Signora Da Vinci

by Robin Maxwell

  “I’m all right, Mama. This is enough for me now. More than enough. And I’ll be careful.”

  “You always say that.”

  He smiled. “You’d better go. I don’t have much time here before they . . .” He looked down at his dissected subjects.

  “I understand,” I said quickly and made for the door, turning back before I opened it. “Come visit me, will you?”

  He tied on his mask and turned back to the mother and child. “If you make me a vegetable stew,” he said.

  CHAPTER 22

  I was no longer a stranger to the sumptuous sleeping chambers of the Medici brothers. Many nights we would gather—the family friends or sometimes the Academy fellows—sprawling across the canopied bed, perched on chests or sitting amidst pillows on the carpeted floor to drink wine, play musical instruments, and sing. We would listen to Lorenzo or Poliziano’s or Gigi Pulci’s newest verses and hurl good-natured insults as well as abundant praise in their direction . . . or simply talk, as men do, into the wee hours of the morning.

  This time it was different. It was the Sunday afternoon before Ascension Day and we were dressed for church and gathered in Giuliano’s room. He was in bed, laid up with a leg not yet healed of a fall from Simonetta, who had reared up at the sight of a snake in the road. My poultices had almost finished their work on the gash across his thigh, but a cracked rib had punctured a lung, and his breathing continued pained and shallow.

  Still, on this day, he wished desperately to be joining his brother and their friends at the Duomo.

  “You must rest, Giuliano,” Lorenzo ordered him tiredly, for he had said this a hundred times already.

  “I don’t want to rest anymore. I’ve already missed the banquet for Raffaele, and now I’m going to miss the sight of beautiful young ladies in their church finery. Silio, hand me my blue doublet.”

  “No,” Ficino answered simply. “You’re staying in bed. Your mother is worried about you.”

  Giuliano sulked. “And tell me again why we are bothering to pay for an expensive celebration of a seventeen-year-old brat?”

  “Because the brat is a beloved nephew of our dearest Holy Father, and he has just been made a cardinal. Angelo,” Lorenzo said to Poliziano, “why don’t you go see how he is progressing?”

  The pope’s nephew, Raffaele Sansoni, was even now down the hall in the Medici salon, changing into his vestments for his first public appearance at the cathedral.

  As Poliziano sauntered out of Giuliano’s room, he muttered so we all could hear, “For once I agree with Giuliano.”

  Lorenzo looked thoughtful. He had been angry at Pope Sixtus’s treatment of the family, recently handing the Medici control of the Curia’s finances over to the rival Pazzi bank. It was all part of Rome’s greater plan, Lorenzo was sure, to take control of the far too independent Florence.

  “Things have been different since Sforza’s assassination,” he said, almost to himself. Lorenzo referred to Galeazzo, the much-reviled Duke of Milan, who had been, if not Lorenzo’s friend, the strongest of Florence’s allies in the north. “Sixtus believes that now with an eight-year-old boy as duke and a female regent governing him, Milan is in total disarray, and Florence therefore weakened.”

  “You think the pope’s spies don’t know you are playing both sides of Milan?” Ficino asked.

  “What? That I am giving Bona and her young son support at the same time I’m offering friendship to the boy’s uncle?” Lorenzo laughed bitterly. “The Vatican spies know everything.”

  I had never busied myself with politics, but Lorenzo had, of late, been consumed with the subterfuge swirling through the courts of Rome, Milan, and Naples, for the downfall or survival of Florence was at stake . . . and the sovereignty of Italy itself. He spoke freely of these matters with all of his close friends.

  The boy’s uncle of whom Lorenzo spoke was Ludovico Sforza, the most ambitious of Galeazzo’s five ambitious brothers. Ludovico, now known by all as Il Moro, the Moor, had been sent into exile by the widowed Bona, she fearing that his naked desire to wrest control from her son was greater, by far, than all his uncles’ combined.

  Had Lorenzo to choose, Il Moro would become Milan’s next ruler. They were friends, and the man would prove an ally as strong as Galeazzo had been.

  “Give Lorenzo a little credit here,” Sandro Botticelli insisted. “He knows a thing or two about diplomacy. If he thinks it is a good idea to entertain the pope’s nephew—he is rather a beautiful boy. . . .”

  Giuliano punched Botticelli in the arm, and the artist jostled his friend in such rough play that the bedridden Giuliano groaned in pain.

  “Then I say we show him a good time,” Botticelli finished.

  The door opened and Ficino returned. “He’s ready.”

  Botticelli stepped forward and smiled lasciviously. “I like a man in a red dress.”

  Everyone laughed and moved to the door. I stayed behind at Giuliano’s bedside.

  “I’ll change your dressing when we get back,” I told him.

  “Good man, Cato,” he said, smiling up at me.

  I went to join the others.

  Raffaele Sansoni was indeed a handsome young man with the earnest expression of the scholar he had, until recently, been. He’d studied at Lorenzo’s new University of Pisa and looked far too young to be wearing the red cardinal’s robes and skullcap. We surrounded him now as we made the brisk four-minute walk from the Palazzo Medici to the Duomo, keeping the conversation cheerful, for the boy was clearly nervous about his first official High Mass in the great Cathedral of Florence.

  With throngs of worshippers coming from every side, we were nearing the immense front doors when nature called in so urgent a way that I had no time to announce my separation from the group, and slipped into the alleyway beside the Duomo. With the horn I did my business, then leaned back against the wall. I had never lost the distaste I felt for the inside of a church, and now I wondered if I could take my leave unnoticed, later making apologies to Lorenzo. I stayed a few minutes more, ruminating whether my distaste for the institution was stronger than my affection for Lorenzo. He so enjoyed his friends around him at a public occasion.

  I decided, with a sigh, to go in, and thus stepped from the alley into the street. My attention was immediately drawn by male laughter coming from Via Larga, the direction from which we had, only moments before, arrived.

  It startled me to see Giuliano limping along, flanked by two men, one of whom I recognized as Francesco Pazzi. The other I did not know. They were draped in a friendly way over Giuliano. Pazzi appeared to be tickling him.

  Something was vaguely unsettling about the scene. Giuliano should have been in bed, I thought. And Francesco Pazzi seemed far too familiar with him, kin by marriage though he was. I tried quieting the voice inside. My mothering instincts were getting the better of me, I decided. I steeled myself and, turning, stepped through the tall, magnificent doors of the cathedral.

  The mass had already begun.

  I could see above the hordes of the faithful, standing crushed shoulder to shoulder, that young Cardinal Sansoni had been successfully delivered to his place on the high altar. Lorenzo and his friends were near to the ambulatory at the north end of the choir, quietly respectful of the gaudy ritual being played out before them.

  I turned, hoping to see Giuliano enter, and was relieved when he did come in, alone, to take a place at the south end of the choir.

  The priest had given the honor of elevating the host to the visiting cardinal. When Raffaele lifted his arms and intoned, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” the sacristy bell began chiming. At that, men doffed their caps, and to the sound of many thousands of rustling garments, the entire congregation of the faithful fell to their knees.

  Once again something in me rebelled against the sanctimonious-ness of the place, and I hesitated kneeling for the briefest moment. In that very instant I saw from the corner of my eye a tiny flash of light, and turned to look behind me.

 
; I saw Giuliano quite clearly, for he, too, was still upright . . . but the expression on his face was something terrible. A moment later I saw the flash for what it was—sunlight glinting off Francesco Pazzi’s sword as it fell through the air above Giuliano de’ Medici’s head. Other men had descended like a pack of ravenous wolves and were stabbing him again and again.

  I shouted “No!” but my voice was drowned amidst shrieks of pain and outrage now coming from the front of the choir, near the high altar.

  Lorenzo!

  I pushed through the chaotic crowd and saw a glimpse of him. The sight was strange to my eye, for his neck was bloodied, and with his cloak wrapped clear round his arm he was fending off dagger blows from a brown-robed priest!

  Angelo Poliziano appeared from behind and sank his own blade into the friar’s back. Lorenzo drew his sword as Botticelli, Ficino, and other friends surrounded him.

  I wished desperately to help him but I found myself pushed back by the panicked masses surging for the cathedral’s doors. I glimpsed Francesco Pazzi racing to intercept Lorenzo, who now leapt like a young stag over a painted screen at the choir, heading toward the new sacristy behind the altar. His friends took on the assassins in a frenzied battle that ended, suddenly—the moment they saw Lorenzo safe at the sacristy gate. They ran to join him, leaving several attackers down, and Francesco Pazzi standing blood-soaked and utterly damned in the center of the cathedral floor.

  I watched with a soaring heart as Lorenzo and company slammed the gate with a resounding crash that echoed through the high cavernous arches of the Duomo. Then Pazzi was running past me like a wild thing, out the church doors, and I found myself alone.

  All but for Giuliano, who lay inert in a pool of thickening gore.

  I went slowly forward, knowing that there was nothing to be done for him. I knelt at his side and saw the skull split nearly in two halves, the blue doublet in tatters, the body beneath it like freshly butchered meat. When I tore my eyes away from the sight of him I saw a man hanging incongruously from the ladder of the organ loft.

  It was Sandro Botticelli, staring down at the horror that had been wrought upon his beloved family. Even from that height he must have seen that Giuliano was beyond help. Our eyes met, but I had no voice at all. I just stretched my arms beseechingly, though for what I besought I did not know.

  Then Botticelli was scrambling down the ladder and disappeared back into the sacristy.

  I removed my cape, placing it over my fallen friend. Unarmed as I always was, I stood guard over his poor body should anyone dare come to further desecrate it.

  A moment later I saw a pack of men rushing past the open cathedral door. I glimpsed Angelo Poliziano, bringing up the rear, swiveling fearfully to look behind him, before he, too, disappeared from sight.

  And there I waited, hour after hour, seeking some sense in this senseless murder, weeping and whispering curses in the house of a vengeful god.

  After standing guard over Giuliano’s body at the Duomo I had finally come away, leaving the sisters of San Gallo to tenderly remove him. I had arrived at the Palazzo Medici so dazed I hardly saw or felt the mob milling around me. When I came to my senses I saw they were men—from the oldest to the youngest—each of them armed and now surging toward their ruler’s home to defend it with their lives.

  A rumbling had grown into a roar as Lorenzo stepped out onto his balcony, his red brocaded doublet stained even darker at the left shoulder, a blood-soaked bandage tied around his neck. As he raised his hand the cries grew louder and I heard myself with the others shouting his name as a chant—“Lorenzo! Lorenzo!”

  Oh, that he lived!

  There was no way to describe the agony that was painted across his features. His posture was upright and proud, but the soul inside that fragile shell must have been sagging and withered. He had lost his brother—“the better half,” he used to tell us. He could hardly quiet the crowd, but finally his words rose above their din.

  “Citizens of Florence,” he began, his voice more strong and steady than I could have imagined it to be. “We have suffered a great loss today. My brother . . .”

  Even from a distance I could see his expression crack and fold with the torment of exerting such excruciating control. The crowd was whining and snarling in anticipation of the next words spoken.

  “. . . Giuliano is dead.”

  The howls of rage and agony grew to a roar, and the seething mass began to move, outward and away from the Medici balcony.

  “No, stay!” Lorenzo shouted from where he stood. “Good people, you must listen to me!” He waited till they quieted and stilled. “I implore you, for the love of God, moderate your actions!”

  “The Pazzi are responsible for this!” someone in the crowd shouted back at him. “Will you tell us otherwise!?”

  “I will not tell you that. But I can say that magistrates even now have some of the mur . . .” He stumbled at the foul word. “. . . murderers of my brother in their custody. The others are being sought as we speak. Justice will be done!”

  “That’s right!” a young man cried out, thrusting his sword into the air. “And we’ll be the ones doing it!”

  The sound of that affirmation was deafening.

  “Take care!” Lorenzo’s voice was raw with anxiety. “In our frenzy we must not punish the innocent!”

  “Giuliano was innocent!” an old man near me raged. “And now he’s in pieces on a cold marble slab!!”

  “Please, please . . .”

  But Lorenzo’s words were lost as the crowd began to disperse, though not into four directions. The bulk of them, swords and daggers and clubs raised high, were heading ominously south, in the direction of the Palazzo Pazzi.

  Angelo Poliziano had come to the balcony then, and with a gentle hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder, drew him inside.

  When the crowd had gone—except for a large self-appointed guard that surrounded the palazzo’s perimeter—I sought entrance inside to tend to my friend’s wounded neck. I knew there would be little I could do for his torn and bleeding spirit.

  All was chaotic inside the palazzo, the ground floor thick with family, Medici supporters, Signoria members, and clergy. I climbed the broad stairs to the first floor to find the main salon door open, and went in.

  It was a scene of the most ghastly despair. Male friends and relations, many of them shouting, some of them still weeping, stood in small clutches peering nervously out the windows to observe the streets. A larger contingent had gathered around Lorenzo and Lucrezia. I found it horribly ironic to see them all here beneath Pollaiuolo’s paintings of Hercules engaged in violence and killing, and wondered if, despite Lorenzo’s deeply felt instinct toward peace in his republic, brutality and mayhem were now its only fate.

  It was hard looking at Lucrezia, knowing only as a mother could know that unutterable pain of losing so beloved a child, that the very heart of her had been wrenched from her breast. When finally I braved a look I saw the alarming pallor of her cheeks, red-rimmed eyes sunken into dark sockets, mouth a press-lipped slash across her jaw. She had aged immeasurably in a few hours.

  Lorenzo, though he tightly clutched her hand, was speaking with great passion to the men who had become, suddenly, his consiglieres—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Bisticci.

  I saw Sandro Botticelli standing, looking altogether helpless, behind them. The agony etched in his features was excruciating. I went and stood beside him.

  “Tell me about Lorenzo’s wound,” was all I could think to say.

  “The flesh is sliced clean. No deeper than that.” Botticelli’s eyes, always sparkling, were dull and dead. “Young Ridolphi insisted on sucking it out, fearing poison on the blade.” Sandro looked down at his feet. His voice was raw and ragged. “Oh, Cato . . . Lorenzo knew nothing of Giuliano’s murder until we brought him here. No one dared tell him in the cathedral. He thought . . . he thought Giuliano was still in his bed, safe from all harm. When Lorenzo was secured here he told me to bring him his brother.” Bo
tticelli covered his face with both hands and choked into them. “It was I who told him Giuliano was dead!”

  He began sobbing loudly, shoulders heaving. I put my arm around him and brought him into a corner, allowing him to weep like a small boy in his mother’s arms.

  “Oh God!” he cried.

  At this, Lorenzo looked up and for the first time I caught his eye. He held my gaze steadily as the others talked to him of strategy and revenge, till finally he was drawn away by the urgent voices of his counselors.

  Finally I was given leave to tend the stitched dagger wound with my medicines. We spoke not at all, Lorenzo staring straight ahead with glazed eyes. Only heaven knew what horrors he was reliving . . . or imagining.

  When I finished, my hand lingered on his neck perhaps a moment more than necessary. Before I could remove it he grasped my fingers and held them tight. In that strangely private moment we mourned Giuliano, and Lorenzo thanked me for my ministrations. But I knew I had failed to offer any real comfort, for there was none to be had.

  With the others I stayed in the salon throughout that day and night. I offered both Lorenzo and his mother a potion of poppy and valerian to calm them. Lucrezia accepted it gratefully, but he refused it. He needed his wits about him, he told me, and every bit of the furious humors that were coursing through his veins. That way he could act against his enemies, as an arrow shot from a crossbow—powerfully and with a true deadly aim.

  In the weeks and months after, when the full extent of the conspiracy became known, the mood of Florence changed forever. Certainly there had been family feuds that had torn the city apart, and many murders. But never had one beloved by so many died such a cruel and premature death.

  The conspirators were found to be members and adherents of the widely respected Pazzi family. A Florentine archbishop named Salviati had been revealed as the grand conspirator. For weeks after Giuliano’s death, mobs swarmed and rioted in Florentine streets. Every other day one or another of the culprits was caught and taken to the Signoria, where their savage punishments were meted out to cheers and jeers, sometimes laughter. But many grown men sobbed as the wound of their young leader’s loss was ripped open again and again.