The House of Medici Read online

  There’s a gentle tap at the door and Maddalena opens it. Piero is standing outside the studiolo, looking nervous and diffident. ‘F—Father?’

  ‘Well?’ Cosimo glares at him. ‘What do you want, Pietro?’ The boy is just over eleven years old, but his father is still using the diminutive form of his name.

  Nervously, the boy scratches his bottom. ‘Are you busy, father?’

  Cosimo shrugs. ‘Of course I’m busy. I shall soon have the responsibilities of the bank and of the family on my shoulders. Anyone would be busy!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Piero pulls the door shut and Maddalena hears his feet retreating slowly down the corridor.

  ‘Cosimo! That was unkind. You shouldn’t be so hard on him.’

  Cosimo gives an irritated shiver. ‘I wish for once he’d stand up for himself and not just stand there, dithering pathetically.’ But even as he speaks, he knows he’s in the wrong. ‘Where was I? Stupid boy. I’ve completely lost my train of thought.’

  ‘The catechism.’

  He looks up at her, frowning.

  ‘The lessons your father taught you.’

  He shrugs. ‘Well, not to worry. I’m sure you’ve heard them before. What time is the cardinal expected?’

  ‘Any minute now. But he’s always late.’

  Cosimo grins, his mood lifting as quickly as it came on. ‘Not when he thinks he can snatch half an hour leering at you. I’m surprised he hasn’t slithered in here already. What’s that?’

  From the door comes a scratching noise and a loud snuffling. Maddalena gets up. ‘It sounds like the puppy.’

  She opens the door. A small black and white spaniel puppy is lying with his nose against the base of the door, sniffing and scratching. Beside him, also lying with his nose on the floor, is a six year old boy. As she opens the door, the puppy runs in and the boy follows in after him.

  ‘Pisellino. Naughty dog! You know you’re not allowed in the studiolo.’ Giovanni scoops him up and gives his father an angelic grin. He’s already in the centre of the room and firmly established.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Angelic turns to inquisitive.

  Cosimo looks at Maddalena, then at his ledgers, and shrugs. ‘Nothing much. We were just talking.’

  Giovanni hands the puppy to Maddalena and reaches up to his father. Instinctively, Cosimo lifts him up and props him on the high stool next to the writing table. Giovanni stares at the Libro Segreto—the private books of account kept solely for the benefit of the family shareholders.

  ‘How are we doing? Have we made a profit this month?’ He looks at Maddalena and rolls his eyes. It is only a week since she suggested he try it as an opening gambit when his father looks upset. She turns away, stifling a laugh, but Cosimo doesn’t notice. Carefully, for the next half an hour, he takes his younger son through the entries; loans received, income earned, expenses incurred and, finally, the resultant profit.

  Giovanni nods sagely, like an old man. ‘Yes. Not bad. Looks like we’ll survive.’

  He lifts his arms, to be lifted down onto the floor again. ‘Got to go now, before Pisellino pisses on the floor.’ He turns to Maddalena. ‘He’s incompetent you know!’

  She grins again, remembering their recent conversation. ‘Incontinent.’

  Unfazed, Giovanni picks up the puppy and makes for the door. As he reaches it he turns and grins back at her. ‘Yes, that too. Bye.’

  And he’s gone.

  Maddalena closes the door and looks at Cosimo. On his face is a look of pride and amusement. ‘He’s a wicked little devil isn’t he?’

  ***

  Maddalena could see by the abbess’ expression that she might need time to learn to enjoy the company of ‘wicked little devils’. Her face seemed unsure whether to be amused or censorious. Finally, she seemed to have decided to err on the side of disapproval.

  ‘At the time, it seemed insignificant, but it was not. The first result was that Giovanni became comfortable amongst the ledgers and legal papers when Piero was not, and soon he knew much more about banking than his elder brother ever did. The second result was that Giovanni befriended me; and that, in later years, was to become important.’

  She sat back, deciding, in view of the abbess’ unsupportive response, to change the subject.

  ‘I became pregnant in the autumn. Cosimo knew and was delighted, but we didn’t tell anyone else. I was small, and almost as slim as the boys, and I was sure nobody would notice until much later. It was Giovanni who eventually let the cat out of the bag.

  ‘It was in March of the following year. Quite early one morning. There was snow on the ground outside and nobody had yet ventured out, so the riverbanks opposite the Palazzo Bardi were pristine white as far as the eye could see, in both directions. As usual, we were in the studiolo.’

  ***

  PALAZZO MEDICI, FLORENCE

  14th February 1428

  ‘Giovanni! Pick that bloody dog up and get him out of here. This is no place for a puppy. I have told you before.’

  Cosimo bends and begins picking up the fallen books from the floor, his face for a moment incandescent with rage. The ledgers are his real children; more close to him even than his sons.

  Giovanni, unused to being shouted at, runs to Maddalena, who draws him to her and begins to cuddle him. He puts his head against her belly and she cradles his head while he pretends to cry.

  Of course it’s all a game to make his father forgive him; Giovanni has never to her knowledge cried genuinely in his life. She is holding him close and swaying from side to side when suddenly he pulls back. ‘Your belly has grown all hard’.

  He looks at her with that searching look that has always allowed him to discover secrets long before anyone else. Then, suddenly, his face goes deathly pale. ‘You haven’t got what Francesca Maria had, have you? You’re not going to die?’

  Maddalena takes a sharp breath and looks at Cosimo for support. Francesca Maria had been a neighbour; a Bardi from along the street and a week earlier, she had died of a tumour in the stomach. The whole street had discussed her death in unpleasant detail and Giovanni, who missed little, must have heard them.

  Now, to her surprise, Cosimo picks him up, puts him on his knee, and tells him the truth. ‘Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with Maddalena. She’s going to have a baby.’

  Giovanni wipes his snotty nose on Cosimo’s sleeve and looks straight across at her. He frowns. A frown of concentration. ‘How can you? You aren’t married.’

  With absolutely no idea what to say, she looks at Cosimo and says nothing.

  Giovanni considers further what he has just heard. He looks up at his father. ‘Who can the father be, if Maddalena’s not married?’

  She begins to bluster, but Cosimo simply tousles the boy’s head and tells him. ‘I am. Maddalena and I have made a baby together. It will be born in the early summer. Until then, it’s a secret. Only you know.’

  It’s a master stroke. In that moment, Giovanni seems to grow five years. He looks at Maddalena, then at his father, and then he smiles. ‘Will it be a boy? I would prefer a brother to play with. Girls are silly.’

  Cosimo smiles back. ‘I hope it will be a boy too. We shall have to wait and see.’

  Giovanni’s little brain is already moving onward. He looks at Maddalena very seriously. ‘Will he be black, like you, Maddalena?’

  Then, again, at his father. ‘I should like a black brother. Nobody else has a black brother. I’ll be special.’

  ‘He’ll be Piero’s brother as well.’ Cosimo is, as always, trying to be even-handed between his two sons.

  But Giovanni just shakes his head and looks at his father. ‘Don’t worry. He won’t find out.’ Then to Maddalena, in explanation. ‘I won’t tell him.’

  Maddalena looks at Cosimo and wonders what else he might say. Already he has made it plain that he does not intend to disown the child, but now, prompted by Giovanni’s question, she finds herself wondering what difference the baby’s colour might make. The child
ren of nobles often had convenient parentages attached to them, but there could be little pretence if the baby was her colour.

  Cosimo seems to read her thoughts. He grins at his son’s directness. ‘He will be a brother to both of you. And I hope he looks just like his mother. If he does, I could not be more proud of him.’

  He looks across the room at Maddalena and grins again. ‘I would not wish my own looks upon any child.’

  ‘Giovanni runs his fingertip down the bridge of his father’s nose, and then, still frowning, feels his ears. Satisfied, he nods his head. ‘I must take after my mother, then. My nose is not half as long as yours and I haven’t got big droopy ears.’

  And Cosimo, with a look of complete sincerity, pats his head. ‘Fear not, Giovanni. You have the best of both of us.’

  ***

  ‘Giovanni did much better than I had expected. He kept the secret for three months. When finally the news broke, it was clear that Cosimo had already told Contessina. I suspect he did so in May, while they were in Lucca, because I remembered her looking at me with a particular severity when they returned, although neither of them said anything at the time.

  ‘The boy (yes, it was a boy) was born on the 22nd June, and although I did not know it at the time, it was to prove a significant date. Years later I discovered that Lucrezia Tornabuoni had been born on the same day, but in the previous year. Of course she had not become part of our lives then, but within seven years she was to become a regular visitor to the house, and despite the difference in their ages, was to become very close to Giovanni, before eventually, at Cosimo’s command, marrying Piero.’

  Perhaps catching some change in Suora Maddalena’s voice, the abbess looked up, and saw the look of unhappiness on the face opposite her. Maddalena shook her head. ‘It was one of the biggest mistakes Cosimo ever made; tragic in my opinion, but at the time I speak of, it was a long way into the future.’

  She paused, gathering her thoughts. For a moment she was far away, lost in the past. Then a frown appeared on her face. ‘They say it was a difficult birth. That was the opinion of Dr Ficino.’

  ‘Diotifeci Ficino was a good physician, as well as being a close friend of Cosimo, and the midwife he brought with him had as strong a reputation as he had.’ She shook her head, remembering. ‘She was huge; her forearms thicker than my thighs, and with great dimples in her elbows. It was a long and painful night. I seemed to have been looking at those elbows for an age, through a red mist of agony and growing exhaustion, wishing those strong arms could just drag the thing out of me; but eventually, between us, after a whole night and half a morning, we did it.’

  Across the room, the abbess looks horrified.

  ‘As soon as I was told the child would live, I wrote to Cosimo, who was in Lucca once again, and told him the news. Despite what he had said to Giovanni months before, I was uncertain how he would respond. And then, only a few days later, his letter arrived.’

  Maddalena looked across the room. ‘If you will forgive me, I shall read it to you, for nothing I can say now will catch the true spirit of his own words.’

  Seeing the abbess nod her approval, Maddalena opened her little cask and found the letter. She had preserved it carefully, over the years, and it still looked as fresh as the day it arrived at the Palazzo Bardi. With her voice trembling, she began to read aloud.

  Dear Maddalena,

  I take the greatest pleasure in writing back to you on this auspicious day. This is God’s work. It is marvellous in our eyes.

  Thank you for our son. I shall call him Carlo and bring him up as one of the family.

  I am so proud of you, my dear. Please look after the boy well, and I shall see him on my return, early next week. Then he will be baptised into the church, at the Basilica di San Lorenzo, as my son.

  Yours, with pride,

  Cosimo de’ Medici

  At Lucca Wednesday, 16th June 1428

  With eyes glistening, she folded the letter, put it back in the cask and closed the lid. Then she looked at the abbess. ‘A good letter, I think you’ll agree?’

  The abbess looked envious. ‘A fine letter. A wonderful letter. His pride rings out from every word. And such an appropriate quotation. A domino factum est istud et est mirabile in oculis nostris. 4 Saint Mark expresses it beautifully.’ The abbess smiled contentedly, her eyes closed; the familiar words clearly comforting her. Then she opened her eyes again and her expression was more serious. ‘And did he do as he said?’ Madonna Arcangelica’s face showed just a hint of uncertainty. Perhaps she was wondering how well Cosimo would keep his promises to her, and the convent, in the future.

  Maddalena took a deep breath, remembering how she had felt in those ensuing days. First, it had to be said, relief. Then pride and finally, most important of all, inclusion. As her son had been drawn into the heart of the family, so, by association, had she. Legally, of course, she remained a slave; still described as such on the annual catasto tax return. How else could Cosimo have described her? He was a married man, in visible public office and with a business reputation to maintain as well as a political one.

  But in the Baptistery of San Lorenzo, Carlo had been accepted as a Medici, and so, finally, in a sense, had she. It was the beginning of a new era in her life. Cosimo had indeed kept his word in full. Carlo had been brought up within the family, with Contessina drawing him deftly under her controlling wing. But the boy had proved to be smart; quickly learning from Giovanni how to slide from his surrogate mother to his real mother and back again, under the same roof, without upsetting either.

  Perhaps Maddalena thought, looking back his father’s expertise in the same manoeuvre helped guide him too?

  ‘And where is Carlo now?’ Is he still at the Duomo, in Florence?’ It was clear from the abbess’ expression that she would not have been able to remain completely silent.

  ‘Being Canon is not a resident appointment. At least, not in his case. He’s in Rome, with the Curia. Thanks to his father, his position in the Church seems to be progressing, and judging from the last letter I had from him, he is more than content with his life.’

  She could say no more, but in addition to his existing appointments, in Florence and the Mugello, she knew he would soon be appointed Protonotario to Prato Cathedral. The position had been promised to him and only the formalities were yet to be completed. Even more, a month or so before she had come to the convent, Cosimo had told her that it was now only a matter of time; he now had assurances that Carlo would, eventually, earn his cardinal’s hat.

  Chapter 10

  Exiled

  21st November 1457

  It was towards the end of November. The season had been progressing quickly and already the clouds were beginning to have that mixture of purple and slate grey that told of the coming of snow to the hills of the Mugello. The snows were beginning early this year. Everyone sensed that it was going to be a long and cold winter.

  Maddalena was concerned. It was nearly half an hour since None had ended and there was only another hour and a half before they would have to reassemble for Vespers, yet still Madonna Arcangelica had not arrived. She had seemed in her normal spirits during the None prayers, and afterwards, as they filed out, had made no indication that their fortnightly appointment would have to be cancelled.

  Maddalena opened the folding doors and walked out onto her balcony. The air out here was chill, with a bite that cut through her clothes and exposed her inner weakness, but she persevered; knowing if she leaned over the balcony, she would be able to see much of the courtyard below. Still no sign.

  And then she heard the familiar step, scrape, step, scrape of the abbess’ feet on the stone steps below. The sound changed as the abbess turned onto the steeper wooden stairs and Maddalena made sure the chairs were ready in their customary positions. No need to waste any more time.

  Madonna Arcangelica knocked and entered as soon as Maddalena replied. She looked drawn. ‘Sorry. A sudden emergency. Suora Magnifica had one of her spells
as she was leaving chapel and we had to carry her down to the infirmary. I fear she will not outlast this winter.’

  Eager to leave the chapel in order to prepare for the abbess’ visit, she had not noticed the commotion, but Maddalena knew who she was referring to; one of the old nuns who refused to accept the modest reforms that Madonna Arcangelica was still trying to introduce. Embarrassed at her failure to come to the aid of a sick sister, she felt the need to comment.

  ‘Yes. I thought she was looking weak at prayers this morning.’ She frowned. ‘How old is she now?’

  The abbess shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. She says she’s eighty-five, but her mind has been so addled for the last five years that I wouldn’t trust to her memory. Somehow, she has always seemed old to me. She even seemed like an old woman when I first came here, but if she’s right, she can only have been thirty-four then. I shall have to consult the convent records. I’ll have a word with the Chapter Clerk after Vespers.’

  Wearily, she eased herself into the customary chair and sat back, closing her eyes. ‘Do you have a story from your life to comfort me today? I admit I feel in need of comfort.’

  Maddalena closed the door and the folding shutters and took her place opposite the abbess. For a moment she considered changing to another chapter of her life, but in the end she decided against it. The subject she had chosen was more than sufficient.

  ‘I hope so. I have told you of living with a man, of its joys and its frustrations. I have also told you something of the difficulties of sharing a man, under one roof with another woman. Today I should like to tell about the agony of losing a man. But before you despair, I promise my story will continue, and tell also of the ecstasy of regaining him and in the process of elevating my relationship with him to a new plane.’

  For a moment she thought the abbess had fallen asleep, but then, without even opening her eyes, Madonna Arcangelica smiled, gave a gentle nod and began to circle her right hand. ‘Pray proceed. I have heard enough these past weeks to trust you. Even if it must address tribulations, I know your tale will have a constructive outcome in the end. It is not in your nature to stop on a negative. But today, if you will forgive me, I shall simply sit here with my eyes closed, and enjoy the story as it unfolds.’