The House of Medici Read online

  ‘Precisely. That’s my point.’ Lucrezia is nodding thoughtfully. ‘Cosimo has handed over his responsibilities, but the others have not fully taken them up. So nobody is really driving the horses anymore. You and he aren’t, Piero isn’t and Giovanni is certainly not.’

  ‘Do you have a solution to this problem? It is one thing to identify a problem, but sometimes much harder to overcome it.’ Maddalena has never been content to let a problem fall to the floor unaddressed. It’s irresponsible, in her opinion. ‘What do you think about Sassetti?’

  Lucrezia sniffs. They both know that Cosimo has been considering bringing Francesco di Tommaso Sassetti in from the Geneva branch to ‘help’ Giovanni. ‘In my view, he’s a crawler; a “yes-man” and not strong enough for the job. Cosimo should find a better solution. That’s my opinion.’

  Maddalena has to agree. Cosimo is slipping. He’s making mistakes himself and seeing others being made without addressing them. Sassetti is ineffective; he won’t stand up to Cosimo. Cosimo needs to do something, and fast. And she says so.

  Lucrezia shakes her head, as if resigned to the situation. ‘The problem is who’s going to tell him?’

  ***

  ‘And did you? Tell him, I mean?’ The abbess had that look of utter concentration on her face.

  Maddalena shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. I knew that Cosimo was already aware of the problems. Rubbing his face in it wouldn’t have helped him. My task was always to support his decisions and to give him confidence in driving them forward, not to come up with solutions myself, and certainly not to criticise his actions, or sow fear, uncertainty and doubt. But nevertheless, I had grown used to believing that in my position as confidante and supporter, I was, if I may say so without sounding immodest, indispensible to him.

  ‘And so it was, in October of last year, and with that unhappy background, that Cosimo brought me here to the convent.’

  The abbess opened her hands, as if in welcome, and smiled. ‘I can understand that it was upsetting for you to have to walk away when you could see such important problems remaining unresolved. But for my part, if I may say so, it was a good day for our little community and a great one for me personally.’

  As she finished the sentence, her smile began to fade and she ended by looking at Maddalena silently; her eyes searching. Then, after a long pause, she spoke again, this time her voice much lower and unhappier.

  ‘When was it that you realised your faith in Cosimo was slipping? Was it Lucrezia who brought it about?’

  Maddalena took a deep breath before replying. ‘I suppose Lucrezia must have sowed many of the seeds of doubt, but still I had faith in Cosimo, because it was then that he told me his plan to have Lorenzo save the bank. And at the same time, he asked me to help him in his scheme to provide for Lorenzo. With gold. Lorenzo’s gold we called it. And I had faith in that scheme. It was a good plan and I had a central part to play, so I felt involved.’

  Maddalena’s eyes fell as she finished and she looked at the ground. Even as she spoke them, she was aware that she did not believe the brave words.

  ‘But . . . ? I ask you again. When was it, then, that you realised your faith in Cosimo was slipping?’ The abbess’ eyes were kindly, but they were also unblinking. This time she wouldn’t let go and Maddalena knew it.

  Maddalena felt her eyes fill with tears. Not the tears of sadness but tears of frustration; verging on tears of anger. ‘It was the day I arrived here. With him. And with all those servants. You remember? We stood at the foot of this very tower, down there, by the side door; where you entered not two hours ago. I can still remember exactly what he said. “Come. I will escort you to your room and then we must say our farewells.”’

  She stood up and began to pace. Then she stopped and turned, looking at the abbess, who throughout had sat still and silent, waiting. ‘It was at that moment, faced with climbing those steep steps to the tower with Cosimo, who would, I knew, struggle to do so, that I knew the magnitude and the finality of what he intended for me, and the extent to which he had been planning it, in his head, on paper and with others, over all those months.'

  Angrily, she shook her head. ‘But never with me. I had not shared in the preparation of the plan. He had developed it with others.’ She lifted her head and stared accusingly at the abbess. ‘With you and with the architect who built this tower and who organised the building of the library and the vault beneath.’

  Her head fell forward and she found she was addressing the floor between her feet. ‘But for all his fine words to me, I realised, then, that I was not a central player in the play, but had simply been given a minor bit part; one in which I was required to walk off stage, never to be seen again.’

  Madonna Arcangelica looked at the top of Maddalena’s head, bobbing in time with her sobs. She shook her head slowly. ‘I think in your sadness, you underestimate your part in all this. Cosimo made it clear to me that you were at the core of his plan. He stated with absolute firmness that he could not tell me of his intentions, but that you, in the fullness of time, would be able to do so. He said he was relying on us both, but that you would hold the key.’

  Maddalena lifted her head, looked at her and smiled. ‘I could not be more delighted if that were the case. To continue in partnership with you, working towards saving the future of the Medici Bank and the family, would be the final fulfilment of my life. When I first met Cosimo de’ Medici I told myself that I could either see him as the end of my happiness or as the beginning of something new.’

  Feeling uncomfortable with the abbess’ eyes upon her, she stood and looked out of the little window. ‘I decided that if I could, I would make it the latter, and in the thirty-six years that I have served Cosimo, not one day has passed when I did not see that as my destiny. I cannot allow myself to believe that my whole life has been wasted.’

  She turned from the window, and lifted her head defiantly, the tears gone. ‘Would you think I was deluding myself if I told you that I take pride in the great bank that Cosimo built with my humble help?’

  The abbess shook her head. ‘Not at all. You have, I am sure, played an important part in a creation that will endure for a thousand years.’

  Maddalena shook her head in return. ‘Sadly, I think you are wrong in that prediction, kindly as it was meant. Somehow, I fear the Medici Bank will not outlive Lorenzo.’

  The abbess stood, crossed the room, and took Maddalena’s hands in hers. ‘That circumstance is far in the future. With the best will in the world, neither of us is likely to be here when that question is resolved. But together we can at least ensure that Lorenzo gets his opportunity.’

  ‘Did Cosimo ask you to be part of this plan? Did he make promises to you too?’ Maddalena still found herself balancing on the edge of faith and doubt.

  ‘He told me that I, and the convent, were to play a part in a great scheme. A scheme that would be of immense importance to the Medici and to Florence. He said he could not tell me the nature of the scheme, but that you would know and you would tell me in good time. In furtherance of our relationship, he made a generous contribution to the finances of our convent and he promised to endow the library, which, in your presence, he has now done. Your own conventual dowry and the annuity that accompanies you here will also make a great difference to us until . . .’

  ‘He promised you more? Are you, like me, holding a promise from Cosimo and wondering whether it will ever be fulfilled?’ Maddalena was still teetering on the cliff-edge of uncertainty.

  ‘He said you would be bringing the first part of the secret deposit with you when you came. And I assume the many boxes that entered the library full and came out empty, reflect something important deposited in the vault beneath the library?’

  Maddalena nodded. ‘Yes. You are correct.’

  ‘But he also told me that he would return later and that the final deposits would be of a far greater magnitude than the first “modest instalment” as he called it. Like you, I await the future with nervo
us expectation.’

  ‘And does the convent have expectations, when that great day comes?’ It is a question Maddalena had wanted to ask since the day she arrived.

  ‘Yes. We live in hope and expectation, for I trust the Magnificent Cosimo’s word.’ The abbess allowed herself a little uncertain smile. ‘To be honest with you, we need it. The chapel roof is in sore need of repair.’

  Chapter 23

  Reaching Out

  11th December 1458

  Six months had passed and Maddalena was feeling lonely. Very lonely. In no time, it seemed, a summer had come and gone, absorbed in repetition, and interrupted by precious little else.

  Recently, as the winter days had shortened once again, she had spent more and more time in her other cell; the one next to Suora Maria Benigna. Her conversations with Madonna Arcangelica snuffed out like a midnight candle, she had had little reason to come up here, to the top of her tower.

  She and the abbess still spoke, but infrequently; nowadays always in the abbess’ room, and much more formally than they used to. There was awkwardness between them now; perhaps a shared regret that each of them had admitted to questioning, if not losing, their faith in Cosimo.

  But she had her memories, she had her thoughts and she had her journal. And today, alone, she had climbed the stairs and, with gloved fingers, had opened the leather-bound journal at the next clean page.

  Maddalena sat at the table and stared at the blank page. It was snowing outside and the valley was blanketed in an eerie and unnatural silence. There was no wind, but the brittle cold had permeated everywhere, not least into her little cell at the top of the tower. In summer, she had been the envy of the other nuns, but now, she knew, those down in the cloister, their cells built direct into the thick walls of the chapel, were grateful for the shelter the bulk of the building afforded. But this morning she had needed to think; and to do that, unconstrained, she needed privacy and freedom. And that had meant the tower and her stairs.

  Pulling her outer cloak around her tightly, she opened the big folding doors, which led from her room to the balcony outside; the place where she loved to read and to write her journal in the summer months. For four or five months of the summer, these doors had remained open and pinned back, but now she was grateful for the protection they provided. She poked her nose outside; no different. The wide bay of the balcony was encrusted with icicles, many longer than the opened span of her fingers, and the few plants she had tended so carefully in pots beneath the window ledge, had long ago died.

  She closed the door and barred it again, as tightly as she could. Although she was wearing a woollen camicia under her heavy winter habit, she was still frozen. The fingerless mittens she had fashioned from one of her old pairs of good leather gloves did little to protect her hands from the cold, and she found she could hardly move them. She smiled to herself: under these circumstances, it was hardly a surprise that she was struggling to write her journal.

  Over the months, she had developed a routine for Monday afternoons. Whenever her religious duties allowed (and as the representative of the convent’s most powerful patron, she could hardly describe herself as being overworked), and when it was not a day for conversation with the abbess, she would take out her journal from its box, and sit at her little table, in winter months in the corner of her cell, and in the summer in the corner of her balcony from where she could look down at the valley below.

  The winter view was a distant one; the tower was the highest point of the convent—her room on a level with the chapel roof. Its window was small and at shoulder height in the wall, so most of what she saw now was far up the valley, towards Tassaia and the Badia. It was a good view—calm and restful, and, being distant, without detail or distraction; the sort of view that encouraged distant thoughts and sometimes even more distant memories.

  And there, most of the time, lay the problem. For day after day, she would look at the view, and find memories of her life flooding back. A few were childhood memories. She could still remember growing up in Palermo, although her parents’ faces had long since faded from her mind.

  But in the main, her memories had been filled with Cosimo; with the things he had said, the things they had done together, and the things she had watched him do. Whilst she had remained in her accustomed place; quietly, almost invisibly, in the background. And therein had always lain her difficulty, for wonderful as those images were; they were not the sort of thing you could write about. Not, at least, to the one man who had said the words and performed the deeds in the first place.

  Some of the memories were old now, and, like those of her childhood, were beginning to fade.

  But some of the images were quite recent and being young, were still fresh and strong in her mind. There had been a period in the previous year, shortly before Cosimo had brought her to this place, when his spirits had been as low as the terrible days of his trial and exile. Pain had been part of it. His gout and his sciatica had both worsened over recent years. Cosimo could endure discomfort with the best of men, but when that pain endured unending for weeks and months, so that neither sleeping nor waking offered any real hope of relief, then even the strongest of men could become introspective.

  It was in those latter years that Contessina had begun to lose her patience with him.

  ***

  CHAPEL OF THE MAGI, PALAZZO MEDICI

  Late Spring 1457

  ‘You do look a pretty miserable lot.’ Maddalena shakes her head and smiles at the three long faces in front of her. Cosimo, and his two sons, Piero and Giovanni, are lying together in Cosimo’s great bed in the camera; the huge bedroom close beside his chapel and next to his studiolo, where, when he isn’t bedridden, most of the work is usually done. But today, and for the past week or so, his gout has the better of him, as it has for his two sons, and all three are suffering. Little work will be done while they are in this condition, she knows, and precious little laughter will be heard until they are better.

  For the last week she has done her best to look after them, despite their best endeavours to make matters worse. She has put them on a diet: no offal, no red meat, no pulses and no red wine; all favourites, especially of Giovanni. It’s the diet her father used to recommend for gout sufferers, and she knows that if she enforces it firmly, they will gradually improve. But whilst Cosimo will occasionally listen (when what he believes are the ‘banqueting obligations of his position’ do not contradict the advice), Piero and Giovanni were born to indulge themselves and will treat any sensible advice from her as a sniggering opportunity to do the opposite ‘just to spite her’.

  In this respect, they’re like naughty schoolboys. The moment her back is turned, one or other of them will call a servant to sneak ‘a morsel’ to them. And it’s always the very worst thing; cinghiale in thick red wine sauce being their latest favourite, the wild boar season having just started. They like it with Tuscan beans, great bowls of it and however much she tells them it will make the pain worse, they seem incapable of heeding her advice.

  There’s a tap on the door and she opens it. A servant nods his head. ‘Maddalena. Please tell the Magnificent Cosimo that the Milanese ambassador is here for their appointment.’

  She turns. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Piero and Giovanni feign sleep. Cosimo nods and winces as he does so. ‘I had forgotten he was coming. He’s come to see the new fresci.’

  She nods. It is only a few weeks since Benozzo Gozzoli finished his fresco work in the chapel. The paintings are good. Very good. The talk of the city and everyone wants an invitation to see them.

  Cosimo beckons her closer. His voice is feeble—almost a whisper. ‘Can you send someone to fetch Contessina? I’ll have to ask her to show him round. Etiquette requires it’s someone senior from the family, but look at us.’

  Piero keeps his eyes shut, but Giovanni opens one eye, smirks and winks. Then he too withdraws into self-induced oblivion.

  She turns toward the servant, who is standing, holdi
ng the door open. ‘Send him in. I will explain. Then can you find Contessina please?’

  He nods and withdraws, returning almost immediately with Nicodemo Tranchedini, the Milanese ambassador.

  ‘Nicodemo!’ She knows him well and likes him. He’s been ambassador for some fourteen years and has become a family friend. With her responsibilities to the Bank, she sees him regularly and he’s not surprised to be greeted by her. She indicates the bed. ‘We are indisposed. The gout again.’

  Nicodemo steps back. ‘I apologise. I’ve come at an inconvenient time. Cosimo invited me to see . . .’

  She looks at Cosimo, but he too has closed his eyes. She puts a hand on Nicodemo’s arm. ‘It’s all in hand. Cosimo and his sons apologise. Someone will accompany you. Just a moment.’

  They walk to the window and converse until the door bursts open. Contessina in full sail. She looks flustered. She’s a rare visitor to this suite of rooms and only comes if specifically invited. She notes Maddalena’s comfortable stance beside the ambassador and as he turns toward her, breaks into her best welcoming smile. ‘Ambassador. Please excuse our disarray.’

  But her smile fades as her gaze sweeps over the bed at the very moment her husband and both sons each risk opening an eye. Now, embarrassed, she glares at them. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? The Milanese ambassador is here to see you and not one of you is even able to raise a smile. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

  It’s a grave mistake. Cosimo, his face racked with pain, levers himself into a sitting position. His face is white with rage as he speaks, although his tone remains level and seethingly controlled. ‘Maddalena? Would you be so kind as to accompany our guest to the chapel? Nicodemo, I will discuss the paintings with you next time we meet. I trust I shall be in better health on that occasion.’

  ‘But I thought . . .’ Contessina is taken aback by the public snub. Her face tells its own story. To be stood down from accompanying an ambassador in favour of a mere slave? It’s clearly unthinkable.