by Mary Hoffman
My mouth was dry. Vanni, the carter, let them examine the sacks containing cloth and pots. I stayed sitting hunched up, an old sack over my shoulders, so that my real height could not be guessed.
‘Who’s this?’ asked one of the guards.
‘Michele,’ said the carter.
‘Michele what?’
The carter looked at me and shrugged.
‘Michele Poggi,’ I croaked.
‘He’s hired to work on a farm in Settignano,’ said Vanni. ‘I’ve to take him to the Buonarroti place.’
The guard raised his torch to look at my face.
‘Ugly brute, isn’t he?’ he said and waved us through.
And so I left the city I had had such high hopes of – to be a virtual exile for the rest of my life.
1564
I got the bundle of letters out of my chest and spread them on the table. Angelo was a great letter writer. The most recent had been written only a few months ago. The oldest one that had survived came to me in October, three months after I had left the city.
My dear Gabriele,
I hope you are well and not troubled by pain. And that you are getting plenty of work in the quarry.
He constantly harped on the damage to my face, even though the swelling had gone down months earlier.
I send you a length of silk for Rosalia’s wedding dress and wish you both a very happy day.
I must tell you that David now wears the modesty garment Leonardo wanted for him! The Signoria got a goldsmith to make him a bronze belt with twenty-eight copper leaves to ‘render him decent’. I am glad you weren’t here to see it.
I no longer have his earlier letters, where he told me about the revealing of the statue on the 8th of September. It had borne a wreath of gilded laurel leaves on its head and everyone had praised the work, both for the skill of the sculptor and the beauty of the young man portrayed.
Maybe that’s why I didn’t keep them; I don’t remember now.
My mother had cried when she saw me and Rosalia had screamed. I was very different from the lover who had left her years before.
But with time my looks got a bit better. I shaved off the horrible disguising stubble and my curls began to grow back. The bruises on my face healed and all I was left with to remind me of my Florentine adventures was my flattened nose.
Rosalia was kind enough to say I was still a handsome man in spite of it. But I didn’t expect her to take me back without a full confession.
She wept when she heard of my treachery and I spared her no details. She was still only eighteen and very lovely; although she had waited for me she had the right to find another, better man to spend her life with.
When we parted that day, I was sure she would turn me down. But the next day she came to my parents’ house and, saying nothing, held out her arms to me. I was faithful to her until her death. I have been alone these last fifteen years.
Leonardo never finished his fresco in the Palazzo della Signoria and Angelo didn’t even start his. The paint ran on Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari and the Battle of Cascina remained as a large-scale drawing. Angelo was called to Rome by the new Pope in the spring of the year after I left, to do great work as a painter. Leonardo left for France and I never heard of him again.
But I do know he took the portrait of Monna Lisa with him. Angelo had been right that del Giocondo never did get it.
I did see Clarice once more. She brought her two sons to visit me, not long after Rosalia and I exchanged vows in the church of the Misericordia and Saint Mary. I made sure my new wife knew that I had no idea this grand lady was coming when I saw the carriage outside the small stone house I had bought with some help from the Buonarroti family.
Davide was then nearly three and able to walk on his own little legs. The contrast between him and his baby brother, not yet a year old, was marked, each resembling his own father. Cipriano had the dark features of Antonello de’ Altobiondi, which it was strange to see on a child, and he was going to have just as big a nose. But I was in no position to criticise noses.
Davide was a beautiful boy, well-made and strong and going to be tall. He was very sweet to his little brother. I gave him the cupid I had made – the only statue I ever did carve – and he seemed to like it, though it was a strange toy for a child.
The two women were very polite to each other but when Clarice had left, Rosalia said to me, ‘I had not realised she was so old,’ and never mentioned her again.
I knew from Angelo’s letters that the Altobiondi case had been dropped and that Clarice was treated with respect as the grieving widow of an important man. Altobiondi’s property and money was held in trust for the two boys equally, according to the terms of a will he made soon after his marriage, and Clarice had the use of his rents for her lifetime, which made her a wealthy widow (she still had property from her first husband too).
I imagine she lived comfortably with her four children until her death twenty years ago. I heard she never took another husband.
Davide and Cipriano remain good friends, from what I hear. I am a grandfather to three boys and two girls who will bear the Altobiondi name, because, of course, Davide does not know of my relationship to him. But I do know that he is a great patron of the arts.
About Visdomini and his household I heard little. Except for the news in one of Angelo’s lost early letters that Leone was to marry Grazia! He had developed a fondness for her some time earlier but apparently never thought he stood a chance as long as I was around. I had no right to do anything other than send them both my best wishes for a happy life together.
Another even more unexpected wedding took place between Simonetta and her brother’s friend Daniele. I felt worse about that because I knew how bloodthirsty he could be. I hoped he would be kind to her and to any children they might have but I would selfishly have preferred it if she had carried out her suggestion of joining a convent.
The de’ Medici were restored to rule in Florence and Piero Soderini deposed eight years after I left the city. But it was Giuliano, Lorenzo’s third son, who became ruler, not the Cardinal. And the following year when Angelo’s hard taskmaster Pope Julius died, Giovanni de’ Medici was elected as Pope Leo the Tenth.
When I knew that the sensuous and self-indulgent man I had failed to kill was now leader of the Church, I wondered if I had done the wrong thing. But later his cousin Giulio became Pope Clement Vll so a Medici would have sat on the papal throne in Rome eventually.
Everything the compagnacci had hoped for had come to pass. I thought of my old frateschi friends in Florence and how disappointed they must be but the story wasn’t quite over yet. The de’ Medici were driven out again in 1527, only to be restored finally four years later.
That last time, Angelo had to hide in a church lest he be arrested and executed as a dangerous republican!
The family have been ruling in the city for well over thirty years now and I don’t expect to see them toppled again in my lifetime. But they have welcomed my brother’s body back like the great artist and Florentine he is. I shall go down once more into the city in a few days’ time to see him buried.
My grandson Davide will take me. He is the son of our daughter Lisa, the first of five children my Rosalia bore me.
I shall take a look at the statue in the Piazza della Signoria while I’m there, for old times’ sake. He had his arm broken during the riots of ’27 – the last triumph of the frateschi. But it was repaired and I’m told it’s as good as new.
I don’t need to fear the law any more: no one would recognise me as that strapping young man now.
But if you want to know what I looked like during the years of my adventures in the city, you can go and take a look at Michelangelo’s statue of David, the shepherd-boy who became a king.
If it is still there.
Historical Note
The years 1501–04 were very turbulent ones in the city of Florence. The de’ Medici family, in the form of Piero de’ Medici, had been exiled fr
om the city in 1494 and a Republic established.
For the next four years the city fell under the spell of the fanatical Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola. He was responsible for the gathering up and burning of all luxurious items, including works of art, in the famous Bonfires of the Vanities in the Piazza della Signoria. In 1498, he was himself burned in the same place, after being hanged with two of his companions.
Florence was then riven by warring factions, who were either pro-Republic – some of them still pro-Savonarola – or pro-Medici, who would have liked to reinstall the ruling family.
The historical leader of the compagnacci was the beguilingly named Doffo Spini, but I have made it Antonello de’ Altobiondi because of the storyline I wanted to create for him. And I have dressed them in purple and green and the frateschi all in black. I believe I invented this particular Ridolfi and Bellatesta, though those were well-known pro-Medici family names in Florence at the time.
Gabriele del Lauro is a completely invented character. It is true that Michelangelo lived for a time with his wet nurse, who was the wife of a stonemason in Settignano but sadly nothing is recorded of her name and family. I set out to discover what a young man, looking as David looks, might experience if he entered Florence in 1501. The historical setting is as accurate as I could make it but all Gabriele’s actions, thoughts and character traits are fiction.
Michangelo was initially pro-Medicean because of the patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent, but after Lorenzo’s death favoured the Republic.
The statue of David really was stoned on the first night of its removal by the four young men named but I am solely responsible the injury to the sculptor’s arm and for the battle in the piazza.
The Sangallo brothers really did devise the structure for moving the statue though.
(I am convinced by the ideas of Saul Levine about the change in design of the model for David.)
List of Characters
Gabriele del Lauro, a stonecutter from Settignano
Rosalia, his first girlfriend
Clarice de’ Buonvicini, a Florentine widow, later married to Antonello de’ Altobiondi
Michelangelo Buonarroti, * the sculptor
Lodovico Buonarroti, * his father
Lionardo, Buonarroto, GiovanSimone and Sigismondo (Gismondo) Buonarroti, * his brothers
Antonello de’ Altobiondi, leader of the pro-Medicean faction in Florence
Daniele, a fratesco
Gianbattista, a fratesco
Donato, a fratesco
Giulio, Donato’s younger brother by two years, a fratesco
Fra Paolo, Dominican friar, a fratesco
Simonetta, Gianbattista’s sister
Giuliano da Sangallo, * a sculptor, architect and military engineer (1443–1516)
Antonio da Sangallo, * his younger brother, architect (1453–1534)
Andrea Visdomini, a young aristocrat
Maddalena, his wife
Grazia, their servant
Leone, a young painter, whose patron is Visdomini, not connected to Leone Leoni (1509–1590), a Mannerist sculptor
Arnolfo Ridolfi, a pro-Medicean conspirator
Alessandro Bellatesta, a pro-Medicean conspirator
Leonardo da Vinci, * the painter and inventor (1452–1519)
Salai, * his assistant
Piero Soderini, * Gonfaloniere of Florence, his appointment made permanent in 1502
Fra Girolamo Savonarola, * A fanatical Dominican friar at the San Marco monastery, who preached against the excesses of the de’ Medici family. He was effectively the ruler of Florence from 1494–1498, when he was executed (1452–1498)
Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo, * a silk merchant
Lisa Gherardini (Monna Lisa), * his wife
Fra Angelico, * also called Beato (‘blessed’) Angelico. Fresco painter and Dominican friar at the San Marco monastery in Florence (1395–1455)
Sandro Botticelli, * painter and one-time follower of Savonarola. Also known as il Botticello, ‘the little barrel’ (1455–1510)
Vincenzo di Cosimo Martelli, * one of a group of young nobles who stoned David on 14th May 1504
Filippo di Francesco de’ Spini, * another of these young nobles
Raffaello Panciatichi, * another of these young nobles
Gherardo Maffei de’ Gherardini,* another of these young nobles
* = historical figures
Glossary
arrabbiati
‘The enraged ones’– anti-Savonarola faction in Florence
Arte della Lana
The Guild of Wool Merchants, responsible for the Duomo
bottega
A workshop
braccio (pl. braccia)
A measurement of about 22 and 7/8ths inches, according to Charles Seymour, but variable
compagnacci
‘The bad or ugly companions’ – aristocratic pro-Medici faction in Florence
condottiere
A leader of a band of mercenary
(pl. condottieri)
soldiers
fanciulli (sing. fanciullo)
Literally ‘children’, specifically the boys who carried out Savonarola’s wishes
fratesco (pl. frateschi)
‘A follower of the friar’(Girolamo Savonarola)
gonfaloniere
The chief magistrate of the city
lizzatura
A method of sliding marble down a row of planks
natura morta
A ‘still life’ in art
Opera del Duomo
The workshop for work on the cathedral
Operai del Duomo
Officials of the Opera del Duomo
paneficio
A baker’s shop
picchiapietre
A stonecutter
piagnone (pl. piagnoni)
‘A weeper’ – impolite name for a follower of Savonarola
practica
A public inquiry
scalpellino
Another word for a stonecutter
Signoria
The seat of government in Florence
vernaccia
A dry white wine
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my dear Florentine friend, Carla Poesio, for reading the text and putting me right about beer. Also to my quasi-Venetian friend, Michelle Lovric, for doing the same but without the beer. Living near Oxford as I do, I am always so grateful to be able to use the Bodleian, Taylorian and Sackler Libraries and this time I was also able to look at Michelangelo drawings in the Ashmolean Museum.
Among the many, many books and articles I read, Michelangelo’s David: A Search for Identity by Charles Seymour Jr (1967), Saul Levine’s 1984 article about Michelangelo’s lost bronze David, and Frederick Hartt’s David by the Hand of Michelangelo (1987) were the most influential. Absolutely invaluable was R. Barr Litchfield’s Online Gazetteer of Sixteenth Century Florence (2006).
And I never attempt to write any historical novel without the assistance of the indispensable London Library, of which I am a happy Country Member.
Also by Mary Hoffman
Troubadour
The Falconer’s Knot
The Stravaganza Sequence
City of Masks
City of Stars
City of Flowers
City of Secrets
City of Ships
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Mary Hoffman 2011
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