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At once, he grew remarkably dizzy, and heard a rushing in his ears; he shut his eyes and opened his mouth, gasping for air. There was none to be had, and so he drank in the foul Arno. He retched it up at once, then reflex forced him to gulp in more.
Giuliano was drowning.
Though a child, he understood clearly that he was dying. The realization prompted him to open his eyes, to capture a last glimpse of earth that he might take with him to Heaven.
At that instant, a cloud moved overhead, permitting a shaft of sunlight to pierce the river, so thoroughly that it caused the silt suspended in the water to glitter, and illumined the area directly before Giuliano’s eyes.
Staring back at him, an arm’s length away, was the drowning Lorenzo. His tunic and mantle had been caught on an errant branch, and he had twisted himself about in a mad effort to be free.
Both brothers should have died then. But Giuliano had prayed, with a child’s guilelessness: God, let me save my brother.
Impossibly, he had pulled the tangled clothing loose from the branch.
Impossibly, the freed Lorenzo had seized Giuliano’s hands, and pulled the two of them up to the surface.
From there, Giuliano’s memory became more blurred. He only remembered snippets: of himself vomiting on the grassy shore while the slave woman pounded his back, of Lorenzo wet and shivering, wrapped in picnic linens; of voices calling out: Brother, speak to me! Of Lorenzo in the carriage on the ride home, furious, fighting tears: Don’t ever risk yourself for me! You almost died! Father would never forgive me …! But the unspoken message was louder: Lorenzo would never forgive himself.
In the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli lifted his knife to deal Giuliano another blow.
Dear God, Giuliano prayed, with the sincerity of a child. Let me rescue my brother.
With strength he did not have, he then pushed backwards against his first attacker, causing the man to step onto the hem of his garment and fall, tangled in his robes.
Time slowed then for Giuliano, just as it had that day in the Arno. Despite his lethargy, he willed himself to do the impossible and create a barrier between the attackers and Lorenzo. If he was unable to cry out a warning to his brother, he could at least slow the murderers down.
Then he heard Lorenzo’s voice. Giuliano! Brother, speak to me! He could not have said whether it came from within the Duomo, or whether he heard an echo from childhood, the voice of an eleven-year-old boy calling from the banks of a river. He wanted to tell his brother to run, but he could not speak. Struggling to draw a breath, he choked on warm liquid.
Baroncelli tried to edge by him; but Giuliano stumbled intentionally into his path. Francesco de’ Pazzi pushed past them both, the sight of blood stirring him into a frenzy; his small black eyes sparkled as his wiry body shook with hatred. Raising his dagger – a long blade, almost as slender and keen as a stiletto – he too, tried to move beyond Baroncelli’s victim, but Giuliano would not let him pass.
Giuliano opened his mouth to an anguished wheeze, meaning to scream instead, You will never get near my brother. I will die first, but you will never lay a hand on Lorenzo.
Francesco simply snarled something unintelligible and moved to strike the young man.
Weaponless, Giuliano raised a defensive hand and the knife pierced his palm and forearm; but compared to the agony in his chest and in his back, these fresh wounds were no worse than the sting of an insect. Taking a step towards Francesco, towards Baroncelli, he forced them backwards, and gave Lorenzo time to flee.
Francesco, a vicious little man, let loose a torrent of all the rage, all the enmity that his family felt towards the Medici. Each phrase he uttered was punctuated by a further blow of his dagger.
‘Sons of whores, all of you! Your father betrayed my father’s trust …’
Giuliano felt a deep, piercing bite in his shoulder, then in his upper arm. He could not keep it raised, so he let it fall, limply, to his blood-soaked side.
‘Your brother has done everything possible to keep us out of the Signoria.’
Harsher wounds were dealt now upon Giuliano’s chest, his neck, followed by a dozen blows to his torso. Francesco was a madman. His hand and blade pummelled Giuliano so swiftly that the two were enveloped in crimson spray. His movements were so wild and careless, he even pierced his own thigh, shrieking loudly as his blood mingled with his enemy’s. Pain fuelled Francesco’s fury as he continued to strike.
Spoken ill of us to His Holiness.
Insulted our family.
Stolen the city.
Such calumny against his brother should have incited Giuliano’s anger, but he had found a place where his emotions were still.
The waters inside the cathedral were murky with blood; he could barely see the wavering images of his attackers against the backdrop of scrambling bodies. Baroncelli and Francesco were shouting. Giuliano saw their mouths agape. The glint of wielded steel was dulled by the muddy Arno, and he could hear nothing. In the river, all was silent.
A shaft of sunlight streamed in from the open door leading north to the Via de’ Servi. Giuliano stepped towards it, intent on looking for Lorenzo, but the current pulled strongly on him, and it was hard to walk through the swirling water.
Just beyond his reach, the raven-haired Anna wept and wrung her hands, mourning the children they might have had; her love tugs at him. But it is Lorenzo who has the final hold on his heart. Lorenzo, whose heart will break when he finds his younger sibling. It is Giuliano’s greatest regret.
‘Brother.’ Giuliano’s lips merely formed the word as he sank to his knees.
Lorenzo sits on the banks of the Arno, clutching a blanket round his shoulders. He is soaked through and shivering, but he is alive.
Relieved, Giuliano lets go of a shallow sigh – all the air that remains in his lungs – then sinks to where the waters are deepest and black.
VIII
26 April 1478
To the Priors of Milan
My most illustrious lords,
My brother Giuliano has been murdered and my government is in the gravest danger. It is now time, my lords, to aid your servant Lorenzo. Send as many soldiers as you can with all speed so that they will be the shield and safety of my state, as always.
Your servant
Lorenzo de’ Medici
IX
Bernardo Baroncelli rode kneeling in a small horse-drawn cart to his doom.
Before him, in the vast Piazza della Signoria, loomed the great, implacable Palazzo, the seat of Florence’s government and the heart of her justice. Topped by battlements, the fortress was an imposing, almost windowless rectangle, with a slender campanile tower at one corner. Only an hour before he was led to the cart, Baroncelli had heard its bell tolling, low and dolorous, summoning witnesses to the spectacle.
In the morning gloom, the Palazzo’s pale stone façade appeared grey against the darkening clouds. Before the building, rising out of a colourful assembly of Florence’s rich and poor, stood a hastily-built scaffolding, and the gallows.
The weather had turned bitterly cold; Baroncelli’s final breaths hung before him as mist. The top of his cloak gaped open, but he could not pull it closed, for his hands were bound behind his back.
In this manner, unsteady and lurching each time the wheels encountered a stone, Baroncelli arrived in the Piazza. No fewer than a thousand had gathered to witness his end.
At the crowd’s edge, a small boy, a fanciulo, caught sight of the approaching cart and, in his childish falsetto, sang out the rallying cry of the Medici: ‘Palle! Palle! Palle!’
Hysteria rippled through the throng. Soon its collective shout thundered in Baroncelli’s ears.
‘Palle! Palle! Palle!’
Someone nearby threw a stone; it clattered harmlessly against the cobblestones beside the creaking cart. Only curses were hurled afterwards. The Signoria had placed several policemen on horseback at strategic locations to prevent a riot; Baroncelli was flanked by mounted, armed guards.
This was to prevent him from being torn apart before he could be properly executed. He had heard the tales of his fellow conspirators’ gruesome fates: how the Perugian mercenaries hired by the Pazzi had been pushed from the high tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, how they had fallen into the waiting crowd below, who had hacked them to pieces with knives and shovels.
Even old Iacopo de’ Pazzi, who during his life had been respected, had not escaped Florence’s wrath. Upon the sound of Giotto’s chiming campanile, he had climbed upon his horse and tried to rally the citizens with the cry, Popolo e liberta! The phrase was a rallying cry to overthrow the current government – in this case, the Medici.
But the populace had answered with the cry: Palle! Palle! Palle!
Despite his sin, he had been granted a proper burial after his execution – with the noose still round his neck. But the city had been so filled with hatred in those wild days, he had not been at rest long before his cadaver was dragged through the streets and reburied outside the city walls, in unhallowed ground.
Francesco de’ Pazzi and the rest had swiftly met justice; only Guglielmo de’ Pazzi had been spared, because of Bianca de’ Medici’s desperate pleading with her brother Lorenzo.
Of the true conspirators, Baroncelli alone had escaped – by hiding in the Duomo’s campanile, its air still aquiver from the ringing of the bell. When his way was clear, he had fled on horseback – without a word to his family – due east, to Senigallia on the coast. From there, he had sailed to exotic Constantinople. King Ferrante and Baroncelli’s Neapolitan relatives had sent funds enough to sustain a dissolute life. Baroncelli made mistresses of the slave girls he had purchased, immersing himself in pleasure and trying to submerge all memory of the murders he had committed.
Yet his dreams were haunted by the image of Giuliano, frozen at the instant he had glanced up at the shining blade. The young man’s dark curls were tousled, his innocent eyes wide, his expression unselfconscious and slightly dazed by the sudden appearance of Death.
Baroncelli had had more than a year to contemplate the question: Would removing the Medici and replacing them with Iacopo and Francesco de’ Pazzi have bettered the city? Lorenzo was level-headed, cautious; Francesco hot-tempered, swift to act. He would quickly have descended to the level of a tyrant. Lorenzo was wise enough to nurture the people’s love, as evidenced by the size of the crowd now gathered in the plaza; Francesco would have been too arrogant to care.
Lorenzo was, most of all, persistent. In the end, even Constantinople was not beyond his reach. Once his agents had located Baroncelli, Lorenzo had sent an emissary laden with gold and jewels to the Sultan. Thus was Baroncelli’s fate sealed.
All criminals were hanged outside the city gates, then hastily stuffed into unhallowed ground. Baroncelli would be buried in a hole with them – but given the gravity of his misdeed, his execution was to take place in Florence’s most public arena.
Now, as the little cart rattled past the crowd towards the scaffolding, Baroncelli let go a loud groan. Fear gripped him with an anguish far worse than any physical pain; he felt unbearably cold, searingly hot, felt a dizzying sense of sinking. He thought he would faint, yet unconsciousness, cruelly, would not come.
‘Courage, Signore,’ the nero said. ‘God rides with you.’
His nero, his Comforter, walked alongside the cart. He was a Florentine citizen named Lauro, and a member of the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Croce, also known as the Compagnia de’ Neri – the Company of the Black Ones – because its members all wore long black robes and hoods. The Company’s purpose was to give comfort and mercy to all those in need – including those anguished souls condemned to die.
Lauro had remained with him from the moment he had arrived in Florence. He had seen to it that Baroncelli received fair treatment, was allowed proper clothing and food, that he was permitted to send letters to loved ones (Giovanna never responded to his plea to see her). Lauro had listened kindly to Baroncelli’s tearful admissions of regret, and remained in the cell to pray for him. The Comforter had beseeched the Virgin, Christ, God and Saint John, patron of Florence, to give Baroncelli comfort, to grant him forgiveness, to allow his soul into Purgatory and thence to Heaven.
Baroncelli did not join him in prayer; God, he felt, would take it as a personal affront.
Now, the black-hooded Comforter walked beside him, speaking loudly – a psalm, a hymn, or prayer, all floating on the air as white vapour – but given the noise made by the crowd, Baroncelli could not make out the words. A single phrase thrummed in his ears and pulsed to the beating of his heart.
Palle Palle Palle
The cart rolled to a stop in front of the steps leading up to the gallows. The Comforter slid an arm under Baroncelli’s bound one and helped him awkwardly onto the cold flagstone. The weight of terror dropped the shivering Baroncelli to his knees; the Comforter knelt beside him and whispered in his ear.
‘Do not be afraid. Your soul will ascend directly to Heaven. Of all men, you need no forgiveness; what you did was God’s own work, and no crime. There are many of us who call you hero, brother. You have taken the first step in purging Florence from great evil.’
Baroncelli’s voice shook so he could scarce understand his own words. ‘From Lorenzo?’
‘From debauchery. From paganism. From the pursuit of profane art.’
Teeth chattering, Baroncelli glared at him. ‘If you – if others – believe this, then why have you not rescued me before now? Save me!’
‘We dare not make ourselves known. There is much to be done before Florence, before Italy, before the world is ready for us.’
‘You are mad,’ Baroncelli breathed.
The Comforter smiled. ‘We are fools for God.’
He helped Baroncelli to his feet; enraged, Baroncelli pulled away from him, and staggered up the wooden steps alone.
On the scaffold, the executioner, a slender man whose face was hidden beneath a mask, stood between Baroncelli and the waiting noose. ‘Before God,’ the executioner said to Baroncelli, ‘I beg your forgiveness for the act I am sworn to commit.’
The inside of Baroncelli’s lips and cheeks cleaved to his teeth; his tongue was so dry, it left behind a layer of skin as he articulated the words. Yet his tone sounded astonishingly calm. ‘I forgive you.’
The executioner released a small sound of relief; perhaps there had been other doomed men more eager to let their blood stain his hands. He caught Baroncelli’s elbow and guided him to a particular spot on the platform, near the noose. ‘Here.’ His voice was oddly gentle. And he produced from within his cloak a white linen scarf.
In the instant before he was blindfolded, Baroncelli scanned the crowd. Near the front was Giovanna, with the children. She was too distant for Baroncelli to be sure, but it seemed to him that she had been weeping.
Lorenzo de’ Medici was nowhere to be seen – but Baroncelli had no doubt that he was watching. Watching from a hidden balcony, or a window; perhaps from inside the Palazzo della Signoria itself.
Below, at the foot of the scaffolding, stood the Comforter, his expression serene and oddly satisfied. In an instant of epiphany, Baroncelli realized that he, Francesco de’ Pazzi, Messer Iacopo, Archbishop Salviati – all of them had been fools, their small ambitions used to serve part of a larger scheme, one that filled him with almost as much dread as the prospect of his imminent death.
The executioner tied the scarf over Baroncelli’s eyes, then guided the noose over his chin and tightened it around his neck.
In the instant before the platform beneath him dropped, Baroncelli whispered two words, directed at himself.
‘Here, traitor.’
X
The instant that Baroncelli’s body ceased its twitching, a young artist near the front of the crowd set to work. The corpse would hang in the piazza for days, until its decomposition caused it to drop from the rope. But the artist could not wait; he wanted to capture the image while it still possessed an echo of life. Besides, young hooligans, giovani, would soon amuse themselves by casting stones at it, and the imminent rain would soon cause it to bloat.
He sketched on paper pressed against a board of poplar, to give him a firm surface to work against. He had cut back the plume from his quill pen, for he used it so continually that any barbs there irritated his long fingers; he had carved the nib himself to a fine, sharp point, and he dipped it regularly, mindlessly, into a vial of brown iron gall ink securely fastened to his belt. Since one could not properly draw constrained by gloves, his bare hands ached from the cold, but he dismissed the observation as unworthy of his time. In the same manner, he dismissed the sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him – for the sight of Baroncelli evoked profoundly painful memories – and focused instead on the subject before him.
Despite all attempts to mask their true feelings, all men and women nonetheless revealed them through subtle signs in expression, posture, and voice. Baroncelli’s regret was blatant. Even in death, his eyes were downcast, as if contemplating Hell. His head was bowed, and the corners of his thin lips were pulled downward by guilt. Here was a man overwhelmed by self-loathing.
The artist struggled not to yield to his hatred, though he had very personal reasons for despising Baroncelli. But hate was against his principles, so – like his aching fingers and heart – he ignored it and continued with his work. He also found killing unethical – even the execution of a murderer such as Baroncelli.
As was his habit, he jotted notes on the page to remind himself of the colours and textures involved, for there was an excellent chance the sketch might become a painting. He wrote from right to left, the letters a mirror image of conventional script. Years before, when he had been a student in Andrea Verrochio’s workshop, other artists had accused him of unwarranted secrecy, for when he showed them his sketches, they could make no sense of his notes. But, he wrote as he did because it came most naturally to him; the privacy it conferred was a coincidental benefit.
Small tan cap. The quill scratched against the paper. Black serge jerkin, lined woollen singlet, blue cloak lined with fox fur, velvet collar stippled red and black, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, black leggings. Baroncelli had kicked off his slippers during his death throes; he was shown with bare feet.
The artist frowned at Baroncelli’s patronymic. He was self-taught, still struggling to overcome his rustic Vinci dialect, and spelling bedevilled him. No matter. Lorenzo de’ Medici, il Magnifico, was interested in the image, not the words.
He did a quick, small rendering at the bottom of the page, showing Baroncelli’s head at an angle that revealed more of the gloom-stricken features. Satisfied with his work, he then set to his real task of scanning the faces in the crowd. Those near the front – the nobility and more prosperous merchants – were just beginning to leave, hushed and sombre. The populo minuto – the ‘little people’, remained behind to entertain themselves by hurling epithets and rocks at the corpse.
The artist carefully watched as many men as possible as they left the piazza. There were two reasons for this: The ostensible one was that he was a student of faces. Those who knew of him were used to his intent stares.
The darker reason was the result of an encounter between himself and Lorenzo de’ Medici. He was looking for a particular face: one he had seen twenty months earlier, but for only the briefest of instants. Even with his talent for recalling physiognomies, his memory was clouded – yet his heart was equally determined to succeed. This time, he was determined not to let emotion get the better of him.
‘Leonardo!’
The sound of his own name startled the artist; he jerked involuntarily and out of reflex, capped the vial of ink, lest it spill.
An old friend from Verrochio’s workshop had been on his way out of the piazza, and now moved towards him.
‘Sandro,’ Leonardo said, when his friend at last stood before him. ‘You look like a lord prior.’
Sandro Botticelli grinned. At thirty-five, he was several years Leonardo’s senior, in the prime of his life and career. He was indeed dressed grandly, in a scarlet fur-trimmed cloak; a black velvet cap covered most of his golden hair, cut chinlength, shorter than the current fashion. Like Leonardo, he was clean-shaven. His green eyes were heavy-lidded, filled with the insolence that had always marked his manner. Even so, Leonardo liked him; he was possessed of great talent and a good heart. Over the past year, Sandro had received several fat commissions from the Medici and Tornabuoni, including the massive painting Primavera, soon to be a wedding gift from Lorenzo to his cousin.
Sandro eyed Leonardo’s sketch with sly humour. ‘So. Trying to steal my job, I see.’
He was referring to the recently painted mural on a façade near the Palazzo della Signoria, partially visible behind the scaffolding now that the crowd was beginning to thin. He had received a commission from Lorenzo in those terrible days following Giuliano’s death: to depict each of the executed Pazzi conspirators as they dangled from the rope. The life-sized images duly inspired the terror they were meant to provoke. There was Francesco de’ Pazzi, entirely naked, his wounded thigh encrusted with blood; there, too, was Salviati in his archbishop’s robes. The two dead men were shown facing the viewer – effective, though not an accurate depiction. Like Botticelli, Leonardo had been in the Piazza della Signoria at the moment Francesco – dragged from his bed – had been pushed from the uppermost arched window of the Palazzo, hung from the building itself for all to see. A moment later, Salviati had followed and, at the instant of his death, had turned toward his fellow conspirator and – whether in a violent, involuntary spasm, or in a final moment of rage – had sunk his teeth deep into Francesco de’ Pazzi’s shoulder. It was a bizarre image, one so troubling that even Leonardo, overwhelmed by emotion, failed to record it in his notebook. Paintings of other executed men, including Messer Iacopo, were partially completed, but one murderer had been altogether missing: Baroncelli. Botticelli had probably taken notes himself this morning, intending to finish the mural. But at the sight of Leonardo’s sketch, he shrugged.
‘No matter,’ he said breezily. ‘Being rich enough to dress like a lord prior, I can certainly let a pauper like yourself finish up the task. I have far greater things to accomplish.’
Leonardo, dressed in a knee-length artisan’s tunic of cheap used linen, and a dull grey wool mantle, slipped his sketch under one arm and bowed, low and sweeping, in an exaggerated show of gratitude.
‘You are too kind, my lord.’ He rose. ‘Now go. You are a hired hack, and I am a true artist, with much to accomplish before the rains come.’
He and Sandro parted with smiles and a brief embrace, and Leonardo returned at once to studying the crowd. He was always happy to see Sandro, but the interruption annoyed him. Too much was at stake; he reached absently into the pouch on his belt, and fingered a gold medallion the size of a large florin. On the front, in bas relief, was the title ‘Public Mourning’. Beneath, Baroncelli raised his long knife above his head while Giuliano looked up at the blade with surprise. Behind Baroncelli stood Francesco de’ Pazzi, his dagger at the ready. Leonardo had provided the sketch, rendering the scene with as much accuracy as possible, although for the viewer’s sake, Giuliano was depicted as facing Baroncelli. Verrochio had made the cast from Leonardo’s drawing.