Mario Puzo - The Family (Mario Puzo)

A NOVEL

COMPLETED BY CAROL GINO

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

THE FAMILY. Copyright 2001 by The Estate of Mario Puzo and Carol Gino.

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Adobe Acrobat E-Book Reader edition v 1. September 2001

ISBN 0-06-008711-0

Print edition first published in 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

The Brothers Karamazov

For Bert Fields

who snatched victory

from the jaws of defeat

and who could be

the greatest Consigliere

of them all

With admiration

Mario Puzo

Contents

Epigraph Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded Prologue

As the Black Death swept through Europe,

devastating half the population

Part I

1 The golden rays of the summer sun warmed the cobblestone streets of Rome

2 Hidden in the foothills of the Apennines, a days ride from Rome, was a vast tract

3 When cardinal Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, he knew

4 Cardinal Giuliano Della Roveres desire for vengeance grew toward obsession.

5 On the day that Lucrezias husband-to-be, Giovanni Sforza, duke of Pesaro

6 Ludovico Sforza, the man known as Il Moro , was the power in the great city-state

7 The Popes physician rushed to the vatican with an urgent report of an outbreak

8 Cesare, riding with the French cavalry,

watched the well-disciplined troops

9 Now that Rome was temporarily quiet, the Pope traveled to Silverlake

10 Pope Alexander had been betrayed at the

moment of his greatest need

11 Lucrezia had come to join her father and brothers for the Easter festivities

12 Vanozza cattaneis guests sat at the gaily colored banquet tables

Part II

13 Alexander was still in mourning for Juan, and so it was that Duarte came to Cesare Borgia

14 On the day Cesare Borgia crowned the king of Naples, he received an urgent message

15 The moment Alexander entered the comfortable country home of Vanozza Catanei

16 Francis Saluti, Interrogator for the Florentine Council of Ten, knew

17 Cesare awoke that morning with mounting

excitement.

18 Cesare spent the following weeks dressed in solemn black, pacing the halls

19 Alexander could not bear Lucrezias tears.

And while she wore a brave face in public

Part III

20 Cesare Borgia, dressed in black armor and mounted on a magnificent white charger

21 Cesare entered Rome a conquering hero. the grand procession celebrating his victory

22 Prince Alfonso of Aragon, the proud son of kings, carried himself regally

23 In Rome again, Cesare readied his army, and this time most of his soldiers were Italian

24 As Cesare moved his army northward up the Rimini-Bologna road toward Bologna itself

25 Cardinal Della Rovere and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza met in secret over a lunch

26 Silverlake was beautiful that spring. Cesare and Lucrezia made a handsome couple

27 Jofre and Sancia lay sound asleep in their apartments in the Vatican

28 Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere paced around his apartments in Ostia, raging

29 The very night of Alexanders death, armed mobs surged through the streets of Rome

30 Alert to the danger of being recaptured by Spanish militia combing the countryside

Epilogue

Cesare Borgia, who had been a Cardinal, a

Duke, and a Gonfaloniere

Afterward The biggest surprise for me when I first met Mario Puzo was that he was nothing like

About the Author

Credits

About the Publisher

Front Cover

P r o l o g u e

As the black death swept through europe,

devastating half the population, many citizens turned their eyes in desperation from the Heavens to Earth. There, in order to master the physical world, the more philosophically inclined tried to uncover the secrets of existence and to unravel Lifes great mysteries, while the poor hoped only to overcome their suffering.

And so it was that God fell to Earth as Man, and the rigid religious doctrine of the Middle Ages lost its power and was replaced by the study of the great ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt. As the thirst for the Crusades began to fade, Olympian heroes were reborn and Olympian battles were fought anew. Man pitted his mind against the heart of God, and Reason reigned.

This was the time of great accomplishments in philosophy, the arts, medicine, and music. Culture flourished with great pomp and ceremony. But not without cost. Old laws were broken before new ones were created. The shift from the strict adherence to the word of God and the belief in eternal salvation to the honor of Man and reward in the material world called humanism was, in truth, a difficult transition.

Then, Rome was not the Holy City; it was a lawless place. In the streets, citizens were robbed, houses were plundered, prostitution was rampant, and hundreds of people were murdered each week.

Moreover, the country we now know as Italy did not yet exist.

Instead, there were five great powers: Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, and Rome. Within the boundaries of the boot, there were many independent city-states ruled by old families led by local kings, feudal lords, dukes, or bishops. Inside the country, neighbor fought neighbor for territory. And those who conquered were always on guardfor the next conquest was close at hand.

From outside the country, there came the threat of invasion by foreign powers who wished to expand their empires. The rulers of France and Spain vied for territory, and the barbarian Turks, who were not Christians, were moving in on the Papal States.

Church and state wrestled for sovereignty. After the travesty of the Great Schismwhen there were two Popes in two cities with divided power and reduced revenuethe formation of the new seat of the throne in Rome, with only one Pope, gave the princes of the church new hope. Emerging even stronger than before, the spiritual leaders of the church had only to fight the temporal power of the kings, queens, and dukes of the small cities and fiefdoms.