

  I checked a surge of anger at the mockery and made my voice soft and cajoling. “Alessandro, per favore, I beg you. We should not be enemies,” I said, although I knew that wasn’t true: We would always be enemies.

  He stroked his straggly little beard, keeping me in suspense. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you what I know, just for the sheer pleasure of watching your face. Come, let’s return to the city.”

  We started our horses at a sedate walk. “The French cardinal, Gramont—you met him last spring at the pope’s dinner—was sent here to begin private conversations with His Holiness on behalf of the king of France,” Alessandro said. “In the spring King François and Pope Clement signed a secret agreement.”