Jeanne Kalogridis: The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

And she was scowling that morning. When she caught sight of me, I ducked my head and dropped my gaze, for there was no winning with Aunt Clarice.

At the age of eight, I was an inconvenient child. My mother had died nine days after I was born, followed six days later by my father. Happily, my mother left me enormous wealth, my father, the title of Duchess and the right to rule Florence.

Those things prompted Aunt Clarice to bring me to the Palazzo Medici to groom me for my destiny, but she made it clear that I was a burden. In addition to her own sons, she was obliged to raise two other Medici orphans-my half brother Alessandro and my cousin Ippolito, the bastard of my great-uncle Giuliano de’ Medici.

As Clarice stepped alongside me on the landing, a voice drifted up from the downstairs entry: Cardinal Passerini, acting regent of Florence, was speaking to a servant. Though I could not make out his words, the timbre of his voice conveyed their message clearly: disaster. The safe and comfortable life I had shared with my cousins in our ancestors’ house was about to disappear.

As Clarice listened, fear rippled over her features, only to be replaced by her customary hardness. She narrowed her eyes at me, searching to see if I had detected her instant of weakness, threatening me in case I had.

“Straight down to the kitchen with you. No stopping, no speaking to anyone,” she ordered.

I obeyed and headed downstairs, but soon realized I was too nervous to eat. I wandered instead toward the great hall, where Aunt Clarice and Cardinal Passerini were engaged in strenuous conversation. His Eminence’s voice was muffled, but I caught an impassioned word or two uttered by Aunt Clarice:

You fool.

What did Clement expect, the idiot?

Their conversation centered on the Pope-born Giulio de’ Medici-whose influence helped keep our family in power. Even as a child, I understood enough of politics to know that my distant cousin Pope Clement was at odds with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, whose troops had invaded Italy; Rome was in especial danger.

Abruptly, the door swung open, and Passerini’s head appeared as he called for Leda, Aunt Clarice’s slave. The cardinal was grey-faced, his breath coming hard, the corners of his mouth pulled down by agitation. He waited in the doorway with an air of desolate urgency until Leda appeared, at which point he ordered her to bring Uncle Filippo, Ippolito, and Alessandro.

Within moments, Ippolito and Sandro were ushered inside. Clarice must have come to stand near the doorway, for I could hear her say, quite clearly, to someone waiting in the hall:

We need men, as many as will fight. Until we know their number, we must tread carefully. Assemble as many as you can by nightfall, then come to me. A strange hesitancy crept into her tone. And send Agostino to fetch the astrologer’s son- now.

I heard my uncle Filippo’s low assent and departure, then the door closed again. I remained a few minutes, trying vainly to interpret the sounds emanating from the chamber; defeated, I wandered toward the staircase leading to the children’s rooms.

Six-year-old Roberto, Clarice’s youngest, came running in my direction, wailing and wringing his hands. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut; I barely caught him in time to stop him from knocking me down.

I was small, but Roberto was smaller still. He smelled of heat and slightly sour sweat; his cheeks were flushed and tear-streaked, and his girlishly long hair clung to his damp neck.

At that instant the boys’ nursemaid appeared behind him. Ginevra was a simple, uneducated woman, dressed in worn cotton skirts covered by a white apron, her hair always wrapped in a scarf. On that morning, however, Ginevra’s scarf and nerves were undone; a lock of golden hair had fallen across her face.

Roberto stamped his foot at me and emitted a scream. “Let me go !” He struck out with little fists, but I averted my face and held him fast.

“What is it? Why is he frightened?” I called to Ginevra as she neared.

“They’re coming after us!” Robert howled, spewing tears and spittle. “They’re coming to hurt us!”

Ginevra, dull with fright, answered, “There are men at the gate.”

“What sort of men?” I asked.

When Ginevra would not answer, I ran upstairs to the chambermaids’ quarters, which overlooked the stables and the gate that opened onto the busy Via Larga. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped onto it, and flung open the shutters.

The stables stood west of the house; to the north lay the massive iron gate that kept out trespassers. It was closed and bolted; just inside it stood three of our armed guards.

On the other side of its spiked bars, the street hosted lively traffic: a flock of Dominican monks on foot from nearby San Marco, a cardinal in his gilded carriage, merchants on horseback. And Roberto’s men-perhaps twenty in those early hours, before Passerini’s news had permeated Florence. Some stood along the edges of the Via Larga, others in front of the iron gate near the stables. They gazed on our house with hawkeyed intensity, waiting for prey to emerge.

One of them shouted exuberantly at the passing crowd. “Did you hear? The Pope has fallen! Rome lies in the Emperor’s hands!”

At the palazzo’s front entrance, a banner bore the Medici coat of arms so proudly displayed throughout the city: six red balls, six palle, arranged in rows upon a golden shield. Palle, palle! was our rallying cry, the words on our supporters’ lips as they raised their swords in our defense.

As I watched, a wool dyer, his hands and tattered tunic stained dark blue, climbed onto his fellow’s shoulders and pulled down the banner to shouts of approval. A third man touched a torch to the banner and set it ablaze. Passersby slowed and gawked.

“Abaso le palle!” the wool dyer cried, and those surrounding him picked up the chant. “Down with the balls! Death to the Medici!”

In the midst of the tumult, the iron gates opened a crack, and Agostino-Aunt Clarice’s errand boy-slipped out unobserved. But as the gate clanged shut behind him, a few of the men hurled pebbles at him. He shielded his head and dashed away, disappearing into the traffic.

I leaned farther out of the open window. Behind the thin streams of smoke rising from the burning banner, the wool dyer spied me; his face lit up with hatred. Had he been able to reach up into the window, he would have seized me-an eight-year-old girl, an innocent-and dashed my brains against the pavement.

“Abaso le palle!” he roared. At me.

I withdrew. I could not run to Clarice for comfort-she would not have provided it even had she been available. I wanted my cousin Piero; nothing cowed him, not even his formidable mother… and he was the one person I trusted. Since he was not in the boys’ classroom receiving his lessons, I hurried to the library.

As I suspected, Piero was there. Like me, he was an insatiable student, often demanding more of his tutors than they knew, with the result that we frequently encountered each other huddled behind book. Unlike me, he was, at a rather immature sixteen, still cherub-cheeked, with close-cropped ringlets and a sweet, ingenuous temperament. I trusted him more than anyone, and adored him as a brother.

Piero sat cross-legged on the floor, squinting down at the heavy tome open in his lap, utterly captivated and utterly calm. He glanced up at me, and just as quickly returned to his reading.

“I told you this morning about Passerini coming,” I said. “The news is very bad. Pope Clement has fallen.”

Piero sighed calmly and told me the story of Clement’s predicament, which he had learned from the cook. In Rome, a secret passageway leads from the Vatican to the fortress known as the Castel Sant’Angelo. Emperor Charles’s mutinous soldiers had joined with anti-Medici fighters and attacked the Papal Palace. Caught unawares, Pope Clement had run for his life-robes flapping like the wings of a startled dove-across the passage to the fortress. There he remained, trapped in his stronghold by jeering troops.