by Linda Proud
My growing tendency to tremble was, I believed, as much due to continual fasting as to cowardice; despite the gravity of the hour, as soon as the brethren had left I hurried to the larders beyond the refectory. I found there every other friar who had remained behind and together we sliced a ham, boiled some eggs and made a feast at the refectory table.
‘Do you think they will try and assassinate the Frate?’
‘Not with two hundred of the brethren around him.’
‘If they are as weak as I am,’ I said, ‘they’ll be of little use.’
‘Some of them are armed,’ said Fra Luca della Robbia through a mouth full of bread.
I was astonished. ‘The friars? Is that true?’
Several heads nodded in agreement. ‘More than we are, who have been left behind to defend the monastery.’
‘How are we supposed to defend it?’
‘By our prayers,’ said Fra Zenobio, ripping meat off the ham bone.
‘Every martyr in history is witness to the efficacy of those,’ Fra Luca complained. ‘Oh, God, this feels good. Pass the eggs. They won’t assassinate him: it’s just their tactics of fear.’
As I pushed the bowl towards him, I heard a noise. ‘What was that?’
Zenobio limped to the door and looked out. ‘A dead dog,’ he said. ‘Thrown over the wall.’ None of us were interested, not with food still on the table, but Zenobio went out and came back with a bloodied piece of paper. ‘Poor mutt. I don’t think it was found dead. It was still warm. This was under its collar.’ He put the paper on the table.
Death to the Hounds of the Lord.
Zenobio sat down with a sigh. ‘I do not understand the Compagnacci. Born of good family, educated well, they offend every human and divine law.’ Every day we found some obscenity painted on the outside walls, some piece of doggerel tacked to the church doors. ‘What do they stand for? Do they cause trouble just for their pleasure?’
‘There’s more to it,’ said Fra Luca. ‘They want to change the age of eligibility for public office from twenty-nine to twenty.’
‘They want to govern us? Mother Mary and all the Saints!’
‘They are being used,’ I said, but before I could continue there was another noise, and something much more threatening than a dead dog. It was the sound of the gate opening and brethren returning, noisy and agitated, at least an hour before they were due. Burning with guilt we swept away the litter and crumbs and had just cleared the table when they came in. None amongst them was in a condition to wonder why we were all in the refectory; each of them had his own sin to worry about – the sin of desertion.
When they had got to the Cathedral they had found the pulpit defiled. The Compagnacci were everywhere in the streets and people had had to fight their way through them to get in to hear the sermon. Once the pulpit had been cleared of shit, piss and the reek- ing skin of an ass, Savonarola had mounted it and begun to speak. Not long afterwards the Compagnacci had forced their way in and started throwing things about. The confusion had been terrible and it was at that point that these wretches had made their escape.
‘And Fra Girolamo?’ we cried. ‘You left him?’
Some amongst them wept at their weakness and we fellows with our bellies full walked away in disgust. More brethren returned with more to tell, and soon Fra Girolamo himself arrived. There had been a fight in the cathedral. When the Compagnacci began to disrupt the sermon, the congregation had stampeded in panic, but some went home and returned armed. In the melee, two members of the Signoria had detached and advanced on the pulpit with their swords drawn, evidently bent on killing Savonarola. Wearing a habit does not change a man’s nature: as Savonarola called on God, a young friar punched one of the Signoria in the face, so hard that the man brought his companion down as he fell. Other friars bundled Savonarola out of the cathedral.
We were all compromised on that day, each and every one of us. Hypocrites.
Letters went back and forth to Rome. The Pope, we knew, planned to excommunicate Savonarola, but then a shocking thing happened in the Borgia family: the youngest son of the Pope, Cesare, murdered the eldest. The Pope was so grief-stricken that he resolved to reform both himself and the Church. This was like the old days – God using Savonarola as His agent – and the mood in the monastery lifted to the sky. But as the Pope’s grief subsided, so old habits reasserted themselves and soon he was back to normal. He wrote, ordering the Frate to present himself in Rome. When Savonarola refused, a bull of excommunication was issued.
We were led in solemn procession to Santa Maria Novella and there, at the high altar, before that chapel decorated by Ghirlandaio, we, the friars and the Piagnoni, gathered in torchlight to be told the dread news by Fra Domenico. As he read from the papal bull, small bells tolled and the torches were extinguished one by one. A mortal sigh breathed from the crowd, to be living in such a world where evil triumphs over good.
As we processed back to our enclosure at San Marco, we were pelted with stones and dung, and Savonarola and his closest brethren were lashed by whips. The drunken Compagnacci were dressed up as if for Carnival, wearing the wigs and cosmetics that had never gone to the bonfire. Bacchus, it would seem, was mocking Christ. That was how it did seem, and many looked on what they took to be the Passion of Savonarola, wondering how long it was to be before the crucifixion.
In July of that year, plague came to the city, carrying off fifty or sixty a day. We assumed we would be safe in the monastery, that God would protect us, but friends of Savonarola pleaded with him to escape to the country. He refused to leave himself but did send away all the novices and nuns. I gasped with relief when I heard this, for I feared for Maria. We were not safe in San Marco: the plague had already taken two of our number.
Now I was thrown into the pastoral work Savonarola had promised me. Each day I went out in the streets with the brethren, bringing help where we could, not only to the dying but to the widows and orphans also. Yes, I feared death and could not help but cover my nose against its stench, but if I was going to die, I wanted to die doing good. To get to heaven? A cynic would say so; but the heart knows instinctively the right way to die – and to live. Nevertheless, ideas of holiness and its rewards had seeped into me: how could they not? But one day out in the streets behind the Duomo I saw members of the Misericordia running with stretchers towards the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. I stared at them. The Misericordia, a company of merchants and notaries dedicated to charitable work. It was like a punch in the face, the realisation that not only the religious do religious work. And more. As I looked about, I saw Franciscans as busy as we were. I knew it then, forcefully: the arrogance of the Dominicans. We truly believed that we were the only ones who had any goodness in them, and it was not so.
‘Your Vicar General is a saint,’ one old woman told me as I fed her.
‘The city never suffered like this under Lorenzo,’ complained her husband.
‘That’s not true,’ said the woman. ‘We had plagues then, and war, and flood.’
‘But not like this,’ her husband insisted. ‘This is continual: one thing following another. If this is the New Jerusalem, you can keep it.’ His view was becoming the general one. Each week fewer people attended our services and the numbers of the Piagnoni were visibly shrinking.
When the plague had passed and the nuns had returned, Savonarola preached to them from the pulpit above the church door. I looked down from a window and studied every upturned face. Maria was not there. I made enquiries: did all the nuns return from the country? I was told no. Three had died: Benedicta, Immaculata and Chiara. No one I spoke to knew their birth names, but remembering that Maria had wanted to call herself Benedicta when she was in the convent at Montepulciano, I folded up over yet another knife wound in the heart.
96
GIANFRANCESCO REVEALED
1497
YES, THAT IS WHEN I GREW BITTER AND HA
RD. A CURIOUS sickness ate away at my innards and I fasted now by my own volition as if I could starve the sin out of me. I pushed at Death to provoke a response, but none came. I lived. I lived on the scent of books.
The air in the city was taut with menace. A new law had admitted younger men into the Great Council and the Compagnacci had not only taken up council seats but Doffo Spini was elected to be one of the ruling Eight. This encouraged those people who had only paid lip service to personal reform: sumptuous dress began once more to be paraded in the streets. Without any sermons to draw impressive crowds, the city reverted to old ways. But tract after tract came from Savonarola’s pen and it was clear that it would take more than an order for silence to keep him quiet. The air in the city grew tauter.
When many of the younger friars began to smuggle arms into the monastery, I kept to the library, surreptitiously storing books in chests ready for easy transportation should the need arise and the way open up. I waited to hear from Cardinal Giovanni in Rome, but heard nothing.
There were rumours of a conspiracy to reinstate Piero de’ Medici. Of course I heard them, since some of the men involved were old friends from the Platonic Academy and frequent visitors to the library. Florence was still under French jurisdiction: all that we suffered was being caused by a battle between France on one hand and Rome and Milan on the other. The ruling Arrabbiati worked for Rome. Savonarola’s intention was that Florence be independent, that her only king should be Christ. The King of France thought differently, and wanted Piero back. But the people did not understand: they eddied like autumn leaves and never stopped to ask the name of the wind.
Out one night late in August, I had been delayed in returning to the monastery and it was dark. It did not do to be out at night in those times and I hurried through the empty streets of Ognissanti trying to make no noise.
I smelt them first, that woody, sweet, earthy scent of the wealthy that is ambergris; that smooth perfume that is a lodestone to any nose, that hangs in the air long after the wearer has gone – or before he has arrived. And there was something mixed with it, the animal scent of young males which even ambergris cannot disguise. I stood still, waiting, listening. I could hear the rustle of their silks and brocades, a stifled giggle, a hiss to be quiet. They were round the next corner, waiting for me to pass. Turning to go back the way I had come, I found Doffo Spini and two others behind me.
‘Where are you going, dog?’ one asked as the rest of the gang joined them. I felt vulnerable and doomed in my Dominican habit, wanted to rip it off and say, ‘I’m a Maffei!’ But they knew that, or at least, Doffo Spini did.
‘This is no common dog,’ he said. ‘It’s the very one we want to talk to.’ He was taller than me and, with his chin raised, he looked at me down his nose. His ears poked through his hair like sharp toenails through hose.
‘Fra Tommaso,’ he drawled. ‘The Medici spy in San Marco.’
I quailed. Who had told them? Botticelli?
‘What do you know of this conspiracy to reinstate Piero?’
‘Nothing! I swear it.’
They prowled about me, poking, pushing, the ritual of humiliation.
‘There are going to be arrests made tomorrow. Your name is on the list.’
‘But I know nothing! Piero de’ Medici is the last person I want to see ruling Florence!’
‘Oh? And who is the first?’
If I gave any name other than one of their own, I’d be condemning myself. My throat caked with fear.
‘It’s an impossible question, isn’t it?’ Doffo smiled. ‘But I’m telling you I’d rather have Piero than your Savonarola. That can never happen – that miserable zealot in charge. So, if you would like your name removed from the list, as I’m sure you would, you will agree to stand as witness in any coming trial of the crimes of the Friar.’
At that moment I was a Christian and a Platonist all in one. Putting aside the question as to whether Savonarola was the antichrist or not (and it was difficult to believe that he was, in the face of this evil) I was driven to speak the truth. It was my only recourse.
‘He has committed no crimes.’
‘Would you say that on the strappado?’
I was caught by the wrists, had them tied behind my back and pulled up behind me to give me a taste of the torture to come. I screamed, my innards dissolving. Then an older man joining the group barked at them to let me go. I raised my head and gazed at Sandro Botticelli in horror. How could he be part of this?
‘Untie him.’
‘Mio zio! He is only being encouraged to help us.’
‘I said untie him, Doffo!’ Sandro spoke as if to a child, and Doffo Spini nodded sullenly at his companions. The gang dispersed, whistling and jeering, leaving that wonderful scent behind them. Sandro undid the rope binding my wrists.
‘Why do they listen to you?’ I asked. ‘Are you one of them?’
‘You know I am not. But Tommaso, get out of Florence tonight. There’s been a confession to a conspiracy and anyone with Medici connections is in great danger. Many of our friends are already in flight.’
‘I shall be safe in the monastery.’
‘You will not! San Marco is not the haven of security it once was. Get out of the city!’
‘How far will I get as a runaway friar?’
‘Come to me for clothes. And a wig.’
‘Sandro, did anything of yours go on the bonfire?’
‘Nothing I’d miss.’ Laughing, he escorted me back to the monastery, making me promise at the gates to do as he said.
Was the vow I had made to Cardinal Giovanni so strong that I would disobey this advice, both from Ficino and Botticelli? It seemed so. As the arrests began on the following day, I stayed in the library and became even more avid in my packing of books. Names of those arrested reached me: Giovanni Cambi, Gianozzo Pucci, Niccolò Ridolfi, Lorenzo Tornabuoni and the Gonfalonier himself, the seventy-five-year-old Bernardo del Nero. Men from Ghirlandaio’s frescoes were being dragged through the streets on a public cart. All day I waited for the approach of officers in the library. What came, however, was a summons to see Fra Silvestro. He instructed me to go to the Palazzo del Podestà to visit one of the accused, ‘since he is a friend of yours’, and comfort him with words of faith. He gazed at me piercingly.
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
‘Cristoforo Casale.’
‘A conspirator? That cannot be true! None of those arrested are guilty, I am sure of it, or else they would have fled.’
‘I do not know if Casale was part of the conspiracy. What we do know, since he has confessed it, is that he murdered his master, the Count of Concordia.’
That piercing gaze, looking to see if I could rise to the challenge of consoling the murderer of my friend. I gazed right back to let him know I could.
How different are our prisons to those of the King of France. I found Cristoforo barefooted, half naked and in chains, lying broken in a dank and tiny cell that he shared with a man dying of the sweating sickness. There was livid bruising round his wrists and his face had swollen so that he could hardly open his parched, cracked mouth. One shoulder was clearly dislocated.
I knelt down beside him. ‘I have been sent to give you words of faith and consolation. Let me remind you instead of the immortal soul.’
‘I didn’t do it, Maso.’
‘I know that.’
‘The strappado will make a man say anything. I would have confessed to killing Jesus.’
‘Retract your confession.’
‘What, and go through that again? Never. I long for death. But Maso, you are in danger. When are they going to accuse you of murdering Angelo? It is so convenient, to close the case. Quit Florence at once. There are dark things here, so dark, dark. Pico – he raised a dark angel.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His magic was stronger than h
e was. He didn’t know what he was doing. Quit Florence.’
‘Not before I get you out of here. You have the right of appeal.’
He went to smile but it made his lips split and he winced. ‘No one leaves here alive, do they? I will go to the block with the rest. But Maso, gather the fragments. Save of Pico what you can. It was Gianfrancesco who had me arrested.’
‘What?’
‘I am certain of it. He wants rid of me, so that he can butcher and steal his uncle’s work with impunity. I made too much fuss. Never poke a scorpion with a stick.’
I left, determined to invoke the new law somehow, no matter what the personal risk, but on the way out, passing a closed door, I heard a sound of winching and a man’s scream rising to a roar which loosened my bowels. To have your hands tied behind your back and suspended by your wrists… Who was it? Venerable old Del Nero? Young, gentle Lorenzo Tornabuoni? By the time I got to the street, I was throwing up.
I did nothing. Neither did Savonarola. The Great Council, his creation, voted unanimously for the execution of the traitors and no appeal was granted. In the middle of one hot, August night, I walked backwards to the place of execution, holding an icon in front of Cristoforo so that he could gaze on the holy image in his last minutes. But what he chose to gaze at was me. I stared into the eyes of a man about to die.
‘Have faith,’ I whispered.
‘Have you forgotten everything? Why should I fear death? You are the dying one, my friend. Remember. Remember.’
And for a moment I was in a high tower in France, floating in stillness and silence, deep, deep in the all and everything. The jeers of the crowd seemed far away. As the axe came down on Cristoforo’s neck, as his head rolled, it was as if nothing was happening at all.