by Linda Proud
‘No, he is right,’ said Linacre. ‘It is the finest in the world, a place where a man is healed as much in the spirit as in the body. Tommaso, do you know anyone in Florence who could draw its plan for us?’
‘No. No one.’
So far as I know, Botticelli and Michelangelo still live, but one is too aged and the other too exalted to draw plans. No, I know no one. No one alive. Better to leave the past where it is. Better that it exists only in my dreams.
‘There must be someone. Will you at least make enquiries?’
I agreed to do so.
My conversation with Linacre was drowned out by that of More and Erasmus, who were enjoying a contest of insults. Colet looked on with a tolerant smile and an expression which said, if the spirit that loves life and humanity must burst out with jibes worthy of fish porters, so be it. No doubt the apostles were the same when they gathered together to eat. He raised a slender, graceful hand for silence and said, ‘If you want to create heaven here on earth, it must be done with love – there is no other way. A selfish society, comprising selfish individuals, must be penned in by legislation of increasing complexity as governments struggle to maintain order. But a society based on love and service needs few laws.’
‘How could such a society be established?’
‘Ah, I am coming to that. First I have a question to put to you all. As you know, my beloved father recently left this life, and as his only surviving child I stand to inherit a considerable fortune, and I have no one to pass it on to. I want your advice. What should I do with it that is for the good of all?’
‘Banquets,’ Erasmus said at once. ‘Simple ones, of course, and nutritious, but with plenty of roasted chestnuts.’
‘Oh, it goes without saying – you should found a college at Oxford,’ said Linacre.
‘This is a wonderful act of Providence,’ said Grocyn. ‘Without doubt I say you should found a library for the great works of antiquity, a library to rival that of the Medici, containing a copy of every book available. You could hire an army of scribes to do the copying work – you already have in us the scholars to do translations.’
My heart leapt at the thought and I agreed vigorously. London could become as Florence in the 1430s, when Cosimo de’ Medici had agents scouring the world for precious and rare manuscripts. Yes! A thousand times yes! It was that work of Cosimo that had brought about the great flowering of arts and learning in my city for which Erasmus uses that lovely French word renascence. ‘Yes, Dean! A library!’
Everyone was in agreement. Books – learning – these are the elements for the rebirth of a culture.
‘But we are not talking of culture,’ said Colet quietly. ‘Young Thomas wants a just society and for that we need to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, where men live according to the commandments, loving God and their neighbours, where the wealth of the land is available to all and not just the few.’
I shivered. I had heard such words before. Colet had been in Florence in the heyday of Savonarola: surely he was not about to repeat that dreadful experiment of the ‘New Jerusalem’ here? I considered him guardedly, for I am never quite sure if I fully know John Colet. He contains within himself so many people I have known: in his interest in Cabala I see Pico della Mirandola; in his love of Plato, I find Marsilio Ficino; but in his strict piety, yes, I see Savonarola. So many personalities in one man, personalities who, in life, were at odds.
Thomas More, after some consideration, spoke up. ‘I think you should furbish your father’s estate as a villa of the kind described by Petrarch, to which we may retire whenever we may, to live and study in seclusion. The estate should be run on the model of Plato’s Republic as an experiment in right living and good govern- ment. It will be the acorn from which will grow the mighty oak.’
‘All these ideas’ said Colet, ‘are selfish.’
‘How so?’ exclaimed More, stung.
‘You are all thinking of your own pleasure – however noble and exalted that pleasure may be, it is still pleasure.’
‘Heaven and earth!’ Erasmus exclaimed. ‘I suspected as much! He intends to open a public bath with cold pools for the health of society.’
‘What I have been thinking of,’ Colet replied sedately, ‘is founding a school, a school for children of the citizens of London.’
A school!
‘What?’ cried Erasmus, ‘an institution for the flogging of children?’
I flinched and looked away. While the others laughed at Erasmus’s remark, I felt unclean. I can no longer rant about ignorant schoolmasters who are vindictive and cruel, not now that I have used the rod on a boy.
‘Not a private school,’ said Colet, ‘such as London has aplenty, schools that teach the barbarous tongue that passes for Latin, that use textbooks which may be called Blotterature rather than Literature. Away with it all! No, we shall found a public school for children, where they will be raised in the New Learning, fed on Latin and Greek grammar, reading the poets in the light of the Christian doctrine. If we can harmonise intellect and devotion, then we can fashion men who are true Christians and not lip- servants to a faith they do not understand. Children who are born innocent and pure are being raised up by beatings, and grow into sour and selfish men, just like their fathers. Let us try instead to raise them up by love, and then perhaps you may have your new society. It is a great project requiring great men, and that is why I have invited you here tonight. You are to be my schoolmasters.’
Maria’s prophecy fulfilled! I wrote about it just a few days ago, and now it is coming to pass. I shall be surrounded by children who will found a new nation. The strangeness of that distracted me awhile. I came back to the discussion when Grocyn made a protest.
‘Are we not already too busy to fulfil all our duties? And now we are to become schoolmasters? Giving our time and intelligence to teach children? It would mean spending all day every day on rudimentaries. One may as well yoke arab stallions to ox carts!’
‘You have all learnt and studied enough,’ Colet said. ‘It is time to give of your knowledge for the benefit of the world.’
Every man present was sitting with his mouth agape like a Galilean fisherman commanded to put down his nets. Before we could recover from the shock, Colet delivered a fresh one. ‘After much consideration on the matter, I shall require all my schoolmasters to be married.’
Married! Then Maria’s prophecy could not come true.
‘Why so, John?’
‘In married men I find the least corruption.’
‘Then I am free of this onerous duty,’ Erasmus exclaimed. ‘Since I cannot be married I cannot be a schoolmaster!’
I waited keenly for Colet’s reply but he only said that, with Erasmus he was prepared to make an exception. I wondered if he would he make an exception of me, too, if he were to know the truth. But I would have to confess it first, and I cannot. The secret has lived so long in me now that it’s like a rusted nail.
‘I do not intend to establish my school, which shall be here at St Paul’s, for five years. In that time, you must prepare yourselves for the task ahead and make provision for what will be required. Thomas More, I want you to find out the best curricula and teaching methods.’
‘Where shall I find them?’
‘Search the world, if needs be. Doctor Thomas,’ he addressed Linacre. ‘From you I desire a Latin grammar suitable for a child’s understanding.’
‘You wish me to write for children? Impossible! My intellectual powers have been honed to a fine and subtle point. Simplicity is a virtue I no longer possess.’
‘Then you must find it again, for we must be as little children if we would enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Colet turned to Erasmus. ‘My dear friend, I need you fighting on another front. You have studied theology in Paris. If you would take your degree and become doctor of divinity, you will gain the authority for your ide
as that men respond to, for they will not listen to truth unless its speaker has the right qualifications. If we live in a world that is swayed more by a man’s certificates than by his character or intelligence, then we must gain those certificates.’
Erasmus quibbled, not wishing to take a degree, but finally he said that he would, provided he be allowed to take it in Italy and not in France. ‘If I gain it in Bologna, how my status will be improved in the eyes of men! I shall even be above Linacre, who only received a degree in medicine and at Padua.’
At the end of their bargaining, Erasmus looked very pleased with himself, for he had just won his excuse to try again to make the journey to Italy he still longs to make. But then Colet followed on with the instruction that he write a textbook on virtue for use in his school.
‘But I am busy! I have my Adages to be revised and my translations of Euripides to complete…’
‘You have five years, you reprobate, to get this love of literature out of your system and replace it with a love of God. Master Grocyn, to you it is charged to produce a Greek grammar for English boys.’
‘My eyes! I cannot read Roman letters one foot high let alone write little Greek ones!’
‘Lily shall help you. And William,’ Colet added, turning to Lily, ‘I want you to raise your own sons in the manner you will wish to employ on the sons of others.’
‘Me? You shall want me for a master?’
‘You are to be the High Master.’
Leaving Lily blinking with astonishment, Colet turned to me. ‘Well, Tommaso de’ Maffei. What of you? Will you marry again?’
‘I cannot, Dean. I am celibate.’
‘By which he means, Dean,’ said Erasmus sweetly, picking fig pips out of his teeth, ‘that he is impotent.’
I protested, flushing with embarrassment.
‘It is true!’ Erasmus insisted. ‘Ask Saggy Annie. She says the only thing that stiffens in him is his joints.’
Colet tried to hide his laughter while his philosophers crowed, wanting to know how Erasmus knew the prostitute of Paternoster Row. ‘All men and women are my brothers and sisters in Christ,’ he said amiably. Erasmus will talk to anyone without judgement, even if it is only to get a story or folktale out of them.
‘Is there something you want to tell us, Tommaso?’ Colet asked.
‘I’ve never heard of Saggy Annie.’
‘Believe me, we know a Dutch joke when we hear one. Is there something else you wish to say?’ His eyes were bright, challenging me to honesty.
‘About marriage?’ I asked, blanching.
‘About being a schoolmaster.’
It was time to confess publicly, at least some of the truth. ‘Dean, my brothers in Plato, I have something to tell you. I am a hypocrite.’
Erasmus sat back and grinned. ‘Why do men think they keep secret that which is so transparent to others?’
‘Please – this is difficult enough for me. A few weeks ago I beat my pupil with the birch rod. That is why I am no longer tutor to Giles de Greye. My heart swells with your idea, Dean, but my mind warns me to know myself. I cannot love. I am a stranger to love.’
‘You who have the Symposium by heart.’
‘Precisely. I know the theory and not the practice. I am a hypocrite.’
John Colet leaned towards me, held me with his eyes. ‘Maffei, you are to go back to Italy and find what you have lost.’
I stared at him. ‘It was the express instruction of Marsilio Ficino that I come to England, bringing the seed fire of the Platonic Wisdom to a new hearth.’
Colet’s face is soft and gentle even when his voice is most steely. ‘My friend,’ he said. ‘Your fire is out. Go home and find what it is you have lost. You have five years.’
London, December 5th, 1505
Ash. All the past is ash. Memories float like smuts over a blackened land. Thoughts of Italy should bring sunshine and Etruscan smiles, images of olive groves and gem-like seas, but I dreamt fitfully of home last night and saw everyone garbed in penitent robes, shuffling and fearful, with their hands clasped in front of them. And then, suddenly, fire. Flames behind the figures. Lightning forking in heaven to jab fizzling at the earth and catch a whole culture in choking, dense smoke and roaring flames. Flames to roast people in. The smell of charred flesh. Human flesh. A bit like pork.
The memory of the evening with Colet is tender and my mind goes to it cautiously, as to a wound. To dream of home and find it is a nightmare: it was only to be expected.
My window overhangs the cobbled streets of London where ravens watch from the thatched roofs of timber houses that know no right angles. The air is clouded by the smoke of domestic fires and the sound of a hundred bells tolling in the towers and spires of a hundred churches. They say that London is the most pious city in the world, but a man who measures piety by the number of churches is a fool.
The shock of England when I first arrived took a long time to dispel. Generations of wars, which ended at the Battle of Bosworth Field and the extinction of the Plantagenet line of kings, have retarded the country. Stepping off the boat in 1499 I went back a hundred years. Art here is crude, unrealistic. The English script is like its architecture: squint at it and you see a page full of mullioned windows, all strength in the uprights, none in the horizontals. For several years I despised it and everything English until I once chanced into the Divinity School in Oxford and became amazed by fan vaulting. Being ignorant of architectural principles of stress, yet wishing to build soaring cathedrals, they keep buildings standing with flying buttresses. But fan vaulting goes beyond mere expediency. Fan vaulting is art.
London is so crowded and dense that only when crossing the Thames on a wherry can you see the distant hills; otherwise there is no sense of horizon here as there is in Florence, no rural context for urban life. This is a squalid city reeking of human excrement, where pigs roam as freely as the pimps, the procurers and the scabby child beggars.
Colet has given me a mission, but I already have one, given to me by Marsilio: to bring philosophy to a new home. By ‘philosophy’ he meant the teaching that has been passed to us from ancient Egypt by poets and philosophers such as Orpheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, and – in our own day – by Ficino himself. ‘Take this teaching north,’ he instructed me, ‘carry it like seed fire from our hearth to whichever place will have it. But carry it, most of all, to Colet, destined by God to light the torch in England.’
I have done as bidden. I have brought what I know and teach Greek to whoever will hire me. In the evenings, with my friends, I reveal the ‘hidden wisdom’ as St Paul calls it, the Platonic wisdom. Behind closed doors of oak I tell them what I know of Cabala and natural magic. I have done what I was asked to do. And yet somehow, I know, I have failed in my duty. And all-seeing Colet knows it.
I understand his plan to open a school for children. He wants this wisdom to be available to all and to spread its light throughout society. Yet inside I roll up at the thought of it and refuse to participate. Why? Because it will require me to love, and I dare not. That’s the nub of my hypocrisy: I teach what I do not practise. Colet is not sending me on some quest, he is expelling me from his circle. Get thee gone, thou hypocrite. But to return home? That is impossible. I hear the sirens’ song but I must resist. In my memory I can hear the whirring of cicadas and feel the heat of the sun on my skin. As I gaze over wet London streets now, my mind drifts away to those almond blossom times when we sang songs of love, enamoured as we were of the Creator and His creation, those Orphic times of hymns of praise to ineffable Beauty. Those Aphrodite days. I see her rising out of the foamy Cyprian sea as Botticelli painted her, the naked, innocent soul wafted ashore by zephyrs in a breeze of rose petals to be clothed with a mortal embodiment.
And then I see her image bubbling in the flames lit by Savonarola to cleanse Florence of sin. Love has been incinerated and
I have nothing in my heart now but scar tissue.
8
THE PLATONIC ACADEMY
1484
IT WAS IN MAY THAT I HEARD THAT FICINO HAD FINISHED THE Plato at Valori’s villa. There was to be a banquet to celebrate but I did not expect to be invited, nor was I. It was for Ficino’s most intimate friends and those who had given him financial support over the years that he had spent on his great work. I did not mind missing the banquet, but I was upset that the book should go off to Venice without me bidding it farewell. After all, I had lived with it for several years. I also heard that Valori was commissioning hand-written copies of it for presentation – real, old-fashioned, proper copies with vines and peacocks framing the pages. And then I was very upset. Half of me dreaded the commission, for as much as I love Plato I could not bear to think of writing that book out again, no matter how beautifully; the other half, of course, absolutely ached for it. When the commission went elsewhere, I was very sour indeed.
‘There is a message from Ficino,’ Angelo told me the day after the banquet. ‘You are to meet him at Careggi tonight.’
‘Why?’
‘He did not say.’
And thus I returned to my place of purgatory, to find Ficino alone with two books of Plato. One was his translation, awaiting collection by a courier; the other was the original manuscript. When I expressed surprise that the book had not yet gone to Venice, he said he had thought it more appropriate that it should leave from here, the place of its birth. ‘I have consulted the heavens and the most propitious moment for its despatch is at dawn tomorrow. I do not wish to spend this night alone in case I die.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Or am I being superstitious? But when you finish your life’s work what else can you expect?’
We kept vigil all night, fasting and in prayer, with the original Greek manuscript sitting in the centre of the room like a god in a temple of ancient Egypt. Ficino’s memories were stirred. ‘I was born,’ he told me, ‘in the year Plato came to Florence.’ He touched his treasured book reverentially, the book he had lived with since Cosimo had presented it to him, the only complete copy of Plato’s Dialogues extant in western Europe. Its binding had lost its colour with age, and the leather on the spine was turning to dust. It smelt of a thousand years in the desert amongst camel herders and was an object to attract no eye, yet Ficino referred to it often when he lectured on beauty, using it as an example of subtle beauty, the beauty of ideas. ‘This is the object of greatest beauty I possess,’ he would say. ‘While men set store by agate vases, precious gems and cameos, this is my treasure. Its beauty is not to be known through the senses, but through reason alone. When I read in this book, my soul is in joy. Now, any man who would seek to keep such beauty to himself would be considered a fool, would he not? Yet men hoard their worldly treasures and are not considered fools. Often we say they are wise.’