The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  For those who have seen Raphael’s magnificent tapestry, “Saint Paul Preaching at Athens,” hanging in the Vatican Museum in recent years and are led to question the authenticity of the episode in this book in which that tapestry is captured by pirates, rest easy. John Shearman, the eminent art historian, reports in his study of Raphael’s Sistine tapestries that this and one other of the set did fall into Isabella’s hands during the sack; were seized by pirates in transit; were sold, resold, and finally acquired by Constable Anne de Montmorency. It was he who bought them in Constantinople in the year 1554 and, being a man of honor, restored them to their rightful owner, the Pope.

  So the gorgeous tapestry that you may have seen hanging in the Vatican Museum is the very one that was spirited out of Rome in Isabella’s baggage train and then taken as booty by pirates. All I did to alter history was to put Grazia aboard the ship.

  A complete listing of the source material for this book would, I think, be of limited interest. But, for anyone who wishes to venture a little farther into Grazia’s world, Ludwig Freiherr von Pastor’s The History of the Popes, from the Close of the Middle Ages was recommended to me early on by Professor James Ackerman as the seminal work on this period of history and I have leaned on it heavily throughout. (Incidentally, Professor Ackerman’s short film, Looking for Renaissance Rome, is required viewing for anyone seeking to find what remains of the Renaissance in Rome.)

  Julia Cartwright’s two-volume biography of Isabella is fusty and Victorian but it is firmly based on documents from the Gonzaga archives. That family saved everything including shopping lists, and Mrs. Cartwright (a.k.a. Celia Ady) dispenses generous portions of the archive translated into English.

  For an overall Jewish perspective, Cecil Roth’s books on the Jews in the Renaissance are a good place to start. As with Mrs. Ady, modern scholarship has overtaken Professor Roth’s research. But he was the pioneer and his work still has the power to lead you on to other books and articles which, in their turn, will point you in the direction of yet others and others and others . . . as they did me.

  THE ISABELLA/

  PACIENZA LETTERS

  FROM ISABELLA GONZAGA

  TO PACIENZA PONTREMOLI, THE MANTUAN JEW

  OCTOBER 20TH.

  The fame that resounds all around about your virtue and goodness prompts me to write you and exhort you to convert to Christianity so that as virtuous a soul as yours should not remain deprived of heavenly consolations. By now the blindness of the Hebrew faith should be clear to you; so what are you waiting for? Doesn’t your prophet Rhau say that the hour that your Messiah was supposed to come has already passed? Haven’t you read this more than once in the book entitled Sanidrin? Are the seventy weeks of Daniel not already over? Has the spectre of the house of Judah not been lifted? I myself have read many times in that same Sanidrin that the Messiah was born on the same day that the Temple was destroyed: what are you waiting for then, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the true Lord and the true Savior of the world?

  Oh! Please, think it over; please, cleanse yourself now in the fountain which will be the stairway that will enable you to climb to heaven and to eternally enjoy the resplendent face of the Eternal Father, Don’t let yourself be deceived any longer by your doomed Rabbis ignorant of both human and divine doctrine: listen to my advice, because I’m advising you faithfully with perfect (Christian) zeal! Convert to Christianity. If you do so, for the one flesh-and-blood mother that you renounce, you will find ten more through the love of Jesus Christ! The Madonna of Mantova, mirror of pure sanctity, will be a Mother to you; my sister, both of my sisters-in-law, myself and many others will be mothers to you; nor will you lack a gracious husband because Marco Antonio Sidonio longs for you so much that the wretched man has been at risk of losing his head for love of you. The poor little thing is pining away and falling apart like a snowflake that the sun has discovered. And I am certain that you will find excellent companionship in him; and his being grateful to you will bring you honor and a fine reputation.

  You will enjoy a husband who is wise and not fraudulent, courageous and not fearful of clear and flowing speech, not importunate or wearisome. Every time I hear his witty narrations accompanied by more well-executed actions than Roscio ever had, I’m afraid I’ll die laughing just as Philomene the poet or Philistione the actor did. No melancholy humor will ever reside in your house; sad thoughts will keep far away from you. You will never suffer any discomfort for anything at all; on the contrary, it will seem to you that under your roof the goddess Amaltheia (Copia) is residing with her horn and whenever the whole world lets you down the generosity of your most revered Padrone will supply your needs because he feels an infinite lightening of his heavy thoughts due to his jokes.

  I assure you even further, on my faith, that you will be even more loved by him than Euridice was by Orpheo, than Aspasia was by Pericle, than Orestia was by M. Plautio, or than Lisidica was by the poet Antimaco. Oh, don’t delay, then, to make yourself a friend of Christ and to thus make our church happy and to render tearful the evil synagogue. Please, do not put off your sacred conversion any longer, do not put off increasing the number of the Elect in Heaven; and finally do not put off making happy poor Marco Antonio, who loves you fervently and has withstood for you as many hardships as Hercules did in his own time. Nor will I go on anymore now about his good qualities. Think, and examine well what I’ve told you; pray to God that He might illuminate you with the living rays of the Holy Spirit so that you will do the right thing. Beautiful and pleasant thoughts to you. May God guide you.

  FROM PACIENZA PONTREMOLI, THE MANTUAN JEW

  TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS SIGNORA ISABELLA GONZAGA

  OCTOBER 23RD.

  Yesterday I got the letter that it pleased you to send me, which has very much troubled my thoughts. Your reasoning seemed to me full of vigour and spirit and your persuasions were made in such a way that they almost did violence to my intellect. Your offers did not displease me; on the contrary, they made me blush, because I realized I was unworthy of such a husband as you proposed for me. On the other hand, I’m in doubt about offending the Divine King by converting to Christianity. If I confess Christ to be the true Messiah, I live in the anguish of turning against me the disdain of Moses and the curse of all the synagogue. I don’t know (poor me!) where to turn for help and advice. Your letters have moved me infinitely; and if certain difficult steps had not held me back, I would have gone straight to church and importunately asked for baptism. But I am considering, my lady, the sacred scripture’s promise that when the Messiah comes, Israel will be recovered. I read in the book entitled Badra that in his coming, Jerusalem and the temple of precious stones will be rebuilt — which, however, has not yet happened. Furthermore, I see that our law was publicly given by God through the hand of Moses on Mount Sinai in the presence of frightening thunder and lightning — which you Christians confess to be true without any reservations, there where your {law} is given secretly by the hand and the confession of twelve poor barefoot men. So I cannot help believing our Rabbis, who have a very different opinion about your Redeemer than you do. Let it not seem too strange to you, then, if I do not give in so quickly and if I seem somewhat stubborn. As for the husband that you speak to me about, I think — no, I clearly know — that he is even more worthy than you say; I know without a doubt that for his rare witness he would deserve to have a woman more beautiful than Deiopeia, than Amarilli, or than the fugitive Galathea. May God inspire me to do that which does him honor and glory; and meanwhile I beg you to pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal to me what I should do. I reverently kiss the beautiful and generous hand of your Excellency that had written me a most inspiring letter and beg you to pity the indecision of a weak and confused girl. Pray for me.

  Signed Pacienza Pontremoli

  (Translated by Kathleen Crozier Egan)

  Read on for a preview of,

  The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi,


  the sequel to

  The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi

  Available November 7, 2014

  CHAPTER 1

  RANSOM

  After a long and successful career in the service of the great and powerful, Judah del Medigo was not surprised when out of the blue a courier arrived in Rome ordering him to report immediately to his new master, Suleiman the Magnificent, at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

  Sudden arbitrary orders were the price the doctor knew he would have to pay when he signed on as the Sultan’s new Chief Body Physician. Just as he knew that doctors do not say no to sultans. So the doctor reluctantly kissed his wife and son goodbye and boarded the first ship bound for the eastern Mediterranean, leaving his family behind in Rome to pack up and follow him.

  When news reached him at the Ottoman court that the city of Rome had been sacked and burned soon after he left, del Medigo was not unduly alarmed. He felt sure — with good cause — that his wife and son would escape the sack unscathed. He had left them in the fortified Colonna Palace in Rome under the protection of his wife’s patroness, Isabella D’Este, the Marchesana of Mantova, and he knew Isabella to be a woman of infinite resources and a practiced survivor.

  Not until the doctor had heard nothing of his family for some weeks did he begin to worry. Even then, he mentioned his concern only casually to the Venetian baillo when they met at the Ottoman court. He knew that the Venetians made it their business to pick up odds and ends of information and, sure enough, that very evening the baillo presented himself at The Doctor’s House with a rolled-up dispatch from one of his informants.

  Wordless, the Venetian pressed his spy’s report into the doctor’s hands, gently patted him on the shoulder, turned on his heel and left without a word. When the doctor unrolled the document and read it, he understood why.

  Madonna Isabella D’Este reached home safely, he read. Sadly, members of her household were captured by Mediterranean pirates off the Isola D’Elba. Their ship, the Hesperion, put up a brave defense but its crew and passengers were lost at sea. Then, being Venetians, they added, Most of the lady Isabella’s valuable treasures were also lost.

  The blow hit the doctor with the force of a pole axe. He had never doubted that the indomitable Marchesana Isabella would protect his dear ones. Isabella was an Este by birth and, say what you will about the Estes, they take care of their own. Now suddenly the Marchesana was apparently safe in her palace in Mantova but her confidential secretary, the doctor’s wife, and their son Danilo, had been lost at sea.

  Judah del Medigo was an observant though not a believing Jew. The day he received the news, he locked his doors, covered his mirrors and settled down on a low stool in the basement of The Doctor’s House in the Third Court of Topkapi Palace to weep and grieve. Being a realist, he did not pray to have his loved ones brought back to him. There was no reason to hope they might still be alive. The Venetian report had left no doubt as to their fate. Yet before dawn on his sixth day of mourning, the Sultan’s Chief Body Physician found himself scrambling across the dark silent streets of Istanbul in response to a ransom note that had been slipped under his door on the previous night.

  The woman is dead, the note read. The boy is safe. You have until dawn to appear at Pirates’ Cove with 2,000 gold ducats. If the ransom is not paid at sunup the boy will be delivered to the Istanbul slave market and sold to the highest bidder.

  The ransom note read like a fraudulent ruse to extract money from a grieving parent. And the doctor knew better than to trust any bargain made with the Corsican pirates who prowl the waters of the Mediterranean. But what if just this once, the Corsicans proved to be as good as their word? What if his son was still alive? He could not afford to risk that chance. So the next morning, well before sunup, the Sultan’s Chief Body Physician plodded through the sleeping city of Istanbul clutching a pouch full of gold coins.

  When the doctor clambered down the bank of Pirates’ Cove he saw no sign of life in the woods that ringed the shore or on the beach. Only one small portion of the landscape moved in the stillness: a deserted fishing boat bobbed up and down against the small dock anchored in the curve of the cove. If anything, the tattered sail that fluttered from the flagpole of the abandoned skiff underscored the flat emptiness of the scene.

  By now a rim of sunlight had appeared on the horizon. The witching hour had come and gone but there was no one there to collect the ransom.

  As the doctor stood gazing into the void, reluctant to give up his last remaining glimmer of hope, he heard what seemed to be the sound of a twig breaking behind him in the silent woods.

  When he turned his head toward the sound he was taken from behind by a pair of unseen arms and felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

  “Did you bring the gold?” The question was voiced in a growling, deeply-accented Corsican dialect.

  The doctor nodded his assent.

  “Hand it over.”

  He reached into his pocket for the pouch only to find it yanked from his fingers by a hairy hand that made immediate use of it to rap him smartly on the back of his head. He felt a sharp pain. Then blackness.

  When he opened his eyes his attacker had made off with the gold, and the woods behind him were as unruffled as they were when he first arrived at the rendezvous. He has been duped. How could he have been such a fool as to put his faith in a passel of Corsican pirates?

  But wait. Out of the corner of his eye he became aware of something moving on the deck of the abandoned skiff. Transfixed, he watched as a trap door was slowly thrust into view from below the deck of the craft and two pairs of bronzed, muscled arms emerged bearing what seemed to be a body wrapped in a tarpaulin.

  Mesmerized by what he took to be a mirage brought on by the blow to his head, the doctor stumbled to his feet expecting that at any moment the illusion he was seeing would disappear into the wind. Instead, the sailors carrying the wrapped figure moved forward to the prow of the ship where they propped it up against the mast and began to unwind the straps that enclosed it.

  They did say he was alive, the doctor reminded himself. But could he take them at their word?

  Then one of the sailors pulled out a knife. Oh my God they are going to kill him in front of me.

  But no. The sailor used his knife to slit the black hood at the neck, releasing a single golden curl onto the forehead. Then another. Then a nose. Then a chin appeared. Above it, a mouth. Then a pair of clear blue eyes. At last a whole living boy was revealed, arms stretching out towards the shore.

  Then the sailors led their captive down a small gangway from the deck of the skiff to the pier. And, with a gentle push, Danilo del Medigo was released into his father’s waiting arms.

  It was at that moment that Judah del Medigo became a believer in miracles. And, if a battle-scarred, somewhat arthritic old campaigner can be said to have floated through the streets, the Sultan’s Chief Body Physician floated home from Pirates’ Cove that day to The Doctor’s House in Topkapi Palace cradling his son in his arms. There he settled his son on a pallet beside his own bed and wrapped him in a lavender-scented quilt. But not before he had washed and barbered and massaged the boy into a state of cleanliness and ease.

  At the same time, the physician in him managed to conduct what he hoped was an unobtrusive examination of his son’s physical condition. And Judah del Medigo fell asleep that night with the miracle boy nested beside him confident that, considering the shocks he had suffered, the boy was amazingly fit. No broken bones or bruises, no signs of being starved or beaten.

  Not until the next day did Judah became aware that, although his son was healthy enough, he seemed to exist in a state of passivity, hardly moving, not speaking unless spoken to. Perfectly obedient and accommodating, never rebellious or defiant, this pale wraith bore little resemblance to the vigorous, lively little boy his father left in Rome just a few months before. When the doctor tried to distract hi
m with tempting morsels of food or chat, the boy accepted the offerings with a nod but showed no sign that he enjoyed his father’s pleasantries any more than the eggs and meat and pilaf that Judah poured into him hoping to renew the energy that had always been so much a part of his nature.

  Certainly the doctor was beyond joy to be reunited with his lost son. He thanked God every morning in his prayers for the boy’s miraculous delivery. But as the Sultan’s Chief Body Physician, he was bound to accompany his master each spring to that year’s battlefield. Could he in good conscience leave his troubled son behind in the care of strangers? Or must he now resign his position in order to devote himself to the boy’s rehabilitation?

  While he was struggling to come to a decision, a note from the Sultan arrived that might alter the picture. Suleiman was proposing that during the upcoming campaign, the doctor’s son join the royal children in the so-called Princes School attached to the Sultan’s harem where he would be as well taken care of as a prince. The offer was tempting. But after two sleepless nights and many prayers, Judah decided that he must regretfully tender his resignation as Chief Body Physician pleading pressing family obligations.

  In the interim he would bend his efforts to find a replacement body physician to serve Suleiman on the battlefield. Knowing that his decision was the right one put his mind at ease. Now all that remained was to inform the Sultan.

  But Suleiman the Magnificent was not a man to be denied his will by a mere doctor. Like the popes at Rome, and certain Christian princes whose instinct for self-preservation exceeded their religious scruples, the Ottoman sultans favored Jewish doctors. Unhampered by medieval Christian screeds against “pagan science,” Jewish physicians had continued to practice the teachings of Asclepius and Hippocrates. Armed with this knowledge, they had emerged from the Middle Ages as an elite cadre of medical practitioners, Judah del Medigo foremost among them.