Seeds of Decline

by Edward Charles

  A cold shiver ran through her as she heard them again, echoes after all these years. Especially Angelo Poliziano, with his courtly mock-grovelling. ‘I bow to your pleasure,’ he’d say to Lorenzo. And Lorenzo? Now she looked back, she remembered how he would always snigger, as if it was a private joke. Well, private, but perhaps, less of a joke than she had always assumed.

  Unnerved, she looked at her companion and realized that her comfortable assurances had failed to convince him too. They continued their walk awkwardly; he looking at her with suspicious uncertainty while she wished she had not tried to overcome his concerns quite so blandly.

  ‘Our friendship with the artists was not always a simple source of pleasure to us.’

  They had walked half-a-mile in silence and Lucrezia had been trying to think of a way to retrieve matters after her mistake.

  Beside her, perhaps for the same reason, Savonarola was generous, and tipped his head to one side in apparent interest. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘No. Sometimes they became involved in other aspects of our life. I remember just over two years after Cosimo had died, Andrea Mantegna visited Florence before going on to Pisa, largely, as I remember it, to see the engraving and printmaking skills of Francesco Rosselli, who, of course, we knew through Sandro, who was his close friend.

  ‘He had painted a portrait of Carlo as a cardinal, and he brought it for us to see. It was a good likeness, very good. Carlo hadn’t changed. He still had his mother’s colouring and his father’s features, the long nose and the big, elephantine ears. Although now, as he got older, his eyes had begun to droop just like Cosimo’s. It gave him a baleful look, although Andrea said he had been in quite good spirits while he was being painted.

  ‘The conversation reminded me of the last time I had spoken to Carlo, at Cosimo’s funeral, when he told me of his mother’s death. Somehow, seeing his face again spurred me into action and I wrote to the abbess the next day. Just a short note, in general terms, but making reference to Maddalena and saying how much I regretted the fact and the manner of her departure from his life.

  ‘It wasn’t all that long after receiving her reply that we were told Donatello had died. His funeral at San Lorenzo was attended by everybody – nobility and great painters. Mantegna was there, on his way back home from Pisa and this time he had Carlo with him.

  ‘The abbess’s letter contained a surprise. She referred to Maddalena as being in the convent “as part of the great one’s secret plan for his grandson”, and she said she thought I should know all about it. Of course, I assumed she meant Lorenzo, and as his mother, I was, to say the least, intrigued.

  ‘With Piero still alive although increasingly unwell, I had not really felt empowered to take the matter further, and I could hardly say anything to Carlo, who, I was sure, was not part of the plan. But the abbess’s letter had referred to Donatello “bringing information that had been a great comfort to Suora Maddalena”, so I knew he had been involved, somehow.

  ‘I had promised myself for some time that I would find a way to talk to him about it, but he had been living out his old age in a small farm, on the Cafaggiolo estate, and somehow the opportunity to go there quietly and unobserved had never arisen. Now, suddenly, he was dead. Time was running out and I began to wonder whether I should visit the convent before the abbess too died and Cosimo’s great secret, whatever it was, disappeared forever.’

  They reached the top of the steep path back down to the Bagno and she smiled at her companion. ‘Remind me to tell you all about it, some time.’

  Chapter 9

  Doing too Much

  ‘Giovanni?’ Giovanni di Pace put his head round the door. ‘Can you take a message to the monk, please? Tell him I cannot walk with him today. I am too weary for that steep path. The doctor says I must rest.’

  He nodded. ‘He’s already outside, waiting, Mona Lucrezia. Shall I send him away?’

  She sighed, considered, and then shook her head. ‘No. In that case, can you tell him I will join him in ten minutes, at the top pool? Giovanni departed, still nodding. ‘Oh and Giovanni?’ His head reappeared. ‘Can you clear everyone away from the upper pool, please, and make sure we have privacy for the rest of the morning? Thank you.’

  Lucrezia opened her closet and began looking for a clean cotton camicia and her embroidered sleeveless cotta – the cream damask one, brocaded with the green silk embroidery – to wear over it. If it got too hot she could slide into the pool in those and absorb the minerals while they were talking. And with that embroidery around the bust she hoped she wouldn’t look too brazen. It’s not the young monk’s eyes that concern me, but I’m not as firm as I once was.

  He was already waiting when she reached the pool. He looked solicitous, perhaps also disappointed that the previous day’s conversation had slid astray and never really recovered itself. ‘I am sorry to hear that you are unwell.’

  She sat beside the pool and immersed her feet and ankles. The water had an immediate chill but then, even before she had time to change her mind, it became refreshing and she left them where they were. She remembered the discussion that had gone into the building of that pool. A natural grotto shaped like a steep amphitheatre, curved in a natural rock semi-circle taller than a man’s head, of clean, yellow rock – quite distinct amongst the grey metalliferous rocks of the volcanic mountains around them.

  A small natural waterfall already spilled over the edge of the cliff and they had piped it across so that it fell exactly in the centre and then they had hewed out the rock below to produce a deep pool below the waterfall, shallowing gently toward the edges, and with a single narrow runnel to allow the excess water to escape and spill down into the next pool, a much larger one further down the valley and some twenty feet below where she now sat.

  ‘Thank you for your concern. It’s nothing serious.’

  She watched as he walked across to the small plunge pool close underneath the rock face and removed his sandals. His feet, as always, were filthy and carefully he washed them before padding back across the smooth rock and sitting opposite her with the heels of his feet just immersed in the edge of the water.

  ‘You have been doing too much.’ His face was kindly and concerned, and she began to relax. After the previous day she had expected criticism.

  ‘That’s what my doctor says.’ She smiled, leaning back on her elbows, swishing her feet from side to side.

  ‘Is it a habit you have? Doing too much?’

  At first, she thought of denying it, but then she spotted an opportunity. ‘A reaction.’

  His eyebrows furrowed. ‘To what? Or perhaps I should say against what?’

  ‘Initially against imprisonment. And later …’ she smiled at the memory, ‘against release.’

  He smiled back at her. Perhaps he realized that she was teasing him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  She sat upright and turned to her left, leaning on an elbow. ‘Why do men not take women seriously? Why do they not treat them as equals?’

  She could see he was interested but he would not be drawn. He shook his head. ‘Tell me why.’

  ‘Because, in the main, women are not educated. Because they have access neither to the knowledge that underlies interesting conversation, nor the language and the rhetorical skills with which to explore its opportunities. And as a result, men – educated men – find their conversation boring.’

  ‘But you have all those things. They do not, surely, find you boring?’

  Lucrezia looked at the expression on his face. Was it solicitous or just simpering? He probably thought she was fishing for compliments. She made sure her reply proved him wrong because she was deadly serious.

  ‘I am different. My father ensured that I had a complete and equal humanist education. I was taught Latin and Greek, Rhetoric and Logic from an early age. Instead of embroidery, I studied finance and banking practice and although I studied music, I was also taught how to keep accounts and the skills of market negotiation. As a child I read Ovid,
Cicero and Plutarch. I can read the Libro Segreto of the Medici Bank and I understand its subtleties. I write and publish poetry and I own and manage a number of successful businesses in my own name, including this one.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m impressed.’

  Now she was sure he thought she was bragging. But she could also see a question in his face, perhaps because he did not know why she was doing so. All to the good. It was that interest she needed to encourage if she was to achieve her objective. But there was no rush. All in good time.

  ‘I was brought up with the younger Medici boys, in the Palazzo Medici. I played with them, read with them, rode with them, with Giovanni and Carlo and with my brother Giovanni Battista. Giovanni was the eldest of our group and he was our leader and our champion – fearless, courageous, charming, amusing and inspiring. So I know the Medici, I know how they work, how they play, how they fight and how they think.’

  ‘Surely, then, a world of opportunity.’

  ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you?’ She shook her head. ‘Unless someone is stupid enough to marry you to P-P-P-Piero.’

  ‘Your husband didn’t treat you as an equal?’

  This time she snorted in derision. ‘Equal? I didn’t want to be his equal. I was a lot more than his equal. The harsh truth is that Piero was a man of very limited ability, very little imagination, and absolutely no charm whatsoever. His perceptions, his expectations and his aspirations were all limited to the point of invisibility.’ She pointed to her own chest. ‘I was a modern woman and he held me back!’

  He looked at her and opened his mouth but finally did not reply. For a moment it looked as if he was afraid to.

  ‘I used to go to the Mercato Vecchio and see the caged birds there, finches and canaries. I used to buy them all and let them go.’

  ‘Because Piero kept you caged?’

  She nodded, shaking at the memory. ‘He tried. He tried to hold me down.’

  ‘Jealousy?’

  She shook her head. ‘Worse than that. He didn’t have the brains to be jealous. He was simply copying what he had seen his father do with Contessina.’ She shook her head again, this time more slowly but with more feeling. ‘Sadly Piero had inherited his limited talents from his mother. Like her he was a magpie, collected things and sat and looked at them as if the wealth that had bought them was some measure of his success.’ She snorted, dismissively. ‘No doubt, given a chance, he would have proved adept at embroidering table cloths as well.’

  ‘So he held you back?’

  ‘He tried. And his dim-witted mother tried to help him. But I learned to escape. It was making me ill, so I began to take the cure, first at Macerato then at Spedaletto to the north, beyond Volterra, and then here, at Morba. And quietly I began to build a world of my own. I had inherited a couple of shops in Pisa, which paid a pittance in rent, so when the tenancies came to an end, I didn’t renew but instead put managers in and ran the businesses myself, with Francesco the Goldsmith acting as my local factor.’ Suddenly, she laughed, defiantly. ‘We finished up with two whole streets and a hotel at one end. And by then I also had my own account with the Monte Ordinario.’

  She saw his blank expression. ‘You don’t have those on Ferrara? The Monte are Tuscan savings banks run by the various cities and communes as a way of raising funds. You buy shares for a fixed period of years and at the end you receive your reward – a greater sum. The Monte Commune is for general savings and the Monte delle Doti is specifically for saving enough money for your daughter’s dowry.’

  His eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘You receive interest on your money?’

  She waved him away, irritated at her tactical mistake. ‘No. Of course not. That would be usury. It’s an exchange fee – it’s all quite legal and every city has one.’

  Across the pool she could see Savonarola make a mental note. He was taking this confessional business more seriously than she had expected and she knew he had marked it down as a point against her.

  ‘He tried to do the same to Lorenzo, to hold him back.’ Lucrezia was keen to take his mind off the subject of usury. It was an unnecessary diversion and if she was not careful it would ruin another day. The monk could be such a dogmatist at times.

  ‘I once heard him say: “I am determined that the gosling shall not lead the gander to water.” That was the extent to which my husband felt overshadowed by his own son. So he tried to hold him back.’

  The tactic worked. Savonarola lifted his head. ‘Hold him back? Lorenzo? That would be difficult, surely?’

  She nodded, inwardly relieved. ‘It was a question of Lorenzo’s future wife. Piero had been in negotiations for some time with the Orsini family in Rome. I think my brother, who was running the Rome branch, had convinced him that the future of the bank lay with the Curia branch and that he should strengthen the Medici ties with one of the powerful Roman families.

  ‘At the same time, Piero, in his silly inflated way, had got the idea in his head that it would be a good idea to demonstrate that the Medici were now players in a national game and not just limited to the city and commune of Florence. It was, of course, true, but cocking a snook at the other powerful families in Florence really was crass stupidity. I told him so, but once Piero had made his mind up …’ She paused, distracted by the thought, and absent-mindedly chewed the end of a finger-nail. Then, as rapidly as she had lost her train of thought, she re-found it. ‘Anyway. I was sent to Rome to have a look at this girl.’ Once again, she shook her head. ‘As soon as I saw her I was appalled. Breeding nobles is a bit like breeding pigs. If you keep using the same boar, the young become deformed. Everybody knows that but the Orsini seemed to have forgotten.’

  She looked up. There was no doubt, she had Savonarola’s attention now. He was sitting across the pool with his mouth open.

  ‘The girl sat, as if without stimulus or awareness of her surroundings. Her eyes were dull and lifeless, her mouth half-open, and her shoulders were slouched. I have seen carp with sharper wits.’

  She tipped her head from side to side. ‘On reflection, that slouched manner of sitting may have reflected her embarrassment at having a very flat chest. The poor girl had not really finished growing. I didn’t want to be unfair but compared with our girls, by which I mean all three, Maria, Nannina and Bianca Maria, she was a nonentity. I felt I was in a very difficult position. There was no doubt that Piero had made considerable progress in his discussions with the girl’s father and I wasn’t clear whether we were already too far committed to withdraw. So I wrote a very careful letter to Piero expressing my reservations, but trying to be supportive at the same time.’

  She looked away as she spoke, hearing the voice in her head. Don’t tell him the real reason why you did not reject the girl.

  She had seen the report the Night Watch in Florence had submitted to Piero and she shared his concerns. That’s why she had been willing to go to Rome in the first place because, like Piero, she thought her son was out of control and with anyone other than a shy dimwit as his wife, all hell might break loose.

  The letter had come at the most delicate time, with Lorenzo’s marriage (thankfully by proxy at this stage) only weeks away. She remembered the letter all too well. Even now, she could repeat it, almost verbatim.

  PALAZZO MEDICI

  January 1469

  Piero reads the letter, his expression darkening with every sentence. At the end he looks up.

  ‘Well? What does it say?’

  Speechless, his hand shaking, he hands it over to her:

  To the Magnificent Piero de’ Medici, greetings.

  We write to you on a matter of the greatest sensitivity. You will be aware that certain young men, especially members of your son Lorenzo’s brigata, are wont to sit at night upon the benches on the north side of the Mercato Vecchio and specifically on either side of the steps leading to the loggia above the fattoria of one Felippe Vaiai of the Guild of Furriers and Skinners.

  It is their practice to dress lewdly, in tight gior
nea and groin-hugging hose, showing off their falcons and their running dogs and making shameful remarks to the “pretty-boys” and sodomites who infect that area at night.

  It has now come to our attention that many of the brigata have been seen ascending the steps to the loggia above where they are said by reliable witnesses to be performing acts of gross indecency with one another, and, moreover, bragging of their exploits by returning to the street with their clothing still half-open.

  We write to you to avoid the embarrassment that persons known to you may in the near future find themselves arrested by the night patrol on charges of gross indecency.

  The Night Watch … (Signatures illegible)

  She finishes the letter and looks at her husband. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘We must hold him back. The family name will be ruined. I shall talk to him in the sternest possible terms.’

  Lucrezia’s heart sinks. Already she can hear Piero’s attempts at being s-s-stern and Lorenzo’s muffled sniggers.

  It had, as expected, been a disastrous conversation. Lorenzo had won easily, Piero finally walking out of the room in exasperation, his footsteps followed by his son’s laughter.

  Her own approach at the time had been simpler. She had waited until Piero was bedridden with one of his attacks of gout and then she had showed the letter to Lorenzo. ‘Listen to me. If you are ever caught, I shall have all of your falcons strangled in their hoods and Il Morello castrated. That’s a promise.’

  And for a time, it had worked. Lorenzo loved his friends, but in truth he loved his falcons and his favourite racehorse even better.

  ‘But the marriage went ahead?’ Savonarola looked at her, confused, no doubt wondering why she had stopped speaking.

  ‘What? Oh yes. Piero had made the decision and as a dutiful wife I had to support him. I had other tasks to perform while I was in Rome. I performed the diplomatic mission that Piero had entrusted me with, a sensitive conversation with the pope, and then I prepared to come home. Just as I was about to leave Rome I went down with a heavy cold and took days to recover. Still, I must have set off before I was fully strong again, because by the time we reached Assisi …’