Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

Thinking that he had spoken too seriously, he began to tell a succession of anecdotes about his latest wild boar hunt. Before returning abruptly to the charge:

‘You should say what you think to the Pope. Why don’t you come back to Rome with me?’

I had in fact intended to put an end to my seemingly endless enforced stay in Bologna. I hastened to accept his offer, telling myself that a journey at Giovanni’s side would be extremely pleasant, and without danger, since no brigand would dare to approach such a procession. And so, the very next day, I found myself on the road again with Maddalena and Giuseppe, surrounded by the fearsome warriors of the Black Bands, who became, on this occasion, the most attentive of companions.

After three days’ march, we arrived at Giovanni’s residence, a magnificent castle called Il Trebbio, where we spent a night. Early the next morning we reached Florence.

‘You must be the only Medici who does not know this city!’ exclaimed the condottiere.

‘On the way to Pavia with Guicciardini we almost stopped here, but we had no time.’

‘He must be a real barbarian, that “time” which prevents you seeing Florence!’

And he added immediately:

‘Time presses on this occasion too, but I would not forgive myself if I did not show you around.’

I had never before visited a city with an army as a guide. All along the Via Larga to the Palazzo Medici, where we burst into the colonnaded courtyard, it was a regular morning parade. A servant came to invite us in, but Giovanni refused curtly.

‘Is Master Alessandro there?’

‘I think he is asleep.’

‘And Master Ippolito?’

‘He is asleep too. Should I wake them up?’

Giovanni shrugged his shoulders disdainfully and turned back. Leaving the courtyard he went several paces to the right to show me a building under construction:

‘The church of San Lorenzo. This is where Michelangelo Buonarotti works now, but I don’t dare to take you there because he could easily show us the door. He has little love for the Medici and besides he has an unpleasant character. Indeed, that was why he came back to Florence. Most of our great artists live in Rome. But Leo X, who gathered so many talented people around him, preferred to send Michelangelo away and give him a commission here.’

He resumed the tour in the direction of the Duomo. On both sides of the road the houses seemed to be well laid out and tastefully embellished, but there were very few as luxurious as those in Rome.

The Eternal City is full of works of art,’ my guide acknowledged, ‘but Florence is itself a work of art, and it is to the Florentines that we owe the best in all disciplines.’

I thought I was listening to a Fassi talking!

When we reached the Piazza della Signoria, and when a notable of a certain age, dressed in a long robe, came up to Giovanni to exchange a few words with him, a group of people began to chant ‘Palle! Palle!’ , the rallying cry of the Medici, to which my companion replied with a salute, saying to me:

‘Don’t think that all the members of my family would be acclaimed in this fashion. I am the only one who still enjoys some favour with the Florentines. If, for instance, my cousin Julius, I should say Pope Clement, were to decide to come here today, he would be booed and jostled. Moreover, he knows it very well.’

‘But isn’t it your native city?’

‘Ah, my friend, Florence is a strange mistress for the Medici! When we are far off, she calls us with loud cries; when we come back, she curses us.’

‘What does she want today?’

He had a worried air. He stopped his horse in the middle of the street, at the very entrance to the Ponte Vecchio, on which the crowd had parted to let him pass through, and from which some cheers were coming.

‘Florence wants to be governed by a prince, on condition that it should be governed as a republic. Every time that our ancestors forgot this, they had cause to regret it bitterly. Today the Medici are represented in the city of their birth by that presumptuous young Alessandro. He is barely fifteen, and he thinks that because he is a Medici and the son of the Pope, Florence belongs to him, women and goods.’

‘Son of the Pope?’

My surprise was genuine. Giovanni burst out laughing.

‘Don’t tell me that you have lived seven years in Rome without knowing that Alessandro was Clement’s bastard?’

I confessed my ignorance. He was delighted to enlighten me:

‘At a time when he was still neither Pope nor cardinal, my cousin knew a Moorish slavegirl in Naples, who bore him this son.’

We were going back up towards the Palazzo Pitti. Soon, we crossed the Porta Romana, where Giovanni was cheered once more. But, sunk in his thoughts, he did not reply to the crowd. I hastened to do so in his place, which amused my son Giuseppe so much that all along the road he constantly begged me to make the same gestures, bursting out with laughter each time.

The very day of our arrival in Rome, Giovanni of the Black Bands insisted that we should go to the Pope together. We found him in conclave with Guicciardini, who did not seem at all pleased at our arrival. He had probably just convinced the Holy Father to take some painful decision and feared that Giovanni might make him change his mind. To conceal his anxiety, and to sound out our intentions, he adopted, as was his wont, a jocular tone:

‘So there can be no more meetings between Florentines unless a Moor is among us!’

The Pope gave an embarrassed smile. Giovanni did not even smile. For my part I replied in the same tone, with a gesture of marked irritation:

‘There can be no meeting between Medici unless the people join with us!’

This time Giovanni’s laugh cracked like a whip, and his hand came down on my back in a formidable friendly hug. Laughing in his turn, Guicciardini quickly passed on to the events of the moment:

‘We have just received a message of the utmost importance. King François will leave Spain before Ash Wednesday.’

A discussion ensued in which Giovanni and I put forward, with due diffidence, arguments in favour of coming to terms with Charles V. But in vain. The Pope was entirely under the influence of Guicciardini, who had persuaded him to stand up to ‘Caesar’ and to be the soul of the anti-imperial coalition.

On 22 May 1526 a ‘Holy League’ came into existence in the French town of Cognac. As well as François and the Pope, it included the Duke of Milan and the Venetians. It was war, one of the most terrible that Rome would ever know. Because, though he had temporized after Pavia, this time the emperor was determined to push matters to their conclusion against François, whom he had released in exchange for a written agreement which was quickly declared null and void as soon as the latter had crossed the Pyrenees, and against the Pope, ally of ‘the perjurer’. The imperial armies began to regroup in Italy, beside Milan, Trent and Naples. Against them, Clement could count only on the bravura of the Black Bands and their commanders. Judging that the principal danger would come from the north, the latter left for Mantua, determined to prevent the enemy from crossing the Po.

Alas! Charles V also had his allies, even within the papal state, a clan which was called ‘Ia imperialista’, headed by the powerful Cardinal Pompeo Colonna. In September, taking advantage of the fact that the Black Bands were far away, the cardinal burst into the quarters of Borgo and Trastevere at the head of a band of pillagers who set fire to several houses and proclaimed in public that they were going to ‘deliver Rome from the tyranny of the Pope’. Clement VII hurriedly took refuge in Castel San Angelo, where he barricaded himself in while Colonna’s men were sacking the palace of St Peter. I thought of taking Maddalena and Giuseppe to the castle, but I gave up the idea, considering that it would be most unwise to cross the Ponte San Angelo in the circumstances. I went to earth in my own house, letting matters take their own course in those difficult times.