More of Zalumma’s wild, wiry tendrils had escaped from her braids, and they glinted in the light of the single candle in her hand, which lit her face with a delightfully eerie, wavering glow—perfect for the gruesome tale I wished to hear.
“Tell me about Messer Iacopo,” I coaxed. “Father said they desecrated his body. I know they executed him, but I want to hear the details.”
Zalumma resisted. Normally, she enjoyed sharing such things, but this was one subject that clearly disturbed her. “It’s a terrible story to tell a child.”
“All the adults know about it; and if you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Mother.”
“No,” she said, so sharply her breath nearly extinguished the flame. “Don’t you dare bother her with that.” Scowling, she set the candle down on my night table. “What do you want to know?”
“What they did to Messer Iacopo’s body . . . and why. He didn’t stab Giuliano . . . so why did they kill him?”
She sat on the edge of my bed and sighed. “There’s more than one answer to those questions. Old Iacopo de’ Pazzi was the patriarch of the Pazzi clan. He was a learned man, very esteemed by everyone. He was a knight, you know, which is why they called him ‘Messer.’ He didn’t start the plot to kill the Medici brothers; I think he got talked into it once it was clear the others were going to go ahead with or without him.
“Your mother has told you that when they murdered Giuliano, they rang the bells in the campanile next to the Duomo?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that was the signal for Messer Iacopo to ride his horse into the Piazza della Signoria and shout, ‘Popolo e libertà!,’ rallying the people to rise up against the Medici. He had hired almost a hundred Perugian soldiers to help him storm the Palazzo della Signoria; he thought the citizens would help him. But it didn’t go as he planned. The Lord Priors dropped stones on him and his army from the palazzo windows, and the people turned on him, crying, ‘Palle! Palle!’
“So when he was captured, they hung him from a window of the palazzo—the same one as Francesco de’ Pazzi and Salviati. Because of his noble rank and the people’s respect for him, he was first allowed to confess his sins and receive the final sacrament. Later, he was buried in his family tomb at Santa Croce.
“But a rumor started, that before he died, Iacopo had commended his soul to the Devil. The monks at Santa Croce grew frightened and exhumed the body to rebury it outside the city walls, in unconsecrated ground. Then some giovani dug up the body when Messer Iacopo was three weeks dead.
“He had been buried with the noose still round his neck, and so the giovani dragged his corpse by its rope all over the city.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, remembering. “They mocked him for days as if his body were a puppet. They took him to his palazzo and banged his head against the door, pretending that he was demanding entry. I . . .” She faltered and opened her eyes, but did not see me.
“I saw him, and the giovani, as I was walking back from market one day. They had propped the corpse against a fountain and were speaking to it. ‘Good day, Messer Iacopo!’ ‘Please pass, Messer Iacopo.’ ‘And how is your family today, Messer Iacopo?’
“And then they pelted the cadaver with stones. It made an awful sound—dull thuds; it had been raining for four days while he was buried in the earth, and he was very bloated. He had been wearing a beautiful purple tunic the day he was hung—I had been in the crowd. That tunic had rotted, covered now with a greenish-black slime, and his face and hands were white as the belly of a fish. His mouth gaped open, and his tongue, all swollen, thrust outward. He had one eye shut and one open, covered with a gray film, and that one eye seemed to look right at me. He seemed to be pleading for help from beyond the grave.
“I prayed for his soul, then, even though everyone was afraid of saying a kind word about the Pazzi. The giovani played with his body for a few more days; then they grew tired of it and threw it in the Arno. It was seen floating to the sea as far away as Pisa.” She paused, then looked directly at me. “You must understand: Lorenzo has done many good things for the city. But he kept the people’s hatred of the Pazzi alive. I have no doubt at least one of the giovani pocketed a florin or two, dropped into his palm by Lorenzo himself. His vengeance knew no bounds, and for that, God will someday make him pay.”
The next day, by way of apology, my father took me with him in his carriage to deliver his very best wools to the Medici palazzo on the Via Larga. We rode inside the great iron gates. As always, I remained in the carriage while servants tethered the horses and my father went in the side entry, accompanied by Medici servants laden down with his wares.
He was inside longer than usual—almost three quarters of an hour. I grew restless, having memorized the building’s façade and exhausted my imagination as to what lay behind it.
At last the guards at the side entry parted and my father emerged. But instead of returning to our coach, he stepped to one side and waited. A cadre of guards sporting long swords followed him out the door. An instant later, a single man emerged, leaning heavily on the muscular arm of another; one of his feet was unslippered, wrapped to just above the ankle in the softest combed wool used for newborns’ blankets.
He was sallow and slightly stooped, blinking in the bright sun. He looked to my father, who directed his attention to our carriage.
I leaned forward on the seat, mesmerized. The man—homely, with a huge crooked nose and badly misaligned lower jaw—squinted in my direction. After a word to his companion, he drew closer, wincing with each agonizing step, scarcely able to bear any weight on the stricken foot. Yet he persisted until he stood no more than the length of two men from me. Even then, he had to crane his neck forward to see me.
We stared unabashed at each other for a long moment. He appraised me intently, his eyes filled with a cloaked emotion I could not interpret. The air between us seemed atremble, as though lightning had just struck: He knew me, though we had never met.
Then the man gave my father a nod, and retreated back inside his fortress. My father entered the carriage and sat beside me without a word, as if nothing unusual had just taken place. As for me, I uttered not a word; I was stricken speechless.
I had just had my first encounter with Lorenzo de’ Medici.
XV
The New Year brought ice-covered streets and bitter cold. Despite the weather, my father abandoned our parish of Santo Spirito and began crossing the Arno to attend Mass daily at the cathedral of San Marco, known as the church of the Medici. Old Cosimo had lavished money on its reconstruction and maintained a private cell there, which he had visited more frequently as he neared death.
The new prior, one Fra Girolamo Savonarola, had taken to preaching there. Fra Girolamo, as the people called him, had come to Florence from Ferrara less than two years earlier. An intimate of Lorenzo de’Medici, Count Giovanni Pico, had been much impressed by Savonarola’s teachings, and so had begged Lorenzo, as the unofficial head of San Marco, to send for the friar. Lorenzo complied.
But once Fra Girolamo gained control of the Dominican monastery, he turned on his host. No matter that Medici money had rescued San Marco from oblivion; Fra Girolamo railed against Lorenzo—not by name, but by implication. The parades organized by the Medici were pronounced sinful; the pagan antiquities assiduously collected by Lorenzo, blasphemous; the wealth and political control enjoyed by him and his family, an affront to God, the only rightful wielder of temporal power. For those reasons, Fra Girolamo broke with the custom followed by all of San Marco’s new priors: He refused to pay his respects to the convent’s benefactor, Lorenzo.
Such behavior appealed to the enemies of the Medici and to the envious poor. But my father was entranced by Savonarola’s prophecies of the soon-to-come Apocalypse.
Like many in Florence, my father was a sincere man who strove to understand and appease God. Being an educated man, he was also aware of an important astrological event that had occurred several years earlier: the conjunction of Jupiter a
nd Saturn. All agreed this marked a monumental event. Some said it augured the arrival of the Antichrist (widely believed to be the Turkish sultan Mehmet, who had stolen Constantinople and now threatened all Christendom), others that it predicted a spiritual cleansing within the Church.
Savonarola believed it foretold both. My father returned one morning breathless after Mass; Fra Girolamo had admitted during the sermon that God had spoken directly to him. “And he said that the Church would first be scourged, then purified and revived,” my father said, his face aglow with a peculiar light. “We are living at the end of time.”
He was determined to take me with him the following Sunday to hear the friar speak. And he begged my mother to accompany us. “He is touched by God, Lucrezia. I swear to you, if only you would listen to him with your own ears, your life would be forever changed. He is a holy man, and if we convinced him to pray for you . . .”
Normally my mother would have refused her husband nothing, but in this case, she held firm. It was too cold for her to venture out, and crowds tended to excite her overmuch. If she went out for Mass, it would be to our own church of Santo Spirito, only a short walk away—where God would hear her prayers just as surely as He heard Fra Girolamo’s. “Besides,” she pointed out, “you can always listen to him, then come and tell me directly what he has said.”
My father was disappointed and, I think, irritated, though he kept it from my mother. And he was convinced that, if my mother would only go and listen to Fra Girolamo, her condition would improve magically.
The day after my parents’ disagreement on this subject, a visitor came to our palazzo: Count Giovanni Pico of Mirandolo, the very man who had convinced Lorenzo de’ Medici to bring Savonarola to Florence.
Count Pico was an intelligent, sensitive man, a scholar of the classics and the Hebrew Kabbalah. He was handsome as well, with golden hair and clear gray eyes. My parents received him cordially—he was, after all, part of the Medici’s inner circle . . . and knew Savonarola. I was allowed to sit in on the adults’ conversation while Zalumma hovered, directing other servants and making sure Count Pico’s goblet was full of our best wine. We gathered in the great chamber where my mother had met with the astrologer; Pico sat beside my father, directly across from my mother and me. Outside, the sky was obscured by lead-colored clouds that threatened rain; the air was cold and boneachingly damp—a typical Florentine winter’s day. But the fire in the hearth filled the room with heat and an orange light that painted my mother’s pale face with a becoming glow, and glinted off the gold of Pico’s hair.
What struck me most about Ser Giovanni, as he wished to be called, was his warmth and utter lack of pretension. He spoke to my parents—and most strikingly, to me—as if we were all his equals, as if he were beholden to us for our kindness in welcoming him.
I assumed he had come for purely social reasons. As an intimate of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ser Giovanni had encountered my father several times when he had come to sell his wools. Fittingly, the conversation began in earnest with a discussion of il Magnifico’s health. It had been poor of late; like his father, Piero il Gottoso, Lorenzo suffered terribly from gout. His pain had recently become so extreme that he had been unable to leave his bed or receive visitors.
“I pray for him.” Ser Giovanni sighed. “It is hard to witness his agony. But I believe he will rally. He takes strength from his three sons, especially the youngest, Giuliano, who spends what time he can spare from his studies to be at his father’s side. It is inspiring to see such devotion in one so young.”
“I hear Lorenzo is still determined to win a cardinal’s hat for his second boy,” my father said, with the faintest hint of disapproval. He kept stroking his bearded chin with the pad of his thumb and his knuckle, a habit he usually indulged only when nervous.
“Giovanni, yes.” Pico flashed a brief, wan smile. “My namesake.”
I had seen both boys. Giuliano was fair of face and form, but Giovanni looked like an overstuffed sausage with spindly legs. The eldest brother, Piero, took after his mother, and was being groomed as his father’s successor—though rumor said he was a dullard, entirely unfit.
Pico hesitated before continuing; his mien was that of a man being pulled in two directions. “Yes, Lorenzo is quite attached to the idea . . . though, of course, Giovanni is far too young to be considered. It would require a . . . bending of canon law.”
“Lorenzo is quite talented at bending things,” my father said offhandedly. Even I had overheard enough of this particular topic to know the outrage it had incited in most Florentines; Lorenzo had lobbied to raise taxes in order to pay for Giovanni’s cardinalship. My father’s mood grew abruptly jocular. “Tell Madonna Lucrezia what he said about his boys.”
“Ah.” Pico lowered his face slightly as his lips curved gently upward. “You must understand that he does not say it to them directly, of course. He dotes on them too much to show them any unkindness.” At last, he gazed straight into my mother’s eyes. “Just as you so obviously do on your daughter, Madonna.”
I did not understand why my mother flushed. She had been uncharacteristically quiet up to this point, though she was clearly taken, as we all were, with the charming Count.
Pico appeared to take no note of her discomfort. “Lorenzo always says: ‘My eldest is foolish, the next clever, and the youngest, good.’”
My mother’s smile was taut; she gave a nod, then said, “I am glad young Giuliano is a comfort to his father. I am sorry to hear of Ser Lorenzo’s illness.”
Pico sighed again, this time in mild frustration. “It is hard to witness, Madonna. Especially since—I am sure your husband has spoken of this—I am a follower of the teachings of Fra Girolamo.”
“Savonarola,” my mother said softly, her posture stiffening at the mention of the name. Suddenly, I understood her reticence.
Messer Giovanni continued speaking as if he had not heard. “I have begged Lorenzo several times to send for Fra Girolamo—but il Magnifico still rankles at having been rebuffed by San Marco’s new prior. I truly believe, Madonna Lucrezia, that were Fra Girolamo permitted to lay hands upon Lorenzo and pray for him, he would be healed at once.”
My mother averted her face; Pico’s tone grew more impassioned.
“Oh, sweet Madonna, do not turn from the truth. I have seen Fra Girolamo work miracles. In my life, I have met no man more devoted to God or more sincere. Forgive me for being so blunt in your presence, but we have all seen priests who consort with women, who overindulge in food and wine and all manner of worldly corruption. But Fra Girolamo’s prayers are powerful because his ways are pure. He lives in poverty; he fasts; he expiates his sin with the whip. When he is not preaching or ministering to the poor, he is on his knees in prayer. And God speaks to him, Madonna. God gives him visions.”
As he spoke, Ser Giovanni’s countenance grew incandescent; his eyes seemed brighter than the fire. He leaned forward and took my mother’s hand in his with great tenderness and a concern that held no trace of impropriety. My father moved toward her as well, until he was balanced precariously on the edge of his chair. Clearly, he had brought Pico here expressly for this purpose.
“Forgive my boldness, but your husband has told me of your suffering, Madonna Lucrezia. I cannot bear to think of one so young and fair being denied a normal life—especially when I know, with infinite certainty, that Fra Girolamo’s prayers can cure you.”
My mother was mortified, furious; she could not meet Pico’s gaze. Yet despite the intensity of her emotions, her tone was controlled as she replied, “Other holy men have prayed to God on my behalf. I and my husband have prayed, and we are good Christians, yet God has not seen fit to heal me.” At last, she brought herself to face Pico. “Yet, if you are so convinced of the efficacy of Fra Girolamo’s prayers, why do you not ask him to pray for me from afar?”
In his urgency, Messer Giovanni vacated his chair to bend on one knee before my mother in a posture of outright supplication; he lowered his voice
so that I had to lean forward myself in order to hear it over the crackling of the fire.
“Madonna . . . you have certainly heard of the prophecy of the papa angelico?”
Everyone in France and Italy knew of the ages-old prophecy of the angelic Pope—one elected not by cardinals but by God, who would come to cleanse the Church of its corruption and unite it shortly before Christ’s return.
My mother gave the most cursory of nods.
“He is Fra Girolamo; in my heart, I am convinced. He is no ordinary man. Madonna, what harm can it do for you to come hear him once? I will arrange for him to meet you privately after Mass, this very Sunday if you are willing. Think of it: Through Fra Girolamo’s hands, God will heal you. You need be a prisoner in this house no longer. Only come, Madonna . . .”
She glanced over at my father. There was reproach in her gaze at first, for he had put her in the most awkward possible situation; yet that reproach melted away as she caught sight of his face.
There was nothing conniving in my father’s expression, nothing that smacked of satisfaction or victory. Like Pico’s, his face was aglow—not with reflected firelight or godly inspiration, but with the purest, most desperate love I had ever seen.
It was that, more than Pico’s persuasive charm, which made her yield; and when at last she answered the Count, she was gazing upon my father, with all the pain and love that had been hidden in her heart now visible in her expression. Her eyes shone with tears, which spilled onto her cheeks when she spoke.
“Only once,” she said—to my father, not to the kneeling Pico. “Only once.”
XVI
That Sunday the sky was blue, lit by a sun too feeble to soften the gripping cold. My thickest cloak, of scarlet wool lined with rabbit fur, was not enough to warm me; the air stung my eyes and made them water. In the carriage, my mother sat rigid and expressionless between me and Zalumma, her black hair and eyes in striking contrast to the white ermine cape wrapped about her emerald velvet gown. Across from us, my father glanced solicitously at his wife, eager to obtain a sign of encouragement or affection, but she gazed past him as if he were not present. Zalumma glanced directly at my father and did not bother to hide the outrage she felt on behalf of her mistress.