by Linda Proud
Such were the sufferings – most of which I had witnessed first hand – of il Magnifico. But the rest of the work outlined his philosophy, that the soul may ascend to God through excellence in the field of human activity; that poetry above all things has the power to humanise, civilise, inspire. He believed, he said, that it is the duty of every man to work always for the benefit of mankind. For Lorenzo, the contemplation of beauty through poetry was the way back to God. This was his vita nuova, the new life.
I sighed and put the book in the chest I was filling.
I browsed Pico’s arcane volumes, full of diagrams and ciphers. Mystic and mystery derive from the Greek word musticos, meaning to close the eyes or lips. Secret, esoteric knowledge: this was Pico’s route of return. In his Commentary on Genesis I read a quotation from St John, saying, ‘No man comes to me unless my Father has drawn him.’ Then my eye fell on Pico’s words close by:
…in whom you always had life, even before you were made. For he knows us not in ourselves but in himself. Likewise we shall know him in himself and not in ourselves. This is the eternal life. This is the wisdom which wise men of this world do not know, that from every imperfection of multiplicity we are brought back to unity by an indissoluble bond with him who is himself the One.
I carried the book to the bed to read the words to their author, who was now awake again. Though in great pain, Pico struggled to attend and fastened his grey eyes on me with desperation. I read the passage twice.
‘Can you hear, Giovanni? Do you understand?’
‘I hear and I believe,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’
‘Giovanni – all Angelo’s papers and books are lost.’
He looked at me in horror. ‘That is worse than death!’
‘I’m gathering copies of everything I can. May I…’
‘Take everything you can find here. Do it quickly, while I live, or else they will go to my heir.’
I thanked God then that I had already put everything I’d found into the chest.
His cheeks sunken, his lips drawn, he spoke Maria’s name. ‘Come close.’
She bent over him.
‘Mors osculi,’ he whispered. ‘I used to argue with Ficino… who said that one could die the mystic death and yet remain alive, but I see no reason to continue living… once full knowledge of the divine has been had and understood.’ He drew a shuddering breath and then continued, anxious to impart this knowledge to us. ‘At the heart… of all mystery is the uncreated Light. It is where we come from… and that to which we return… It is what we truly are… earth to earth… water to water… fire to fire… air to air… all elements return to themselves… but not the soul. The destiny of the soul depends… on the life… The purified soul returns to her maker. But the impure?’
He looked at Maria in sudden anxiety.
‘Do not be afraid. God will forgive the impurities.’
‘But do you forgive me?’
‘Love forgives everything. Fear nothing, my dear, dear brother. What is death? The end of all ignorance, of bondage in this imprisoning body. It is freedom.’
Fra Roberto intervened in agitation. ‘My lord, are you fit to travel?’
‘Indeed I am,’ said Pico, ‘but be so kind as to leave me for a few moments.’
Fra Roberto withdrew reluctantly with the other friars to the far side of the chamber.
‘Is it your wish to be received into the Order of the Dominicans?’ Maria asked Pico.
‘It is not. One must dress well to meet the King,’ Pico whispered. ‘Do you understand?’
‘I understand,’ Maria reassured him.
‘Now, it is time,’ Pico said. ‘Do what you have…’ His head jerked, fell back on his pillow and was still. The stillness, the absence of life which is death. Even as I stared at him, at the mystery, Maria bent forward, closed his eyes and placed her lips on his open mouth. Suddenly his ribcage swelled and there came the sound of a sigh. The last breath of Pico della Mirandola was received into the mouth of Maria Poliziana.
88
THE FATE OF PICO’S SOUL
1494
THE STORIES WERE CIRCULATING EVEN BEFORE PICO WAS buried, that he had died of a slow fever brought on by excessive study; that he had been poisoned by an adherent of the Medici, to bring an end to so prominent a supporter of Savonarola. Then there was the account of Fra Roberto, the man who claimed to have witnessed the deathbed renunciation of Poliziano. Now he was saying he had witnessed Pico’s death also, and had seen with his own eyes Savonarola receive Pico’s last vows and bestow on him the habit of the Dominican Order. These two reports of Fra Roberto are considered to be most trustworthy and accurate, coming as they did from San Marco.
There was no grand funeral for Pico, as there had been none for Poliziano, but they did accord him one honour: a holy proces- sion led by Dominicans and those weeping disciples of Savonarola, the Piagnoni. Bartolommeo Scala, the Gonfalonier and erstwhile disciplinarian of the Florentine armies, led this lachrymose proces- sion, walking at its head with his wet eyes rolled heavenward. The procession to bury Pico at San Marco keened in an unnatural, disturbing way, the throats of the women vibrating in that sound called ‘ululation’, a sound so terrible that I could have cried myself, and helplessly. Virtù alone kept me dry-eyed that morning. For the sake of the souls of my two friends, I kept my head high and my mind steady. Although the Maenad song made my lip quiver, I held to my intention as a man falling from a cliff clings to a tree root. This emotion swaying the people was not divine, I was sure of it. This was neither repentance nor remorse that I was beholding, but the slavery of the crowd to an idea. These people in black were chained to one another in the belief that they were sinners and doomed to judgement. For the sake of all humanity, I rejected this notion within myself and remained dry-eyed.
The black line wove its way through idle bands of jeering French infantry who were resting on their pikes and crossbows, enjoying this spectacle of Florentines in morbid repentance. The coffin was taken into the church of San Marco and rested there while Savonarola addressed us from the pulpit. I looked over to the female section and saw Maria standing in a group of peasant women from Fiesole.
I felt responsible for her and intended to write to the family at Montepulciano but had not yet done so, haunted by her repulsion at the idea of returning home. What could I do but watch her from afar, and worry for her? The women were groaning and pulling their hair, but Maria stood quietly and unmoved. Both of us, having witnessed Pico’s passing, were in remembrance of that moment and the faith that had come with it, that the soul is immortal. There was no cause for tears: Maria was not about to faint or collapse weeping. I knew that she was praying as I was praying, commending the soul of our friend to God. Neither of us had any doubt that Pico’s soul, whatever its imperfections, was now merged with the infinite. I stood in the church alone amongst my brethren, believing something slightly different from the rest. Not for me ideas of rising from the grave on Judgement Day to be assigned a place for eternity in heaven or in hell; my Hermetic soul had different ideas of the afterlife. If Maria and I sorrowed at Pico’s funeral, it was for ourselves, not for him.
Savonarola had been giving the usual homilies, those platitudes of faith it is so easy not to listen to, but suddenly his voice changed, became energetic and at the same time conversational.
‘I want to reveal a secret to you,’ he told us, leaning from the pulpit, ‘which I have not wanted to tell you before this, because I was not as certain of it as I have been for the past ten hours. Each of you, I believe, knew Giovanni Pico of Mirandola. I tell you that his soul, because of the good works which he performed in his life, and through the prayers of the brethren, is in purgatory.’
In the general exclamation of joy, Maria’s shocked response went unheard. She looked across at me, visibly trembling, her eyes haunted. ‘Purgatory?’ she mouthed. I shook my head dismis
sively and held up both hands – ten fingers to represent the tenth sphere. The empyrean. The heaven beyond heaven. She understood.
Savonarola’s voice was rising. ‘He was almost too late in coming to the true religion in his lifetime.’
My mouth fell open. This was the man I believed in, the guide, I thought, of my renewal in the Christian life, and he was standing in the pulpit telling lies.
Suddenly there was screaming. Maria screaming. One woman’s pent-up rage given vent in a sound to make men’s bones crumble. Several friars hurried towards her, I among them. ‘Take her into the convent,’ I ordered them.
Yes, it was me. On the authority of Fra Tommaso, librarian of San Marco, Maria Poliziana was enclosed. Where else was there for her to go that was safe? As she was dragged struggling away, she glared at me with mad, Medusa eyes, at me, the man of the black and the white, the good and the bad, the man of two parts. I picked up a parcel she had dropped, a parcel with my name on it.
Once again in the middle of the night I undressed a corpse, removing the Dominican habit and replacing it with an exquisite tunic of brocade of gold and red, the colours of the cherubim and seraphim. I re-covered Pico with the shroud and took another parcel to another bonfire. Another vanity. In the morning they sealed the coffin and placed it with due ceremony in the same wall tomb that housed Poliziano, in the secular wall, the wall of shame, the limbo place for those too good to go to hell, but not good enough to go to heaven. The wall of purgatory. At least they were together.
As soon as I was back in the library, I began to search for Angelo’s missing papers that Maria had said ‘a friar’ had taken from the garden house. I knew every cupboard and every chest, had the keys to every lock. They were not there. What was there was a tower of book chests containing over a thousand volumes of the library of Pico della Mirandola, all to be inventoried. I felt faint at the prospect. The destination of this prodigious wealth of books, I was told by Cristoforo Casale who delivered them, awaited the reading of Pico’s will. Cristoforo looked heartbroken to leave them with me, as if in parting with the books he was saying his final farewell to his patron and lifelong friend. All the heart-stopping adventures were forgotten: he missed the Pico of the quiet times, the kind, generous soul who never stood on ceremony, the count who treated him as an equal, the master who had been his friend.
‘What will happen to his papers?’ Cristoforo asked.
‘They will be kept safe until we receive instruction from his heir. Who is his heir, by the way?’
‘We won’t know until the will is read. I have put the papers into order without changing anything, but they could do with a close edit. And publication, of course. They must be published.’
‘We must wait on the heir. Cristoforo, as soon as we know who it is, I shall recommend you for the work.’
He looked content then, as if his grief could be assuaged by further service to the Count of Concordia. After he had gone, I went through the chests looking for anything written by Poliziano that I had missed when taking things from Pico’s villa. What I found, I copied.
In the city everyone was busy decking themselves out in new colours. Lorenzo and Giovanni di Pierfrancesco had returned in triumph as part of the entourage of Charles VIII, Michele Marullus and many of the Pazzi family with them. Now what had been cloudy became clear: the charge of treason against the Pierfranceschi had been justified. They had been working on behalf of France for years, for one end only: to take power in Florence. Repossessing the Casa Vecchia, they had the Medici escutcheons removed from its walls and let it be known by proclamation that their name was now not Medici but ‘Popolano’. Men of the people. Their new arms were the insignia of Florence and the arms of the people, a red cross on a white ground.
Turin, August 29th, 1506
News has arrived, shivering up the spine of Italy. Pope Julius, having left Rome with a force of five hundred men and twenty- four cardinals, has marched on Perugia. The despot of Perugia, that bloody and violent man who decorates the city walls with spiked heads, came out to meet the Pope. Did he run him through, decapitate him, put up a head wearing the triple tiara at Perugia’s main gate? No. He fell on his knees and paid homage. Erasmus, who speaks when our company dines together, but never to me, says it is impossible for any man to be completely wicked. Perhaps so, but I share the general astonishment at the despot’s show of humility. Pope Julius – a figure of such terribilità that tyrants fall to their knees! I feel nauseous just thinking of my letters and my task.
I have to speak to Erasmus through Clyfton. There is nothing I want to say, other than goodbye. The route south is too perilous with Rome on the march; besides, I cannot be so close to Venice and not visit her. I shall leave as soon as I have finished my book, a work which I have done for Erasmus, in which I speak to Erasmus, which I shall dedicate to Erasmus, and leave behind for him. As I am not completely wicked, so he is not completely cold.
89
THE NEW JERUSALEM
1494
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RIVER OR POOL IN DROUGHT AND all the creatures of water left flapping in the mud? So it was in Florence after the French departed. For the King was true to the promise he had made to Savonarola and did not stay even as long as a week before moving on to terrorise Rome and, in time, take the Kingdom of Naples. In Florence we were left without government and, although we were under the dominion of the King, we had no local leadership. I heard that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco was beside himself with rage, not to have been elevated to what he considered to be his natural place. And the angrier he became, the more the King was convinced that he should invite Piero de’ Medici to return!
The time was ripe for reform, and what statesmen we had made long speeches on their proposals for a new republic. In truth, sixty years of Medici rule had robbed us of potential leaders. Those who could speak could not act. Those who could act did not know what to do. Popular sentiment called for power to be put in the hands of the people, but the people are never that wonderful body of innocent beings dedicated to justice and the common good. As one man said, ‘Power to the people is just tyranny multiplied.’ We had lived for sixty years on bread and circuses and what happened when the French left was that a population of slaves was set free and told to govern themselves.
A Council of Twenty was elected with the elderly and well- respected Bernardo del Nero as Gonfalonier of Justice. They met at San Marco as often as they met in the council chamber of the Palazzo della Signoria. All new laws and statutes echoed what Savonarola was saying from the pulpit, and church and state began to walk hand-in-hand. By the end of Advent it was clear that there was to be no return to the old ways, no government led by powerful families, but by a Great Council to which all citizens above the age of twenty-nine were eligible. In one stroke all my peers were part of the government of the city, had a vote and a voice. Heady days. Savonarola preached to the Florentines to change their ways, to stop acting from self-interest and to begin to look after each other. Reform, he said, starts with the individual. Good states are born of good men. And the weary, frightened, hungry heads of the Florentines lifted up to listen.
‘Purify the spirit, give thought to the common good, forget private interests, and if you reform the city to this intent, it will have greater glory than in all past times.’ We would, he said, set an example for the rest of the world to follow.
Who would not hearken to such a voice in the wilderness?
Cosimo had once said that states cannot be governed by Paternosters. Savonarola refuted it, saying those were the words of a tyrant. Henceforth, the spirit would rule the body and all temporal good would be subordinate to moral and religious good. The only true ruler of a city was God himself.
It was a strange and exhilarating sight, to see a humble friar governing a city from the pulpit; but this was no ordinary friar: this was the man who had prophesied all that had befallen us. Whatever he proposed was put into effect a
t once. It seemed little less than a miracle that within the space of a month Florence was transformed from a squabbling commune into a unified city: it seemed that everyone was involved in sudden and vital regeneration.
It is said that the greatest good any man desires is to be part of his city’s government. I can think of greater goods, but it is true that in that time I was frustrated to be a friar and longed to be out in the squares, present at councils, a part of this rebirth, this phoenix-arising of the good out of corruption. In fact, the library of San Marco was the heart of the new state, for there learned men were searching books of history and philosophy to find ancient systems to fit current needs. Great tomes were brought in from the State Archives so that we could discover how Florence had been governed in the past, before the Medici. I have to say, looking into these books, I could see that the Medici had ruled by confusion and that the laws of Florence had become an incomprehensible, unworkable jumble. Lawyers amongst us set themselves to untangle them and reveal justice, and daily digests were given to the Frate for his consideration.
I had entered the monastery in an act of deceit, planted there by the Medici. While I stayed true to my duty in protecting the library, a subtle transformation began inside me. One cannot stand in a vat of dye without taking on its colours. Each morning I awoke in my cell to a sense of freedom: there was nothing in there to trouble me; I had no possession to claim my attention other than the small chest of personal treasures I had secreted in the library; nothing in the cell but bare walls and a painting of the Crucifixion by Fra Angelico which I rarely saw, given that I woke in the dark and retired in the dark. I attended all the offices I was required to do, and felt the freedom of anonymity. With a daily shave and a monthly shearing, there was nothing to distinguish me from the rest of the brethren. I need look competitively at no man, nor had I to be concerned about what I was wearing. Rejoice in the present, Ficino had encouraged us; avoid busyness. Such things were easy here. The past and any thought of it were so painful that I did indeed rejoice in the present, and had no heed to the future. I would not have entered the monastery of my own volition, but now I thanked God that He had seen fit to send me. Relieved of having to earn a living, of paying taxes, of the constant anxiety of sudden political change – all that had gone. I lived a simple life surrounded by the books I loved and each morning I thanked God for it.