by Linda Proud
Back in the monastery, I had great difficulty looking anyone in the eye, lest they read my soul. I shrank from Gianfrancesco and was relieved when he departed for Bologna. He had, he said, finished his work on his uncle’s papers and wanted to initiate their publication. Having made copies of everything, he left the originals behind.
When at last Antonmaria, the rightful heir, made arrangements for Pico’s books and papers to be sold, I looked after the sale, but not before I had read everything and copied as much of it myself as I could. If I had not, even more would have been lost by Gianfrancesco’s ‘editing’ than was; for in Giovanni Pico’s Opera Omnia when it was published was anything but the complete works.
Gianfrancesco was to Giovanni Pico as Sarzi was to Poliziano: a leech, a weevil, seeking to make another man’s greatness his own. Did I suspect him of anything worse than editorial tampering? Of course. How could I not? But let us not wildly accuse men who are still living. I am, after all, not only a hypocrite but a lily-livered coward. The sound of that scream in the gaol will live with me forever.
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco had been among those fleeing the city when the conspiracy came to light. I presumed his brother had left with him, for certainly Giovanni di Pierfrancesco disappeared at that time. It seemed the Medici had gone forever. The plague, too, had gone. What remained was a city ruled by a party advocating a return to the past (and all its rivalry between families) – and a monastery urging a new republic. The people were too hungry to care. The day that a train of wagons came over the mountains loaded with thousands of bushels of grain, a few called on the rest to see it as a miracle and to share it amongst themselves, putting the poor first. The state let it be known that this was no miracle but its own pragmatic act. The majority rushed at the wagons and took away as much as they could carry, kicking anyone who tried to stop them.
Giovanni di Pierfrancesco was too wily to become embroiled in any conspiracy, and too popular to be accused of it. It had been he, on behalf of the state, who had ridden to Imola to negotiate the purchase of grain with its Duchess. Cynical men said that it had been his looks that impressed the Duchess more than his money and that part of the deal had been that he share the bed of Caterina Sforza. Medea and Botticelli’s angel – lovers! Even my imagination was inflamed by that. I thought of Maria and sighed. Had I known where she was buried, I would have gone to her grave and told her the story. And I would have gone again, the day I heard that Giovanni di Pierfrancesco had married Caterina Sforza.
97
FICINO TURNS HIS BACK
1497
IN THE DUOMO AT THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY, I SAW among the canons the familiar figure of Marsilio Ficino. He was looking over his shoulder in my direction. As I approached, he looked me up and down as if not knowing me, his eyes blank and unseeing. Then he turned and walked away. I knew in that moment the state of my soul. I had not done what he had told me to do, and I was dismissed. More, in my staying in the monastery, I was arguing with him, for what man would stay knowingly in the presence of the antichrist? And it was true: I did not believe what Ficino had said. We were no longer disciple and master: I was independent, and had to take the consequences.
What have I lost? I tell you, John Colet, that in that moment it was as if the door to heaven finally closed on me. Ficino was the keeper of the gate, who always kept the portal open. Through his hymns, his remedies, through his Platonic teachings, I always had a route of escape from this world when it proved too much for me. Now the door was closed, and it had no handle.
98
THE SACK OF SAN MARCO
1498
THE FOLLOWING APRIL THE FRANCISCANS CHALLENGED Savonarola to prove his innocence by entering a walk of flames on the site where we had been holding the Carnival bonfires. If he was the voice of God, then God would preserve him. An ordeal by fire. The shame of it! We were being hurled back a hundred years into the age of superstition. While most of the friars went in the procession to the Piazza della Signoria, I remained behind to protect the library. I wanted none of this event.
It was a fine spring day and a silent one, except for a sudden and violent thunderstorm in the afternoon. I was using my solitude to pack more books. Under orders recently received from Cardinal Giovanni I had already been sending some chests out to safe houses and now, while everyone was distracted by what was happening in the piazza, I and others of the Company of the Library removed quite a few more. But I could not stop thinking about Fra Girolamo walking through flames. Was he burnt? Or was he walking on fire with the soles of his feet unharmed? Was he floating, as saints float in paintings? Had his faith saved him? Was he even now proving to everyone, incontrovertibly, that he could perform miracles? But the truth was that, in a long day of suspense and frustration, nothing dramatic happened other than the storm. Between the piazza and the Palazzo della Signoria there had been much coming and going and delay. Savonarola refused to take the challenge himself but Fra Domenico insisted on entering the fire in his place. All day the crowds waited for this spectacle, but delay followed delay and in the end no one entered the flames, which anyway were doused by the storm. Jeered at, accused of not being willing to burn his own vanity, Savonarola returned with his procession to San Marco at night and went to his cell.
There had been no ordeal, and no miracles. One would have thought that the storm counted as a miracle, but the Florentines had grown less gullible and had been more impressed by Savonarola’s refusal to accept the ordeal. No one spoke, no one put their thoughts into words, but we, the brethren, glanced at each other, the eyes of some of us tinged with doubt. We kept to our rounds of duties and, once they were done, joined a vigil in the church. All night long the jeering continued with gangs of Compagnacci in the piazza San Marco stoning our walls and breaking our windows. Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro walked amongst us, encouraging us to have faith. The Lord would protect us, they said.
In the cloisters several of the younger friars held a meeting. They invited me to join them, having heard that I could use the sword. They had, they said, a whole arsenal stashed in the cellars but needed men who could use the weapons. I threw up my arms and declared myself to be a man of peace.
The next day was Palm Sunday. The olive branches that we should have been carrying in procession lay in heaps. At last the Frate came from his cell and, walking in haste and in silence through the brethren, broke the rules of excommunication and went to preach in the church. His sermon was short. He offered his body as a sacrifice to God and declared his willingness to face death for the good of his flock. I knew for certain, my skin turning cold with the realisation, that I would never hear him speak from the pulpit again.
That evening those going to the Duomo for a sermon to be given by one of our friars were pelted with a hail of stones and insults on the way. At the doors they met the Compagnacci pushing and spitting at anyone trying to enter, telling them that there would be no sermon and that they might as well go home. Some of the more stubborn and courageous retorted that there certainly would be a sermon, at which point swords were drawn. It was the excuse the Compagnacci had been looking for, the spark to dry tinder, for almost at once fights broke out all over the city, the result of previously laid plans and not the explosion of anarchy that it seemed. The faithful rushed for arms through streets where the Compagnacci were gathered at the corners. Meanwhile hostile bands, including many disaffected citizens, marched armed towards the monastery with the chant, ‘To San Marco! To San Marco!’ Several innocent men were killed in passing, men either on their way to church or out trying to quieten the mob. To be singing a hymn on Palm Sunday was enough reason to be slaughtered on that day. Worked into a frenzy by this taste of blood, the mob poured into the piazza San Marco. There they met the people leaving the church after vespers and, hurling stones at them, sent them into flight.
I do not remember much of that night. My mind has blanked it out from shame. I remember being in one cloister when ab
out a dozen of the younger friars came out of the door leading to the cellars. What a sight for painters! Like St Michael and St George these holy men were wearing helmets and breastplates over their robes. Halberds and crossbows, and that new instrument of death, the arquebus, with a barrel of powder and some lead bullets, were brought out and distributed. I shrank back into a doorway while a self-elected captain directed his little force to the weakest points of the monastery, giving them sharp instructions as if he were a seasoned soldier. Like warrior angels they shouted Viva Cristo! to call the brethren to arms.
I backed silently into the dark cell behind me and closed the door. Then I could hear breathing, the hard, raspy breathing of a creature in terror. My own breathing began to sound the same. I stood there, too long, trying to summon courage either to move or to speak. Each of us terrified by the other. I felt the air with my left hand, touched the wall, felt along it to the door, touched the handle and turned it. The door creaked open an inch. Wan dawn light filtered in through the crack and showed a friar huddled in the corner, a tall, lean man once noble, now gibbering. I could smell his urine, imagined it running warm around his buttocks and seeping into his habit.
‘Fra Silvestro?’
‘Don’t tell them I am here. I beg you. I beg you.’ He wept like a child.
I crouched beside him.
‘You!’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s Fra Tommaso.’
He drew back as far as he could, clutching his head, staring at me. His whimpering became words, strange words, uttered in a high, sing-song chant. Angel. Angel? Angelo. Angelo Poliziano. I was listening to a mad thing in confession. A wild confession of fragmented sentences, from which I gathered that Poliziano had not been poisoned. He had had a fever, and the friars left him untreated, wanting him to die, for only dead would he convert. Under Fra Silvestro’s orders, they had killed him by neglect.
‘What happened to the stolen papers?’ I asked.
Fra Silvestro looked at me with the eyes of a child in whom innocence has been polluted by wrong-doing: hope, remorse, fright all mixed into a look that is a plea for forgiveness. I drew back from him in revulsion, breathing hard. ‘It is for God to forgive, not me. Make your peace with Him.’ Looking out of the door and, seeing the cloister empty, I came out and left Silvestro in his hiding place.
I returned to the library and was now feverishly packing books, despite the thought that I was only making it easier for looters to carry them away. I don’t know what I was thinking. I worked for work’s sake. Anything to remove myself from the conflict. I tell you, if ever I outdid St Peter in anything, it was in shame on that night and the following day. Many were escaping, climbing the walls to drop into the arms of friends calling to them from the outside, a few were in prayer in the chapel, most were fighting.
All day long stones were thrown at our walls, crossbow bolts and spears flew over and into the cloisters, gates were rammed. All day long militant friars hurled back at the attackers. I packed books. About an hour before sunset there was a lull in the noise and a booming voice from the gate.
‘You are ordered to lay down your arms!’
And then I knew anger. Here we were, friars assailed by a vicious and armed mob, being told by the state to lay down our arms.
‘The Frate is under sentence of exile,’ the voice continued. ‘He must quit Florence by the morning. Anyone who wishes to leave now will be given safe conduct.’
I dithered at the window, sore tempted. But a man below in the cloister was shouting back, ‘A safe conduct, from this rabble? Aye, rabble, and I include the Signoria in it. What government lends its aid to a mob attacking a monastery?’ The man, not one of the friars but a leading citizen and Piagnone, turned to address the brethren. ‘Anyone who walks out of here by the main gate goes to his death. We need to get out in secret and make a fair fight of it in the streets.’
Now I was two men in one. Half of me was already over the wall and running for his life, but the other half stood rooted. I had given years to this library and I was not going to leave it in its hour of peril. Better to die doing one’s duty than live as a coward. Men and their parties are shifting sands, but in books I could have faith, for books are knowledge, and this library had been built for the good of all mankind. If I wept then, it was not for my own safety but that of the books. What could I, this thin, fragile stick of a man do to save them? Only one answer came to mind, which was to pray, and, as if to confirm it, at that very moment the monastery bell began to ring the hour.
I went to the church, knelt down and threw myself on God’s mercy, begging Him to protect the books gathered together in His honour. I apologised for them not all being scripture, but felt sure that God, my God, loved all good literature, for surely He was the source of it? God was the astuteness in Cicero, the anger in Euripides, the eroticism in Ovid, the wisdom in Plato, the mysticism in Hermes, the wonder in Aristotle. The stubborn wilfulness in myself. In full communion now with God, I laughed with Him at the magnificence of it all.
Then the doors splintered under the force of a ram and the rabble broke in. Still in that presence of divinity, I snatched a heavy crucifix and ran at our assailants. Others did the same, Fra Zenobio with a burning torch, Fra Luca della Robbia with a tall candlestick, friars picking up anything they could to use as a weapon. We lunged, swiped, fought and drove the mob out into the cloisters where they were met by our St Michaels, the armoured friars with swords, halberds and crossbows. Suddenly there was an explosion to make the ears bleed. My head whining with the noise, I turned to see a young German friar staggering from the shock of having fired the arquebus, and several men dead or dying from its shot. Others hurried to reload the terrible weapon, and one took a blow from a sword on his skull. He, a boy of about eighteen, died in my arms, his brains oozing on to my lap as Fra Domenico hastily, incoherently, gave him the last rites. As soon as the body was laid down, I ran from the church, pushed through scuffles, knocked aside anyone in my way so as to get to the library. Running across a cloister, I hurdled over the body of a noble youth lying dead near the well, his young face smashed by the bucket that lay beside him.
Reaching the upper corridor, where it was quiet, I stood there heaving for breath. Through an open window I saw friars up on the roof of the church, hurling tiles down on the mob below. Every minute there was another explosion from the arquebus, creating dense smoke within the church. Someone inside broke a window to let in air. A moment later, the church was on fire.
I heard someone coming, not the rush of attackers but a more careful, deliberate tread. Around the corner came Savonarola, carrying the Host, accompanied by those few brethren who had heeded his call to lay down their arms. He came to the library and I opened the door for him. Solmenly and carefully he set the Host down and turned to address us.
‘My last exhortation is this: let faith, prayer and patience be your weapons. I leave you with anguish and grief, to give myself into my enemies’ hands. I know not whether they will take my life, but I am certain that, once dead, I shall look after you in heaven far better than I have been able to here on earth. Take comfort, embrace the cross and by it find your salvation.’
With that, he went back out into the vestibule, followed by his faithful companions. There he turned and nodded, as if to tell me that I knew what I was to do, and to do it. I nodded in return and locked the doors of the library behind him. Then I stood there in the dark, holding the Host and listening. I heard Savonarola being arrested in the vestibule; I heard the protests of the friars, which became a lament, gradually fading away as they left the corridor, following Savonarola to prison. In the profound silence I heard my heart thudding in my chest, then footsteps approaching, the grate of a key turning in the lock, the click, the turn of the handle and the opening of the door. I breathed deeply, inhaling the odours of learning, the musty smell of ancient codices, the tang of new leather, the animal scent of parchment and vellum.
I breathed them in. If it were to be my last breath, let it be of books. Let my soul absorb the library so that my next birth be a rebirth of learning. Let my blood drip into Hades as a libation to the poets. These were my thoughts as I clutched the Host to me.
The twin, oaken doors opened. The sinking sun blazed in through the corridor window, full into my eyes. Silhouetted in the doorway was no rabble but an orderly group of guards of the Signoria. The Company of the Library were wise owls; at least one had got himself elected into the Eight. He walked in at the head of the guards.
‘Salve, Tommaso,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Salve!’
While Savonarola was in gaol, being tortured beyond endurance by the strappado, while Savonarola was on trial, with Doffo Spini amongst the judges, while Savonarola – along with Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro – burned in the last bonfire of the vanities, the library went into safe-keeping and I was on my way to Venice, via Botticelli’s costume box. This is not the story of a hero.
99
SEEDS AND CUTTINGS
1498
‘CONTINUITY,’ FICINO ONCE TOLD ME, ‘DOES NOT REQUIRE transmission of knowledge from one physical body to another.’ He picked up a humble terracotta dish in the loggia of his villa. ‘No poet survived to continue the School of Poetry: it simply arose again in Florence, in the time of Lorenzo’s father.’ In the pot were houseleeks, one of which was striving skywards in a most ithyphallic manner. ‘But it helps to plant seeds or take cuttings. When this has flowered, it will die. The Platonic Academy will die with me but it has seeded children. Now it could be that all those children will die – very dark times lie ahead of us. But it will come again, for it survives in its original Form. The Platonic Academy is a portal by which the soul can find its way home and stop winging through the ages, crying plaintively like a gull. The portal never closes, but it is not always in the same place.’ He broke off one of the offshoots dangling over the edge of the dish and led the way to the outbuilding used by the gardener. There he filled a new pot with soil, tamped it down, dibbed a hole, put in the nubby stalk and pressed the soil to enclose it. Then he watered the new plant. ‘All it needs to grow is water, light and air. Plants feed off the elements, as do men.’