Mary Hoffman - David

Many thanks to my dear Florentine friend, Carla Poesio, for reading the text and putting me right about beer. Also to my quasi-Venetian friend, Michelle Lovric, for doing the same but without the beer. Living near Oxford as I do, I am always so grateful to be able to use the Bodleian, Taylorian and Sackler Libraries and this time I was also able to look at Michelangelo drawings in the Ashmolean Museum.

Among the many, many books and articles I read, Michelangelos David: A Search for Identity by Charles Seymour Jr (1967), Saul Levines 1984 article about Michelangelos lost bronze David , and Frederick Hartts David by the Hand of Michelangelo (1987) were the most influential. Absolutely invaluable was R. Barr Litchfields Online Gazetteer of Sixteenth Century Florence (2006).

And I never attempt to write any historical novel without the assistance of the indispensable London Library, of which I am a happy Country Member.

Troubadour

The Falconers Knot

The Stravaganza Sequence

City of Masks

City of Stars

City of Flowers

City of Secrets

City of Ships

Chapter Eight

I cant remember much about the next few months. Its odd, when so much is vivid in my memory about the time before and after, but in those first few months after the boy was born that the world would call Davide di Antonello de Altobiondi I lost all sense of myself.

I was the stonecutter who went to work in the bottega every day. I was the artists model who posed, first as Hercules and then as Bacchus for Leone the painter two nights a week. I was a fratesco spy who met his friends on other evenings. And I was a lover with two beloveds and that was without counting Clarice.

But of Gabriele himself I have no memory; I think I stumbled through spring and the beginning of summer as if I were in a dream or like a man intoxicated by a powerful brew. I was a figure trapped in an invisible block of marble without feelings and unable to escape or even to want to escape.

And yet it was a time of great terror in the city; Florence had some implacable enemies, who had nothing to do with the de Medici or Savonarola.

Cesare Borgia, said Gandini the baker. Thats the man weve got to worry about.

I scarcely knew the name, but the most important thing about this Borgia was that he was the son of the Pope. The gossip in Florence made him seem like a monster and hero rolled into one someone no one could defeat or cheat. He was supposed to have ordered the murder of many victims and gained the love of as many women. And everyone in the city was talking about him.

He was a cardinal, you know, Grazia told me. And born to a cardinal too the one who is now Pope but Cesare gave up his red hat.

Why? I asked listlessly. It didnt seem to matter much to me at the time.

They do say, said Grazia, that he poisoned his older brother. They were both lovers of a third brothers wife. Can you believe such a thing?

I didnt feel I could judge anyone elses sexual adventures when I considered my own situation, but I expressed suitable horror at such behaviour in a man of the Church.

The French king made him a duke and he became a soldier, said Grazia. He leads the Popes armies with five condottieri underneath his command.

Why does that matter to us, Grazia? I asked. What has an army in Rome to do with Florence?

Dont you listen to any of the rumours in the city? she scolded me. One of those condottieri is Vitellozzo Vitelli!

It meant nothing to me and I could see my ignorance was exasperating her.

Vitelli fought with Florence against Pisa, she said.

So hes an ally?

She snorted. Not any more! His brother Paolo was put to death for treachery a few years ago and Vitellozzo vowed to avenge him. He and Cesare are out roaming the countryside, getting nearer to the city all the time. Heaven help us if their armies combine and march on Florence!

It wasnt long before Grazias fears seemed to be coming true. A message reached the city that Vitelli had captured Arezzo, which was much too close for comfort.

There were rumours in Lodovicos house that Florence had sent ambassadors to Rome to get Pope Alexander to intervene. And while the tension in the city grew as Florentines waited for the reply, a new and more alarming rumour began to circulate.

Pisa has declared for Borgia, said Sigismondo. They called him Gismondo in the family. He was the one who wanted to be a soldier and always had his ear to the ground about military matters. The Pisans are already flying the Dukes banners from their turrets.

This was seriously worrying. Pisa and Florence had been at odds for a long time and the Florentines were incensed that their rival city had gone over to Cesare Borgia instead of coming back into the fold of their old relations with the city.

Borgia wont have them, though, said Gandini the baker, my other source of information. He picked up a lot of gossip in his shop. Hes gone off to take Camerino.

My knowledge of geography was no better than of history but it sounded further away than Pisa. But I had heard of Urbino who hadnt? and it wasnt long before news came that Cesare Borgia had deposed the legitimate Duke of that fine city, Guidobaldo Montefeltro. This he had done himself, sending just a portion of his army to besiege Camerino.

Soon there came a message to Florence from Cesare Borgia that the city should send an ambassador to him in Urbino.

Theyre sending Soderini, said Gismondo.

The gonfaloniere ? I asked.

No. His brother, Bishop Francesco. And theyre sending Machiavelli with him.

I didnt recognise the name but not many people had heard of Niccol Machiavelli at that time. Later, he became famous throughout Italy for his intelligence and diplomatic skills.

Soderini sent back a message that Cesare Borgia was an extraordinary man magnificent and formidable were just two of the words used and that if Florence would not declare itself his friend, Cesare would regard the city as his enemy.

Well, no one in Florence wanted such a powerful and seemingly unconquerable enemy. But it was a proud city, which had got rid of one family of tyrants and was in no hurry to replace it with another. There were rumours that a huge French army was on its way, which would be a protection for Florence, so the Signoria played for time.

Ha, said Gismondo, hurrying back from the Piazza della Signoria with fresh news. It seems that Cesare Borgia has heard about the French army too! He has ordered Vitelli to withdraw from Arezzo.

While all this was going on outside the city, it was Grazia who told me about the secret information network that operated between Florentine women, the grand ladies and their servants. At first it seemed to me that it was just to help aristocratic ladies find good-looking lovers. But gradually I realised it could be helpful in finding out more about the pro-Medicean conspiracy.

Antonello de Altobiondi is their leader, said Grazia, confirming what Lodovico had told me a year earlier. His wife and my lady are friends.

This was news to me. And as the weather grew warmer, it seemed that Florentine ladies liked to visit one another.

The evenings were getting lighter too and Leone took down the shutters and painted by natural light. I was still posing as Bacchus with a leopard skin another length of ordinary cloth that the painter would transform and holding a wine cup which would look far richer on his canvas than the ordinary pewter goblet I held.

I suppose I should have expected what happened one warm July evening but, as I said, I was sleepwalking through my days. There was a knock at the door and I hardly bothered with much dressing since I was sure it was Grazia and she had seen everything many times by then.