Oddly enough, there were not many Frenchmen in the town. While trade had induced the Florentines to travel abroad quite readily, even as far as China, it would seem that their city did not attract many foreigners. Initially I feared that this absence might indicate that it would be difficult for a stranger to settle in the city. But I soon found out the opposite. Provided one did not act in an arrogant manner, or strive to hide one’s wealth or power, one was given a warm welcome. In short, all that was necessary was to adapt to the customs of this city of merchants and bankers. The master here was money, and one’s power was in proportion to the means one had at one’s disposal. My position at the court of France, my profession as a merchant and financier, and above all the lifestyle I decided to lead from the moment of my arrival, opened every door. I stayed only four days in a hostelry, the time it took to rent a palace, at an exorbitant price, from a widow who could no longer afford it since the death of her husband and the ruin of his activity. I modeled myself on Ravand and Jean and arranged my own little court, and I began to receive visitors.
Wherever money reigns, it never stays still. Everyone is trying to acquire it, and all you need to do is display it and you will have all sorts of people rushing up to you and offering their services. In no time I understood that everything was for sale: objects, of course, but also bodies and even souls. In the air I caught the same whiffs of corruption I had smelled in Paris; here, however, there was a certain good humor and, might I say it, sincerity in fraud, which immediately endeared the place to me.
The interpreter, who was also working as my steward, instantly received offers for the services of several cooks, a dozen chambermaids, and suppliers of all kinds. He sorted through these proposals and in less than a week the house was bustling with servants, the cellars were filled with wine from Asti, and the kitchens were overflowing with ham and fresh victuals.
By then I had already perfected the method I would always use in business. My part was minor, but essential: I chose my men myself. For as long as I can remember, that is the way I have done things. A vision carries me toward a project. This project presupposes a number of daily activities, and an aptitude for counting, surveying, and ordering, which I have only in very limited supply. The solution is to find a man and to infect him with my dream, the way a plague-sufferer infects those around him, thus allowing the illness to develop inside him. This is what I had done everywhere in France, from Flanders to Provence, from Normandy to Lorraine. In truth, my enterprise comprised a troop of madmen, all contaminated by my ideas and sparing no effort to make them reality. All the more so abroad, and in the unknown milieu that was Florence: it was out of the question for me to enter alone the thorny forest of laws that had been drafted to be corrupted, of rules burdened more with exceptions than classic examples, of merchants connected to each other through mysterious ties of kinship, allegiance, or intrigue. I needed a partner.
There were weeks of dazzling suppers, receptions, and feasts, where I met all sorts of people in my trade. What was new was to discover a society that had no bearings, because it had no sovereign. In France, no matter the king’s misfortune, his supremacy was never questioned. The court is ordered around him, and everyone shines with the brilliance this central star casts on those in his proximity, even to the darkest corners of the realm. In Florence this was not the case: great families ruled, the highest ranking being the Medici, followed by an infinite number of greater and lesser noblemen, whose hierarchy was anything but obvious. For a person to be illustrious, there were several prerequisites: lineage and relations, to be sure, but also, and perhaps above all, property and fortune.
This mixture was all very new to me. I came from a world that had long been dominated by the land, by those who own it and those who work it. Feudal tradition fixed every person to his place within the three orders of land, labor, and prayer. Beyond that, nothing mattered. This was why for so long merchants and craftsmen had occupied such a lowly position, devoted to the base activities of exchange, usury, and manufacture. Gradually, the burghers and those who worked with money had become established, particularly under Charles VII, until one day they found themselves being granted the most eminent positions. However, among the merchants there did remain an aspect of the old days: the vague certainty that we did not belong to the order of God’s chosen subjects.
Now, in Florence, it was a revelation to see that these two worlds, rather than excluding each other, could be united. The Florentine aristocracy does value its feudal order. They possess castles and fields, they have roots in the earth. But at the same time, they do not know what it is to scorn work. They do not forbid themselves from working in trade or industry. Far from disdaining wealth, they have seized upon it. This curious mixture, in its way, has reconciled me with the two orders I had always held to be incompatible.
Yet in mingling, these two qualities of nobility and wealth are altered. They have given rise to a singular breed of humanity that resembles neither the lords nor the merchants one meets in France. I felt at ease with these elegant, affable people, but at the same time I could not rid myself of a disturbing impression: I could understand them no better than they themselves understood me. I needed an intermediary whom I could trust.
This has always been a decisive step in the expansion of my business. How many times have I stayed for days or even entire weeks in strange towns, surrounded by people who are eager to oblige me, offering me their relations and their fortune simply because they hope to become part of the “Maison Cœur” and serve as my agent? I can make my choice as soon as I arrive, and on occasion I have been resolved, or forced, to do so. But most of the time I wait. I don’t know what I am waiting for, still less for whom. I only know that at a given time, a sign comes to show me in whom I can place my trust. Now and again I have been mistaken, still more frequently deceived. Now that I think back on this, I was always deceived by those individuals whom I was most reluctant to employ, and their sign in my consciousness had been weak, or nonexistent.
In Florence the sign was clear, and I did not hesitate.
*
Nicolo Piero di Bonaccorso arrived at my house with his youngest sister on his arm. I never knew who had invited them, and even today I suspect it might have been some little ploy of Marc’s to lead the young beauty to my bed. He was wasting his time. In Florence, perhaps because I had introduced myself in grand style and using my true identity, I did not intend to leave myself vulnerable because of some feminine intrigue. It seemed to me that in this society the women were even more dangerous than the men. It did not take me long to notice that they were the ones who reigned over this city of jealousy and pleasure. It required some effort to keep to my resolution, because the Florentine women were charming and clever, their great natural beauty enhanced by the finery of gold and silk that had made the fortune of their city. The young girl escorted by her brother was no exception. She seemed modest and reserved, quite incapable of making a man lose his head. Since my adventure with Christine in Paris, I had come to view such qualities as even greater reasons to be on my guard.
I do not know why the feature I found worrying in the sister—her simple, natural manner—intrigued me in the brother. As I talked with Nicolo, before long the thought occurred to me that he was certainly the one whom Providence had chosen for me. He was at least twenty years younger than I, but behaved with far greater composure than I had at his age. On his mother’s side he belonged to the milieu of silk manufacturers. He was also indirectly related to the Medici. And, unlike some older men who had been informed of my arrival and knew of my position with the king, he knew nothing about me. When I informed him of my plans, he seemed genuinely enthusiastic. He gave me a great deal of advice, and he could already picture silks from Florence spreading through France. He dreamt of going there one day.
I decided to make him my agent for Florence. And a wise decision it was, too. It took not even two years for him to arrange my enroll
ment in the most powerful silk guild, the Arte della Seta. I took my oath there, as would both Guillaume and my youngest son, Ravand, later on. Our firm never became as great as that of the Medici, but we occupied an honorable place nonetheless. Our cloths of silk and gold were almost immediately exported to France, conveyed on horseback over Alpine passes to our branches in Lyon, Provence, and, naturally, the Argenterie in Tours.
Demand was enormous. The truce with England was lasting, and there was no limit to people’s hunger for happiness. I was struggling to satisfy the orders that came in at the Argenterie. People were thankful when I managed to honor their requests, and when I delivered a gown it was as though I were saving a life. As the buyers often lacked cash, I gave credit, and before long everyone of importance at the court of France was in my debt.
Florence had transformed me. Upon my return, it occurred to me for the first time that not only could I increase my wealth, I could also put it to use. Prior to this, money had merely been the product of my activity; I was not governed by the desire to obtain money and, as I have said, my daily life, with a few vital exceptions, remained simple and frugal. In Florence, something else had been revealed to me. It wasn’t a sudden liking for comfort or the lure of luxury; in truth, it was yet another dream, but one whose time had come, now that my other projects had been fully realized and were beginning to lose their hold over me.
How can I explain this revelation? I could sum it up by giving it a name, and say that Florence showed me what art truly is. But that is not enough. I must be more precise. Until then, I knew only one form of art, that of the craftsman, as practiced by my father, for example. Mastering the means to transform a rough-hewn object into something useful that was also solid and pleasing to the eye—that was what furriers and tailors did, or masons and chefs. That art could be perfected, but on the whole, it was a hereditary art. It was handed down from master to student, from father to son. In Florence I learned to distinguish between the art of artisans, which was extremely refined, and the art of artists, which reflected something else altogether: genius, exception, innovation.
I met a great many painters there. As I observed them, I learned to distinguish between two orders: technique, and creativity. When mixing their colors, and preparing their materials to paint a tempera, on frescoes, or with oils, they were still only craftsmen. Some of them remained so, producing conventional work inspired by well-known models. But others, in the moment of their creation, moved away from those references, and went beyond the techniques they had mastered, to give free rein in their work to something more. And I recognized that something more: it was the immense realm of dreams. Dreams confer nobility upon humankind. We are human because we have access to what does not exist. These riches are not given to everyone, but those who do make their way to that invisible continent return laden with treasures they then share with everyone else.
I am referring here to painters, no doubt because I was particularly sensitive to their genius. But I could also mention architects, musicians, and poets. These artists were far less numerous than the simple craftsmen. But their activity was like a motor driving the entire city. This was a major difference from the Levant. I understood what I had felt in Damascus. All the refinement, all the wealth converging toward that city merely settled there in an inert fashion. Nothing new appeared. The city must have known a golden age; it seemed to be over. It was subsisting on the accomplishments of that bygone time. In Florence, however, innovation was everywhere. The city had gone far afield to find wealth and competence, as with the culture of the silkworm, imported from China. And the city did not stop there. It had to go on transforming, surpassing, creating; it was a city of artists.
I went back to France convinced not only that we must amass wealth, but that we would never truly have a chance to become the center of the world unless we also reached the sovereign domain of art and creativity. Today this is a common idea. But at the time it was novel.
It is difficult to grasp how much has been accomplished over the last ten years. At the time of the truce with England we were emerging from nearly a century of war and destruction. We knew only two states, poverty or abundance. By emerging from one, our only desire was to cast ourselves into the other. And this gave us an extraordinary appetite for quantity: ever increasing amounts of jewels, finery, victuals, palaces, feasts, dances, and love. During the time of violence, our meager resources had been consumed by a feeble flame, but that fire was burning out of control now: countless delights were being tossed its way by the armful, delights that had become easy to acquire thanks to the stability of peace. However, our taste remained vulgar.
I had become one of the purveyors of extravagance. In Florence, I had passed a milestone: not only was I dealing as a merchant with objects that came from elsewhere, but as a member of the silk guild I also took part in their creation. I was one of the rare individuals in France who was also thinking of manufacturing. I brought Guillaume and Jean together to inform them of my plan. We would no longer import arms, but produce them; we would no longer sell fabric wholesale, but make it ourselves. I decided to acquire money not only through commerce, but also through my own production. To that end, I bought mines in the hills around Lyon, and I brought in Germans who were skilled at extracting metal from the ground.
Under the influence of the Florentines, I gave the concept of creativity greater scope. The idea was not merely to reproduce what was being made elsewhere, but to seize the very power that was the principle behind these discoveries. My aim was to innovate in every domain. I liked the idea of employing every form of the imagination, in order to inscribe its effects in matter. I now knew that artists would be at the summit of this new form of manufacture. There were very few such people in France. Our musicians peddled tunes that had been handed down to them by tradition; painters copied conventional religious subjects. Only our poets, perhaps, moved about in the original space of their thoughts and feelings. But they were also those who had the least purchase on things. When I came back from Florence, I set myself to the task of bringing together the talented people I met and giving them free rein to create new finery, new buildings, and spectacles of a kind never seen before. After the long fallow period of war, it was not at all certain that we would even manage to do this. However, this land, which only a hundred years earlier had given birth to builders of cathedrals, was certainly not arid where the arts were concerned. What was needed was to find new talents, and provide them with the conditions necessary for their growth and the blossoming of their creativity.
*
I was given the opportunity to contribute myself, by means of building the palace I had promised Macé. Before I went to Florence, I could not conceive of this building as anything other than what was in keeping with my notion of supreme luxury: the château at Mehun-sur-Yèvre. Built long ago by Duke John, it was the king’s residence when he was in the region. It was a fortified building surrounded by round towers, and its only novelty, albeit a very tentative one, but which was what made it so attractive, were the tall windows set in the walls, which offered an admirable view of the countryside.
The land I had acquired, with its Roman foundations, was to serve as a foundation for a construction similar to Mehun, or at least that is what Macé and I had decided. To that end, we decided to flank the tall Roman tower with a twin, which would give the building the air of a fortified castle. But when I came back from Florence, I realized that this was a ridiculous idea. In Florence I had seen palaces blossoming without a single trace of war, and for good cause. They were tall, airy buildings, whose only towers were used to contain spiral staircases. The architects vied with each other to beautify these dwellings with an elegance and lightness that made our fortified houses seem barbarian. On the walls, frescoes burst with color, and stained glass filtered a living light.
I decided to follow these examples and rethink our project completely. Alas, the moment I arrived in our town, I saw th
at in my absence Macé had already started construction work. The Roman wall had been reinforced and redesigned, in such a way that one could already see the two towers rising on the lower end of the plot, in a smaller imitation of Mehun. Macé toured the site with me, delighted to show me how diligently she had worked in my absence. I was in despair. I did not dare show her the plans an architect in Florence had drawn up at my request.
I had a quick journey to make to Le Puy. All through the trip I could think of little else than the palace. I had tried to put on a good face in Macé’s presence, and, given her enthusiasm, I had acted satisfied. But the moment I was alone I felt overwhelmed with despair. For what obscure reason? I had other properties, and the means to build whatever I liked elsewhere, more in keeping with my Italian taste. I had just purchased the land to build a house in Montpellier. Neither Macé nor anyone else could tell me what to build. And yet these thoughts were no consolation. The palace in Bourges, which hitherto I had paid so little attention to, and had only decided to build in order to please Macé, had now come to occupy an unexpected place. In truth, since Florence, I could think of nothing else. It seemed vital that at the heart of my life, in the place that was both my family home and the center of my business, I should build a palace that would be a testimony to the future, that would be in keeping with my desires and a fulfillment of my dreams. It would be ridiculous to build a pale copy of a seigniorial castle in its place, like some pathetic symbol of noble pretension that would fool no one. In short, the image I would project would be that of an upstart. For years or even centuries, this monument would be the source of a terrible misunderstanding regarding my person. It would show me as a man who was hungry for power and money, who wanted to conquer his place in the feudal world. Basically, I cared little what people in the future would think. But the misunderstanding would start now, with my own family. And to Macé, to our children, and to the king, I wanted to show my true face and my deepest motivations. Money, titles—none of that mattered to me. What drove me was my dream of another world, a world of light and peace, of trade and work, a world of pleasure where what was best in man could be expressed in other ways than simply through the invention of new methods for killing his fellow man. A world where all the finest things from every continent on earth would converge. That was the world I had caught sight of in Florence, and I wanted my palace to resemble it.
The Dream Maker Page 20