He lets that pass. ‘I consider the appointment, like all appointments, to be a responsibility not an accolade. But in accordance with the Rule of our Order, I am also required to go out into the streets and to preach the gospel. It is the burden of that latter responsibility that brings me to you.’
She frowns, not following. ‘How can I help you with that?’
‘It has become immediately clear to me that Florence is not as other cities. At least, not like those of my acquaintance.’
‘No?’ She raises one eyebrow, leading him on, interested already to discover how his mind works, but maintaining her distance until she knows exactly what he wants of her.
‘No. In Ferrara, where I was born and educated, the Este family and their court dominate everything. The people, perhaps for this reason, are acquiescent and passive. They take no interest in politics. But Florence appears to be completely different. Everybody there, every lord, every merchant, every goldsmith and even every shoemaker, seems to have a view on how the city should be run.’
She nods. That’s perceptive. How long has he been in the city?
‘There are other differences. Compared with Ferrara and Bologna, Florence seems to be more complicated, more sophisticated, more subtle. And the people are such negotiators, fast talkers, manipulative and clever with words. Already I see there is a huge disparity between the apparent and the real. And it is the real that I seek to understand.’
She smiles at that, the words to her mind being a compliment. ‘Your observation is accurate. But I cannot change those facts. The Florence you find is the Florence you will have to deal with.’ She flicks her eyes at the young monk, teasing him and measuring him in the process. ‘We don’t do simple. It’s not…’ She taps her teeth with the back of a fingernail. ‘It’s not stimulating enough.’
But if she hopes to upset his equilibrium with her taunts, she is disappointed.
He lets her jibes slide over him and goes straight to the point. ‘Indeed. So I understand. So much is clear from the architecture and from the art. Especially the sculptures. But in order to preach the gospel to your city, I need to understand how it thinks, and if I am to do that, I need someone who truly understands the city’s intricacies, someone who is able to explain to me the difference between the portrayed image and the reality beneath.’
She lifts her head tall, absorbing the compliment. ‘And you think I can do that?’
‘I believe no-one can do it better. That’s why I pursued you.’
Remembering the previous evening, Lucrezia smiled to herself. It had been that phrase, that brazen, self-confident admission of purpose, that had committed her attention and made her begin to take this earnest young man more seriously.
Accepting his sincerity, she had not wasted his time by being coy, by responding with false modesty. Instead she had let the remark pass as a statement accepted for what it was worth, and immediately she had probed him further.
CASTELLO, CÀSOLE D’ELSA
14th May 1481
‘Why should I explain Florentine reality to you? I assume this is not to be an act of charity so, as they will say to you in the Mercato Vecchio, what’s in it for me?’ Perhaps surprised by her directness, the young monk’s grey eyes open wide. She lets him stare for a minute before explaining. ‘We have already established what I can do for you.’ She lifts her eyes, almost flirtatiously. ‘The question now is what, if anything, can you do for me in return?’
To her surprise and without batting an eyelid, he replies immediately. ‘I can save your soul.’ He looks back at her with a deep intensity that matches her own.
Caught on the back foot, she feels a strong need to swallow and knows she must not. That one look tells her that he has known from the beginning what she will ask him, has already thought about his reply and has prepared himself. He’s prepared himself well. But more than that. The expression on his face says something else. This monk actually believes he can do it. She lets him wait. Inappropriate to decide too quickly. He’ll read it as a sign of weakness. Then she nods. Once. ‘It’s a good offer. I shall think about it. Come and see me in the morning, one hour before Terce.’
And he, similarly, shows no emotion; just nods in reply, turns away and walks out of the door.
As soon as he had left the room she had taken her usual precautions. She sent for Benvisto and asked him how safe they would be for the rest of their journey if she asked him to return immediately to Florence. And when he had given her the assurances she expected, she gave him a task.
‘Return to Florence and ask my notary to undertake an urgent character check on this young priest. Tell him to send at once to Bologna and to Ferrara and to ask his contacts there what they can find out about him. I need to know how much, if at all, I can trust him.’
Benvisto, ever-reliable, was gone before dawn.
The following morning, exactly on time, the young monk was back again. Lucrezia had already made up her mind.
She had known for some time that this journey was going to be incomplete. It was three years since she had bought the Bagno à Morba, three years in which she had spent a great deal of money, all of it her own, rebuilding the springs and the wells, damming and re-routing streams, re-lining the channels, installing new settling tanks and cisterns, building the douches and the showers, the sweating rooms and the lolling pools.
She had built separate facilities for those women who did not like men ogling them whenever they took to the baths (while they, as always, strutted their own nakedness as if no one had ever stood them before a mirror and informed them of harsh reality). And she had built a guesthouse and a hotel, both again with separate, dedicated facilities for women.
The project, even by her stringent standards, had been a success. The business was thriving and yes, she still had enough faith in the waters to submit herself to their effects for a month. But curing her indigestion and relieving her eczema and her rheumatism were no longer enough. For some months now she had known with a clarity she was still careful to hide from the rest of the family that she did not have long to live.
One year? Perhaps if she was lucky, two years. Or if she was unlucky, three years, with the third providing a long and painful ending. The lumps were growing bigger and however long she soaked herself in the waters of the Bagno, she knew nothing would ever wash them away. So increasingly her body was no longer her greatest concern. Nowadays, it was her soul that needed attention. And in that matter she knew there was not too much time left.
Although he could not know it, the young monk’s timing was impeccable. She had been addressing the subject privately, inside her head, for months, without guidance or solution. And now this man had, without hesitation, promised an answer. And the more she thought about it, the more she saw the sense of it. She saw it as a matter of organization.
To Lucrezia, God was part of the natural order of things, sitting at the very top of the essential hierarchy without which the world would collapse into chaos, into the anarchy of Dante’s Inferno. It was a hierarchy of order and control. A natural hierarchy, of kings and princes and nobles and gentlemen and at the bottom, the rest – the popolani. A natural hierarchy of saints and popes and cardinals and bishops and common priests. A natural hierarchy that the nobility, her family and (by acceptance if not by birth) the Medici, were an important part of. A hierarchy in which she herself had a position, and an elevated position at that.
Lucrezia did not fear God. Fear of God was for the unlearned masses – the best way to keep them all in order and, besides, it gave the priests something to do. She believed God to be fair and just, but also demanding, like any of the great princes she had met, but perhaps even more so.
More demanding. Yes. Much, much more demanding.
But she also knew, with a deep comfortable certainty, that God was a realist, that the world He had created was far from perfect – a fact of which He was keenly aware, and about which He himself was unembarrassed. And why should He not be? It was not
an accident. Nor was it evidence of God’s failure. He had made us imperfect. He had made us unequal. And she was sure He had done so quite intentionally – to give us all a challenge in life. To make us strive.
Of course He was fully aware that in doing so He had created flawed individuals. Even Mother Church had the occasional warlike pope and its fair share of lascivious cardinals, dishonest bishops and incompetent priests. So when it came to choosing a confessor – a role she saw as similar to choosing an advocate before you stood in front of a judge – it was important that you chose a good one, one who was intelligent enough to understand, knowledgeable enough to interpret correctly and sufficiently unbiased in his own daily life to present your case to God fairly and in a sensibly balanced way.
Under these circumstances, Girolamo Savonarola’s sudden appearance seemed to be an opportunity that had not presented itself before. No priest in Florence could safely be trusted to take the true confession of a Medici. Not when the family had so many enemies, all scheming to replace them in the power structure of the city. But an outsider? A complete stranger? That was different. And not only an outsider, but clearly a zealot. Still with the full confidence of youth? It was surely the best opportunity she had found yet and she had been looking hard enough.
How serious were the sins she had to repent? Had she been so wrong to do the things she had done? To call it a “life of revenge” (a phrase she had heard in one of her nightmares) was, she thought, over-melodramatic, but she was aware there was more than an element of truth in that sentiment. In later years, certainly, a life of resentment. And therefore, if you understood her character, necessarily a life of active, almost productive, resentment. If you feel that strongly about something, it is wrong – almost immoral – to let matters lie.
Of course, if you measured everything by effects rather than by motivations, then even Piero – even, could you believe it, Contessina herself – might now thank her for what she had done. But her motives might sometimes, she had to acknowledge, have been somewhat suspect.
And Cosimo? Would he now thank her if he was still alive? Looking back, it seemed that in the end they had been on the same side, although it had not felt like it for much of the time.
So yes. She would do a deal with this young monk, and hope that Benvisto did not return with anything too damning. There would always be risks. Always reasons not to act, reasons to wait, to continue looking for a better alternative. But life did not always offer better alternatives. Sometimes you just had to grasp the opportunity as it passed by and accept it. Especially when time was running out.
But she wouldn’t make it easy for him. This Savonarola would have to work hard for his insights. Confession, as she had already told him, was not an act of charity. It always came with a price. Or at least, with a considerable expectation.
She decided not to beat about the bush. ‘Yesterday, you offered me a trade: my unravelling of the intricacies of the city and commune of Florence in return for the salvation of my soul. It was an intriguing offer. But how will I know that you can deliver your side of the bargain?’
He shook his head. His expression was calm and confident, his eyes level and unwavering. ‘You don’t. But I do. And each day, as you impart your truths to me, you will prove it to yourself. For day-by-day, you will feel the burden of misrepresentation easing and your own soul will tell you that you are on the right path.’ She went to reply, but before she could do so, he continued, and this time, he even had the temerity to point a finger at her. ‘And you? How will I know that as you unpeel the onion that is Florence for me, the tears in my eyes are for the truth and not for the discomfort of having been misled?’
This time she could not resist pushing back at him. This competitiveness on both of their parts would, she knew, play an important part in their relationship. ‘You will know. Your nose will recognize the truth when you smell it.’ She took a chance, pointed a finger back at him, mimicking his own action. ‘You weren’t given that great nose without some purpose, were you?’ And this time, to give him his due, he laughed. Encouraged, she pressed forward. No one knew the extent of her illness. No one, least of all this young monk, knew the urgency she felt. She must secure the best terms for the arrangement now. There would never be another opportunity like this one, and never a better time.
‘I can offer you an arrangement. I will explain the truths and realities of Florentine life to you. But I shall do so in passing, by telling you of the events I have experienced in the form of a history, then where I can, how they were caused and how their final outcome came about.’ Again, she pointed an accusing finger. ‘But I will not do so in the form of an interrogation. Not even as a conversation. I withhold the right to tell the story my way and in my own manner. You will not interrupt me. Nor will you ask me supplementary questions, except on points of information. Instead, you will act in precisely the role you proposed to me, as my independent priest, taking my most private confession, according to the rules of the confessional.’ The pointing finger became a fist. ‘And under no circumstances will you write them down.’
Savonarola nodded once but she was not satisfied. She knew that such a simple nod could not be taken as final acceptance of her offer. It was clear from his expression he still had questions to resolve.
Here came the first. ‘Where will these conversations take place?’
She smiled to herself. She had the upper hand now. He was accepting her conditions. ‘There will be many confessions and all of them will take place during our month-long stay at Bagno à Morba. On each occasion I will send for you and you will come to me, in a private room, where we shall neither be overheard nor interrupted.’
He nodded. ‘And afterwards?’
‘After that, we shall not speak of these matters again. Before we begin, you will swear on the bones of Saint Dominic himself that you will not divulge the things I have told you to anyone. If you do, you accept that you will be burned alive and your body will be buried as an excommunicate.’
This time, Savonarola looked a little shaken. It was clear he had not expected quite such tough terms.
‘You agree?’ Lucrezia’s eyes were level and she knew that they were telling him if he did not agree to these terms now, there would not be another chance for negotiation. He had two choices: take it or leave it.
He read her expression and nodded again. ‘Yes. I accept your terms.’
Lucrezia reached behind her. She had a travelling case, which contained her account books, her breviary and her bible. She took out the bible. It was leather-bound in the blue of Tornabuoni and had the Medici palle and shield embossed in red and gold leather upon it, a unification of the two families, as befitted a wedding present. ‘Swear upon the book.’
Even now, he was careful. He opened the book in two, three places, ensuring from its contents that it was indeed a bible. He looked at her without expression and placed his hand upon it. Then he lifted his head and waited.
She dictated the phrases and he repeated them. ‘I swear … that everything I hear … in our series of confessional meetings … shall be held secret unto me … shall not be written down … shall not be divulged to any person … living or as yet unborn … and that if I break this oath … I shall be burned alive … and my body buried excommunicate.’
‘Now kiss the book.’ He did so.
Lucrezia returned the bible to its case. ‘We leave in an hour. The next two days’ riding through the Colline Metallifere will be steep and hard work. This morning we shall travel by way of Monteguidi to the Rocca di Sillano, near Montecastelli, where we shall rest. Tomorrow we shall pass by way of San Dalmazio to Montecerboli and thence to the Bagno à Morba. Once we get there, I will require about two days in which to complete my business and then I will be ready to talk.’
Savonarola bowed and turned to leave.
‘Until the fifth day, then. And remember; none shall hear of this.’
By the time he reached the outer door, she was already immersed in
her packing.
Chapter 3
Family Matters
He had been called. In an upstairs room of the guest house that Lucrezia reserved for herself and her family, Girolamo Savonarola took his place.
And waited.
To his satisfaction, the room was plain. The walls, though plastered, were un-frescoed, the floor of plain terracotta tiles and the ceiling of plainly-dressed chestnut beams and boards. Yet it had a comforting and welcoming atmosphere and as he looked around him, he realized that it was the warm golden light, streaming in through the large, south-facing window, which he had to thank.
Despite the welcoming atmosphere of the room, he found himself beginning to regret swearing to such stringent terms, beginning to question whether this woman really would tell him a concise and consistent story of recent events in Florence, and whether, in the process, she could help him to understand how that elusive society truly worked.
But what was the alternative? He had no one else he could approach. And besides, a deal had been struck, so now, surely, he must make the most of it.
Lucrezia entered and, without further ado, pointed him to a chair in the corner of the room. He sat. Immediately, he began to realize that the chair had been placed so that there could be no distractions. From where he found himself, Savonarola could not see anything out of the window. Instead his full attention would have to be on the woman in front of him, whether she sat in the chair she had her hand on now, or was pacing up and down the room as she had been doing for the past few minutes while he settled himself.
Now she in turn sat. He watched her closely as she prepared herself. His first impression, back there at the roadside, had been something of a disappointment. She was smaller than he had expected from her reputation: slight, yet not notably slender, being, as he now confirmed, somewhat heavy-limbed. A figure he had felt at the time that could almost be described as insignificant. Yet he remembered now what she may have lacked in stature she had immediately made up for in posture, for she had sat her horse, notably straight-backed rather than slouched, as so many noblewomen seemed to be when riding side-saddle.
Seeds of Decline Page 2