Attachment #2
My dearest son Jacopo,
It is my great wish that this letter will find you in the best of health. I, on the other hand, will be quite safely dead. Parte per te stesso – a party of one as Dante said. Your solemn promise that you will translate the Ammianus into Tuscan for me will lead you here to this book within a book and this letter in that book. Despite all that I said to you on the various subjects contained in here, believe me then that what you are now reading is the very truth which I could not speak during my life. For I would have risked all by speaking: family, friends – the few that remain – and myself. Even a very old man can fear torture and death. Believe that I love, prize and honor you and believe what I say here!
You, my son, will only remember Cosimo as an old man; but then, of course, that is how you will always remember me since I was nine years older than him and I was already old, old when you were born. But he and I were young men when first we met – I was a thirty-five year old secretary to the Pope and he was the Pope’s twenty-six year old banker, friend and sycophant. Strangely enough he and I did not meet in Rome or even in Florence, although we were aware of each other. We met at St. Constance in the great mountains where our master had taken us to support and aid him. And there, in the mountains, I encountered this amazing man – Accidenti! – in my own room, I think, to steal some of my precious books. But I rush ahead ofbvmyself. Let me tell you all that led to that meeting.
You have heard, often enough, how I came to Florence from Terranuova with only five soldi in my pocket and bruises on my back. I was fleeing my father’s creditors. He was a great hulking and gouty man, darkly complected. He was the only clerk in Terranuova but he drank all his profits and then his debts and between his surly silences and raucous beatings I was well out of it. But I had absorbed some sense of the business (or it was beaten into me) and my handwriting was already well-shaped and rapid so that when I came to Florence I was able two enter a two year study in a notarial course at the Studio Fiorentino. I was even lucky enough to study under Giovanni Malpaghino, whom you would have heard of as John of Ravenna. I supported myself as best I could by making copies of letters and other documents for which I was given the use of a corner of a notary’s table. It was a precarious existence but I managed it for about a year and a half and then everything began to change for the better.
I was working at my tiny piece of desk on a morning so cold that I had begged a candle to warm my numb fingers at. I was working at making a copy of a single page of the Epistle Familiares by Cicero that I had found discarded in the corner of the shop and it was hard going, believe me, since at that time my Latin was still on the rough side and the age and the state of the original document was such that it obscured many passages. Yet neither the cold nor the difficulty could prevent my pleasure in the work, for I was waking the dead, bringing once again to life the voice of the brilliant philosopher from the ancient world. So engaged in the work was I that I did not notice that two men had entered the scriptorium and that there was a quarrel growing between them, until the raised voice of my then teacher, Father Giancarlo, hit me like a thunderclap.
“We have NOT stolen a piece of Cicero, Calluccio! It must simply be that the page was missing from the beginning!”
“I am no dotard, Father Gian. I discovered that book myself and have read it many, many times and there were no missing pages!”
I turned and saw that Father Giancarlo was arguing with an elderly man of about sixty years, leaning on a stick in the classic image of a man with the gout. He was red about the face and looked vaguely familiar to me, like someone I had seen in the city, but couldn’t place. Their voices were rising with recriminations that were rapidly becoming far ruder than I thought should emerge from the mouth of a priest (I was young). I stood and attempted to gain their attention by waving my work in the air – I doubted that any volume I could have achieved would have been heard over their volume. I became somewhat desperate for I felt that we were rapidly approaching a homicidal moment when I realized that I had been seen and suddenly there I was, jumping about like a madman, waving Marcus Tullius Cicero with two aged gentlemen gravely staring in my direction, one of whom was revealed to me, in a sudden moment of embarrassed insight, as Callucio Salutati, the long time Chancellor of my adopted city. And for a brief moment I wished that I could have been anywhere but here – even in Terranuova under my father’s savage tutoring. Embarrassment is the torment of youth.
When I had subsided back onto my stool the two gentlemen approached, carefully in case I was mad or rabid. I had no words of explanation available so I meekly waved the page of Cicero and prepared for the inevitable punishment.
“So, young man, you have retrieved the missing page. Where did you find it? By the way this is Chancellor Salutati, the owner of the document that you are crushing in your left hand.”
Quickly I turned and presented the paper to Salutati, who took it from me with a wry smile.
“I found it under the corner of the refectory table and I thought I’d practice by copying it,” my feeble excuse amused everyone but me. “Well,” said Salutati, “the manuscript was horribly bound and I did have it with me here yesterday.” The Chancellor laid Cicero on the table and held out his hand. “May I see?” Wordlessly I passed my half-finished copy to him. He glanced at it and then studied it with intently.
“Hmm, are you interested in the writings of the ancient philosophers? Boy?”
“Very much, sir.”
“That’s very commendable. Perhaps in the future you will locate your own originals, then.” He gave me a quick, sly look under his eyelashes. He placed my copy carefully on the table. “A very precise hand.” He turned and limped from the room, followed by Father Giancarlo, who cast a meaningful scowl at me that meant no future good. You can imagine, I trust, my astonishment a few days later when a messenger arrived to inform me that I was summoned to the Chancellor’s presence in the Pallazzo dela Signoria. My mouth must have been as round as an O by Giotto. I was so astonished and frightened that I knocked over several people in my rush to get there.
The Chancellor’s room was much as itis today now that I occupy it, but Salutati had filled large parts of it with tables covered with documents and books. The disorder was palpable but there was no dust on anything. The room was an ongoing project. At one table stood an elegantly dressed man of about forty, writing notes and constantly shifting from document to document and table to table. He ignored my presence completely but Salutati came quickly over to greet me, drawing me by the arm to a short wooden stool beside what I assumed was his desk. He sat me down, poured us both a glass of red and sat down himself. Then he began a conversation that was to change my life forever. He had, he said, many important friends among the secretaries and the letter writers for the Holy See in Rome and they were always looking for new recruits with a good hand. Mine, he said, was the finest he had ever seen and would no doubt improve even more with practice. He had thought, at first, of making me his secretary, but then he reconsidered because, as he said with heavy inference. “I could be more useful to him in Rome” and his present secretary was capable enough. At this precise moment, as I recall, the other gentleman in the room, who I had taken to be a visiting merchant, sniffed loudly. Salutati ignored him and pressed on. As Chancellor, he said, he had need of not only a good hand but also a good pair of ears. If after I completed my studies, he could place me as, say, a letter writer for an important Bishop or Cardinal would I be prepared take the job? I said that, of course, I would be delighted. And would I, he continued, be prepared to serve the Republic of Florence by keeping him informed as to any matters that might directly or indirectly affect that Republic, not as a spy, of course, but simply as a friend doing his patriotic duty as a friend. I was deeply flattered at being thought of as a friend to either Salutati or Florence, although I clearly understood what was being implied and even settled there. I cast it from my mind in a warm glow of appreciation at my future prospects and nodded at him.
The rest of the conversation consisted in general talk concerning the best places to lodge in Rome and as I was making my farewells Salutati casually introduced me to the man who had sniffed.“This,” he said “is Niccolo Niccoli. Formerly in the wool trade, he is my gateway to the greatness of the past; he is my book finder. He is often back and forth to Rome these days, searching in monastery libraries for hidden andl ost treasures. You can send any messages to me through him. I don’t trust written notes, they can so easily fall into the wrong hands. But you can trust Nicci, I pay him very well and he spends it all (and much more) on books so that he’s always in my debt. Just don’t lend him a book, he never returns them.” I laughed and said that, at the present, I had not the means to own any books and that I would have to rely on making my own copies. Salutati chuckled and said, “then don’t lend him any of the copies, or rather, make a copy for him and he will be your friend for life.” And you know my son, I did and he was, even though he never returned a book he borrowed. When he died he owned eight hundred volumes, the largest collection in Florence, and Cosimo got it all.
I had grown up with a healthy cynicism concerning gentlemen of high position and their promises so I waited before making any preparations to leave for Rome. Salutati was well known for his public hyperbole saying, for instance, that he had proof that Florence had been founded by Sulla and the Senate (rather than by Cataline or an Emperor) and was constantly referring to Florentines as “The New Romans.” Still, it was on the day that I finished my studies at the Studio that I received a purse of Florins and an address in Rome. I was off to the nest of lies, the papal curia.
I will not trouble you here with an account of all the corruption, vice, simony, depravity, luxury, greed, sloth and lust that I encountered in Rome. You have heard enough of it from me and all your brothers are in holy orders so you will hear more from them. Suffice it to say that after several months in the Holy City there was nothing that would shock me.
I started out as a secretary for the Bishop of Bari and at the same time I studied under Manuel Crysolarus in order to learn Greek. Accidenti! What a magnificent teacher he was. I labored exactingly to please the Bishop and in the next year I was promoted to become an apostolic letter writer for Pope Boniface IX, but he was a much-weakened man and was dead within a few weeks. I continued in the same position for Innocent VII who was Holy Father for the next two years.
You must understand, my dear son, that this was the time of the great schism in the Mother Church. Pope Gregory XI, at the urging of Saint Catherine of Siena, had returned the Papal Court to Rome from its captivity in Avignon in 1377 (forgive all these dates, but I am, after all, an historian). He had hoped for peace and unity but all had not gone as he wished. He died within a year. Now, the people of Rome and of the Papal States are wild and intractable. They rioted in Rome and Cesena and Faenza in order to force the Cardinals to choose an Italian Pope. The Papal Legate, later to be Pope himself, rode upon them with his troops, ordering the deaths of all including women and children. He himself waded in the blood like one insane, shouting, “I want blood! Blood! Blood! Kill them all!” It was not a good beginning.
Despite the savagery of the Legate and his troops, the mob controlled Rome and the Cardinals knew that they had to choose an Italian as Pope or face their own deaths. Being the brave and holy men that they were, they hastily (too hastily )chose an Italian: Urban VI. Urban became so arrogant with his election that most of the brave Cardinals who had elected him fled Rome and elected a new Pope, Clement VII; the same legate, Robert of Geneva, that had so enjoyed the mob’s blood. And so there were two Popes and continued to be two Popes. In Rome the vile Urban VI was succeeded by Boniface IX and then, as I have said, Innocent VII. While back in Avignon the anti-Pope Clement VII was succeeded by the Aragonese Benedict XIII – a man of iron will but little judgment. Each time that any Pope died, hopes were raised that the schism would come to an end and then dashed as a replacement was elected.
And then a most curious thing happened. When Innocent died in 1406, the Roman Curia (there being two sets of Cardinals now, Rome and Avignon) elected a Venetian named Angelo Corario, who was already eighty years old with a long-established reputation for humility, gentleness and pity, as Gregory XII. But once that tiara graced his brow – diamine! – he became a curious sort of monster. He insisted that he alone could conduct all the business of the Church and that all documents must be submitted to him for decision and signature. Those signatures and decisions were never forth-coming and the Church became paralyzed.
Now, if the truth be told, one of the reasons that he was elected was his advanced age; it being believed that he would only serve a year or two, he was a kind of compromise until someone else could be agreed upon. Yet he lived for eleven more years and did untold harm. By 1409 he had fallen out with many of his Cardinals and he began appointing new ones out of his sycophants and supporters and threatening the old ones. Nine of these old Cardinals, fearing for their lives, fled to Pisa and urged the Aragonese Pope Benedict to come from Avignon with his Cardinals, meet with them and together they would depose Gregory and end the schism. Benedict refused . . . and so, they elected a new Pope (the third!), Alexander V. While all of this was taking place, I had to make a momentous decision: either to remain in Rome and serve the eternally frustrating and increasingly dangerous Pope Gregory, or to flee to Pisa and an opaque future. In the end my decision was taken for me since all the Florentines in Rome went to Pisa and I simply went with them.
My son, it proved to be the correct decision as you will see, but beyond the doors that it opened for me, I enjoyed working for Alexander for the ten months that he survived. He was truly a great man and because he was fully supported by the Florentine faction, I had no further need to covertly supply the Chancellery in Florence with information. Spying is not in my nature and the only pleasure I got out of it was a deepening friendship with Nicci.
Then again, after Alexander’s passing, the Pisan Cardinals (I know not how else to call them) met in conclave and elected (many say, sold the election to) John XXIII. There is great debate about this man which I have had much difficulty resolving in my mind. His name was Baldassare Coscia from Naples and I have heard him accused of all things from the murder of hundreds to piracy ,blackmail, rape, sodomy and incest. My past master, Alexander V died while visiting Coscia and though I never saw any evidence of poisoning I do know from his own lips that the Holy Father felt to be more a prisoner than a guest. Coscia was a man of great wealth and was always eager to increase it. One of his scribes said that Coscia was the greatest manager of wealth that he had ever seen, but he also said that Coscia had hacked his way to the Papacy with an axe of gold. And, as I have always said, a rich man is either a scoundrel or the heir of a scoundrel.
It was he who began the vile practice of sending out private citizens to sell indulgences throughout the western kingdoms and it was he that made the house of Medici the bankers to the Church, partners to every papal transaction in the west, and set them on the path to unbelievable wealth and power. I know, as his scribe, that he often lied; but then so did they all (except Alexander, may he rest in peace) and I also know that Coscia was the only one of the schismatic Popes to resign the tiara (although under immense pressure) in order to enable the Church to become whole again. I also know that he promoted me from scribe to secretary just before the Council of Constance.
I have always wondered at the theological basis for selling indulgences. If the Pope has the power to free souls from Purgatory, why would he do it for money instead of out of mercy. I suppose I will come to an understanding of that when I come to an understanding of Purgatory.
For thirty years the world had witnessed and wondered at the schism of two, and then three, Vicars of Christ. As the saying went: “even one Pope would be too many!” Finally, since it was clear that the Holy Mother Church would never clean its own stables, the Emperor Sigismund decided to undertake the labour. It was he that summoned all the Churchmen to St. Constance within his alpine dominions and made them sit and stay until they had achieved an answer. It was the Emperor that that forced John XXIII to come to Constance and summon the Council (thus making it legal),although John went in great fear to what he called “the pit where they catch foxes.” But he did not go unequipped for he carried over a million ducats with which to sway the Council in his direction; ducats that he either raised in Bologna or borrowed from the Medici. So, at Christmas-tide in 1414, we all went to this great Council. I went as Pope John’s secretary, Cosimo went as his family’s emissary and, as he later told me, to see the great sight.
And a great sight it was, at first. John himself rode into town – his cart had over-turned crossing the Arlberg (a bad omen) and after that he chose to ride – clad all in green and white, his fingers almost invisible under the rings, and riding under a cloth-of-gold canopy. The Emperor Sigismund and the Empress Barbara were there to receive from John “the Golden Rose.” The town was filled with priests, monks, mendicants, Bishops, Cardinals from all parts of the earth. There were even black priests from Ethiopia whom no one could understand or speak to. There were choirboys, donkeys, soldiers, trumpets, banners, Jews, Greeks, tables of food, barrels of drink. They say that there were 30,000 horses in town and 80,000 visitors – many sleeping in the open air or in empty wine vats. Grooms got to sleep in the stables. Someone estimated over 1,200 prostitutes and they all got rich, I am sure, because women were so rare compared to the multitude of priests. One man was said to have sold his wife and received enough to purchase a house and a new wife. This was the gaudy outward show of the Council. Inside the debates were protracted and tedious and I had to sit through each interminable one, taking notes for my Pope. By the end of each day, I was exhausted and ready to scream and beg for mercy. For all the talk nothing was actually accomplished. There were still three Holy Fathers (one present, two absent) and they were as obstinate and intransigent as ever, determined to resist the Council.
At last, the Emperor, wearied by the endless and fruitless debate, forced the issue. In a sudden moment that caught all the Council by surprise, he commanded them to insist that my Pope, John XXIII, resign. John twisted this way and that – escaped in disguise and was brought back by the Emperor’s soldiers – the fox was caught. And so, he resigned and lost his Papal throne, and I lost my occupation, and the Medici lost their positions as papal bankers (but only briefly). And it was on that day that I first met Cosimo. Oh, I knew who he was and I had seen him many times, we always nodded politely to each other. But that day we met and spoke and it changed my life.
I had returned to my tiny cell at the Abbey to gather up the little that I owned there and return to Florence. Cardinal Zabarella had told me that he would strive to find me work there. He was a good man and when he died the next year I spoke his oration. When I entered the cell Cosimo was in there fingering the copy I had made of one of Marcus Tullius’ books. I swear to you I still remember the way that he looked when I came in. The light was hitting his face on one side giving him a sinister look – Cosimo always looked like a skinny old man, even when he was twenty-six – and he seemed to be poised to sweep my book under his cloak. Yet he made no reaction to my sudden entrance, only smiled, gave a slight bow and his name. I returned the courtesies and as I did so he casually placed the book back on the bed and said, “So now … what will you do? It seems we are all unemployed here.” I replied that I hadn’t decided yet but I would probably go to Florence and look for a new position. I was vague, you see, because it never profits to show both sleeves. He smiled again his thin, humorless smile and sat on my cot.
“I would be happy to employ you, friend, at whatever salary Baldassare was paying you.”
“You?”
“Of course, why not?”
“Because I know little of banking and what I do know does not incline me in that fashion. No offence meant.”
“None taken,” said Cosimo. “Since our house regularly communicates with most of the Princes of the West, your actual job as a secretary would not change substantially, just your employer. But that was not what I had in mind, for now. No, I was actually thinking of employing you as an intellectual ferret.”
“A what?”
“A finder of books. As you know, Nicci, has rather gone off it lately. He’s lazy, doesn’t like travel, and would rather sit in his closet and copy and read. But you, you have all the assets required. You write an extremely fair hand and with great speed and you enjoy copying.” He looked down at the Cicero on the bed as if chastising me for thinking ill of him. “You are fluent, as I understand, with Latin and Greek, acquainted with the literature of the past and you have great energy and curiosity. Most of all … you have a love of books like I do.” He sat back and looked at me quizzically. “Well?” he said.
At first, I was unsure how to respond. The prospect of being well paid to search for books that I wanted anyway was profoundly attractive. Less so was the idea of working for this self-confident creature sitting on my bed. Still, I could always quit the job if the job proved too onerous.
“I will consider your proposal.”
“Of course you will. I will give you a month at the Baths in Baden to take the waters and consider. Paid of course.” Cosimo smiled his dry, humorless smile. “Yes?”
I could do nothing but accept. Cosimo took out a small purse and handed it to me wordlessly. Then he left. On later counting I found that it contained exactly my salary at that time. This is how Cosimo gathered people in. It astonished me, that self-assurance of his. He always acted as if he was certain that the way he wanted things to go was the way that they would go, not just because he wanted them that way but because he felt that it was the only possible way that things could go. Even when things were most against him – when he faced death or exile – even then he behaved as if it was all part of a process that would lead to where he was certain that things should go. Curiously, it almost always did.
I pass quickly over my stay in Baden, except to say that it was salutary for my health, since I knew even before I arrived there that I was going to work for Cosimo, especially since I knew I would have the help and collaboration of my friend Nicci. I will mention, however, my utter astonishment and pleasure at the provocative way that the German ladies behaved in the baths. Although their baths were separate from those of the men, there was no effort to hide from our lascivious gaze. Indeed, they bathed naked to everyone’s view and laughed at and taunted the men who watched and who responded in kind. So astonished was I at this delightful display that I was moved to ask another bystander what exactly were these baths intended to cure: the low birth rate?
I will also pass over the long list of finds that I made in the next few years since the record of that stands on the shelves in my library. My work was only in a few ways difficult. I had only, in most cases, to visit a monastery, gain the god will of the Abbott and search the collection. The idea was not to steal the books that I found but either to copy it there in the scriptorium or, if it was a short volume, to obtain permission to borrow it, copy and return it. Indeed, the monks were for the most part, happy to lend the books since, such was their ignorance, they really had no idea what they had in their possession. For a number of years I searched all the area of the lower Germanies and into the northern part of the Alps. Once I went as far as Paris in search of a particular book.
I have said that my work was in few ways difficult and it is a truth. But there were aspects of the search that weighed very heavily on me. One was the nature of many of the monks that I had to deal with, particularly those assigned to care for the libraries. It would be difficult for me to describe their mental torpidity and the pestiferous way they treated their poor charges, no, prisoners! The very worst case was at the richest and most envied monastery of them all: St. Gall. And this where I come close to the part of my story that reveals a great mystery that I have never told you or anyone else before.
My first visit to St. Gall was in 1416 and I have written about it to Nicci and others many times. It was only 20 miles or so from St. Constance and I had returned there for the trial and sentencing of Jerome of Prague. I have even described in private my loathing of the depravity and hypocrisy of many members of the priesthood, but I will tell you now that the most truly devout and holy man I have ever seen was this Jerome of Prague – and he a heretic! As the executioner was about to light the fire behind him so that Jerome would not be frightened by the sight, Jerome exclaimed: “Light it in front of me, for if I had been afraid, I could easily have escaped it.” Such was the end of a man excellent beyond belief. It might have been the death of an ancient Philosopher. Mucius Scaevola thrust his hand into the fire and Socrates drank the hemlock with more fear than Jerome of Prague burned at the stake. But I stray from my tale.
With the bitter taste of that burning literally in my mouth, I made my way up the winding path to the famous monastery. I was joined, along the way by two other Tuscan gentlemen with whom I had a passing acquaintance. St. Gall was Benedictine and very prosperous. The monks there manufacture high-quality linen, which is much sought after. As a result, the buildings were well maintained, the monks well fed and the library totally deserted, even though it had an enormous and famous collection. Once famous for their learning the monks of today have forgotten it all and the library, once famous and spotless, was now a musty, foul and dimly lighted dungeon of a place.
This was one of my first adventures in seeking for ancient books and I began by learning a very hard way. Sifting through the incredible debris I came across documents by Anglo-Saxon scribes that might have been written a long time past. They were in deplorable condition but at least they were intact. The monks here (and elsewhere) had an unfortunate habit of cutting up ancient manuscripts into small strips, writing a few lines of prayer on them in bad Latin, selling them to ignorant peasants as magical pregnancy charms. My two companions rapidly became bored with manuscripts and went off in search of wine, but I plodded on, sneezing at the dust. Then I made my first find: Quintilian’s The Training of an Orator. I truly believe that had I not come to his rescue, this man Quintilian must speedily have perished, for it cannot be imagined that a man of such urbane polish and wit could much longer have endured the squalor of - house in which I found him – the savagery of his jailers, the filth of the place. He was a sad sight, ragged like a condemned criminal, with a frayed beard and hair, protesting by his expression the unfairness of his sentence. He seemed to be stretching out his hands, calling upon the Romans to save him. It was hard indeed that he who had helped preserve so many lives by his eloquence should find no redress in in a place set aside for learning.
I was so overwhelmed by my successful rescue that I ceased any further searching and fled that dungeon to triumphantly show my find to my friends. The monks seemed indifferent to it and allowed me to borrow the volumes and copy them at my leisure. I went on to further finds at Eisiedeln, Reichenau, Fulda, Cluny, Weingarten, and Langres, even Paris and Casino but I will always remember the first book – the Quintillian. After some years had passed and I had achieved a certain fame for my discoveries, I decided to return to St. Gall and give back the volumes that I (and then Nicci) had borrowed and copied.
Now this part of my story I have never told to anyone before, so if you have been quickly jumping through this letter, wishing the old man would stop re-telling all his old tales, his anecdotage, please pay attention here! When I offered the Quintillian to the Abbot of St. Gall, he seemed once again indifferent to the idea and told me I could put it back with the other rubbish. Such ignorance produced in me, I must confess, considerable anger. I stormed down into tha tliterary charnel house they called a library to throw Quintillian back into his foul prison. However, once I was there, I found that I could not do it and I brushed clear a small shelf and reverently laid him out there. Out of habit, my eyes scanned across the room and caught sight of a set of scrolls peeking out of a large pile of papers and books in a dark corner. When I opened the first scroll I found that I had in my hands a poem (I later found out that it was by one Lucretius) called De Rarum Natura. It began by invoking Venus and I remember at the time hoping that it would be filled with venal tales like Ovid. As I glanced through it, I also noticed on the pile a series of codices in absolutely horrible condition. I dismissed them as beyond redemption even as I was tempted back to Venus. But my mind would not let the image of those books fade away. Again and again, I glanced in their direction and finally I put Venus aside and began to examine the codices. Though the covers were rotting away beyond repair, yet the vellum inside seemed in better condition and was certainly readable with some effort. I spent several hours with this new comrade and discovered that what I had was the Ammianus – or rather, I should say, both Ammiani. In the short time that I had all I could ascertain was that I held two separate histories by the same autho rand that they seemed to contain two different accounts of some of the same events. And the second account was full of strange comments – strange in tone as well. Eventually the day began to darken towards evening and I gathered all that I had found and presented myself once again to the Abbott. I asked that I might borrow Lucretius and Ammianus for a time to copy and he gave his consent with a condescending wave of his hand like a man dismissing a fool or a madman. I did not tell him about the second Ammianus.
As soon as I had the opportunity, I made my own copy of the first Ammianus and sent the original on to Nicci (who I knew would make a copy) to give to Cosimo. Cosimo asked Nicci to translate it into Italian, which he did and I believe he gave a copy to San Marco. The second one I kept secret and read carefully over the next year beside the first one. I was astonished by the differences between the two and the way this man of the ancient world looked at the characters of people of great power. It sowed in me a seed in me that would blossom much later in my life – only, in fact, in the last few years. It became a part of the process that has followed me all my life since then; a sort of shedding of layers of belief that kept me from the truth. An early respect for the nature of Mother Church was quick to be lost, after all I spent years working at the heart of it. Even many of my private religious beliefs were hard to maintain in the face of reality. I remember well the time that a holy relic, the reputed big toe of the right foot of Saint Alberto which was sold to the Church of Sant’ Appollonia for a vast sum, turned out to be a clove of garlic.
I used also to be a great believer in the art of astrology but then I read a story by the great Petrarch. It seems that the Milanese had invested Pavia and were preparing to attack. They consulted a famous astrologer about the most propitious day and time and he counseled them to be patient and wait for a week, which they did although the assault was well prepared and clearly to be successful. On the day that the astrologer picked for them, a month-long drought was broken by rain of such intensity that the camp of the Milanese was flooded and the siege had to be abandoned. When Petrarch asked the wise man what had gone wrong, he replied, “well, it’s hard to predict the weather.”
I have always been skeptical about the medical profession. From an early age I have utterly avoided doctors and their violent and useless cures – which is why I have lived so long. And I am not alone in this, believe me. I remember that Angelo, the Bishop of Arezzo, was one time very ill, but he refused any treatment. One day his physician sent him a new medicine and after the servant left Angelo emptied it into the night-pot beneath his bed. The next day the doctor came and found the Bishop much recovered. “You see,” he said, “you have been wrong to refuse my art and care.” “Your medicines are indeed marvelous, for by merely putting them under my bed I have recovered my health. Had I swallowed them, surely I would have become immortal.”
So, I must repeat that this book, that speaks so frankly of the abuses of religion and power, has worked on me through my whole life. And I have always kept it secret and un-translated because I felt that to bring it to the world might bring great wrath down on me from the powerful: religious and secular. And if I loaned it, even to Nicci, I might never see it again. After all, Bishop Ursini borrowed my Tertullian and kept from me for two years. So, I have hidden it from all and you are the first to know that it even exists. And the reason for my telling you is this: I do not want this book to disappear – especially into the hands of the de’ Medici family. I will tell you why in a moment. I am leaving this book to you together with my copy of the first Ammianus, wrapped together as if they are one work, along with this sealed letter inside and a note attached making it clear that this is for you, my son Jacopo, and NO ONE ELSE! I wish you to translate it and publish it anonymously, so that it will not be lost like so much else, and so that more may be led to doubt the smug façade of the powerful.
Now as to the de’ Medici. After my discoveries I was a very busy man. The Council of Constance had finally been prodded into action. First, they deposed the two remaining schismatic Popes. Then they elected Martin V sole Pope in 1417 and the great schism was over. In April of the next year he dismissed the great Council just as it was beginning the task of reforming the church itself. I went with him to Geneva and then to Milan, Mantua and finally Rome as a kind of unofficial secretary. There at the Papal Court I met Bishop Beaufort of Winchester (the brother of King Henry IV) and I was invited to visit England, which I did – to my regret: a colder wetter, poorer, drearier country could not conceivably exist. I returned to Florence and became one of Cosimo’s little brigade of loyal friends, just in time for all the fun.
As you are aware, Florence has always seen itself as a communal democracy going back to the time of Julius Caesar. We all know (of course) that this is a lie. For long periods we were ruled by the Nobili and have had a number of failed revolts, betrayals and epic political brawls – Ghibelline against Guelph, Black Guelph against White Guelph – we need only look at the story of poor old Dante: banished never to return, even in death. Still, we insist on comparing ourselves with ancient Athens (always forgetting what happened to that mighty city at the hands of Sparta).
Still there is a kernel of truth in our massive self-deception and we have at various times made heroic efforts to reform our political processes in order to provide for a fair and orderly election of our priors, gonfalionier and signory – as in the Ordinances of Justice of 1293. Naturally this was precisely what the rich and powerful did not want. They always found ways to manipulate the selections in their own interests. In 1328 a method of election was adopted which was supposed to put an end to the ineradicable, underhanded practices of the power-hungry. This new system consisted in putting together a list of all the eligible electees, from the recognized guilds, who managed to pass the scrutino, the determination of political reliability (not crazy or dangerous, no record of theft or bankruptcy, and so forth). Then all the names were put in a leather bag called the borse. The borse were kept under lock and key until the day set for the bimestrial election, when they were brought out and the new priory were drawn from the bag by a random draw in a particularly foolish and ancient Athenian manner.
Naturally it didn’t take long for the powerful to find a way to corrupt the new technique. In order to control Florence, one had only to control the selection of names that went into the borse. Then it didn’t matter which names were drawn. The Albizzi family had their own particular (and rather heavy-handed) way of controlling the selection process. Because the borse contained very many names there was always the chance that a selected priory might turn against them. So, whenever it did they would call a Parliament of the people which would appoint a committee, or balia, made up of Albizzi supporters to “reform” the selection. But there was a flawi n the plan: you can’t have a parliament or a balia every day, so that the people considered as being loyal to Albizzi might, over time, change their minds. This is what happened when Cosimo overthrew the Albizzi family and their allies. So much everyone in Florence knows. But now comes something that may surprise you, you who thinks that there is no connection between the humanist arts and politics: the reason that the struggle between Cosimo and the Albizzi went the way it did has much to do with the support of Cosimo’s humanist supporters.
Cosimo and the Albizzi were fated to fight to the death. Cosino was wealthy, yes, so very wealthy because of hisf ather Giovanni di Bicci the banker, and because he, himself, was a great banker and because his family had become bankers to the Pope. But still he was a nobody, no-one knew where his family came from – just a rich nobody. And the Albizzi were from the nobili as well as being wealthy and well-connected with the Strozzi and other prominent families. They were somebodies and Cosimo was a nobody; but Cosimo was hungry. And dangerous. He cultivated the support of the minuto popolo, the little people and his presence in the city and among the priors prevented the Albizzi from having everything their own way. So, they hated him but were afraid of doing anything directly against him. So, as always in Florence, the battle took a very unusual turn.
Cosimo sponsored the arrival in Florence from Tolentino, of a young but already famous scholar named Francesco Filelfo. He had married the daughter of John Chrysoloras and was made the Professor at the University of Florence partly at the suggestion of my old friend Nicci. Filelfo rushed from lecture to lecture, babbling on from dawn to dusk about Cicero and Terence, Homer and Livy, Thucydides and Xenophon and once a week he gave a public lecture on Dante. He wrote epigrams, odes, speeches and histories to order; charging the highest prices. After a while, Nicci began to regret that he’d ever heard of him: he was insufferably vain, ill-tempered, insolent, avaricious and spiteful. Cosimo’s friends (especially Carlo Marsuppini – who warred with him publicly on the topic of Greek and Latin translation) soon began to avoid and shun him. Filelfo then allied himself with the Albizzi family and offered them his services as a master of invective against Cosimo and friends – this same Cosimo who had welcomed him to Florence and offered to pay his rent. The Albizzi welcomed him with open arms and included him in their plotting against the Medici.
By 1432 the Albizzi plans were nearing completion and Filelfo began spreading malicious stories to discredit Cosimo: he dressed poorly to disguise his vast (stolen) wealth; he hated the people but courted their support because of his lust for power; his donations to religious charities were self-serving hypocrisy – the conscience-money of a usurer; everything he did was emblazoned with the Medici symbol (three balls), why he even emblazoned the monk’s toilets with his balls. That sort of thing. One night in 1433 Cosimo’s doors were smeared with blood.
We, Cosimo’s scholar-friends, fought back with every form of scurrility we could think of but Filelfo was clearly winning since he recognized no limits as to what he could say and he had the backing of Rinaldo degli Albizzi. In the summer of 1433 Albizzi managed to rig the elections to the new Signoria so that seven of the nine were his creatures and the Gonfaloniere was Bernardo Guadagni, whose debts he had paid. A week later Cosimo was summoned to the Palazzo della Signoria: there were, he was told, “some important decisions to be made.”
On September 7 he arrived to find that the Signoria was already in session. He was taken by the Captain up to the door of the Council Chamber, which was shut, and then he was taken away and locked in a tiny cell: the famous l’Alberghettino. When he asked what he was being arrested for he was told that it was “on good grounds that soon would be made clear.” It soon was, but not through any explanation. For two days he did not eat or drink for fear of poison. Then, on the 9th he heard the huge bell of Florence, The Vacca, booming in the belfry to call the citizens to a Parlamento on the Piazza della Signoria. But as he craned his neck out he could see that at every entrance to the Piazza were stationed Albizzi soldiers and all those who were, or were suspected to be, Medici supporters were denied entry. Cosimo swore that of all the citizens of Florence he could only see one hundred and twenty three in front of the ground floor loggia holding the members of the Signoria. In the name of the Signoria, these citizens were asked to approve the creation of a Balia “to reform the city for the good of the people,” and, of course, they heartily agreed as they were paid to do. The Balia was appointed by the Signoria who were controlled by the Albizzi and still Rinaldo could not get what he most desired. The Balia could not be persuaded to recommend the execution of Cosimo as he strongly urged it to do. The discussions were stormy and indecisive with much shouting and insult and pushing and even punches thrown. Protests flowed in from abroad demanding the release of Cosimo. They came from the Marquis of Ferrara (Cosimo was his banker), The Venetian Republic (they owed him money as well) and a delegation came in the person of Ambrogio Traversari, Vicar-General of the Camaldolese Order (an old friend of Cosimo’s) who spoke on behalf of Pope Eugenius IV (who owed Cosimo more money than anyone else). Rinaldo grew desperate and resorted to racking two of Cosimo’s servants in order to get them to confess that Cosimo had committed treason by seeking foreign military help but no-one believed the confessions. All the while Filelfo had been hysterically demanding the death penalty for Cosimo while we were all condemned to public silence.
All this while we met surreptitiously with each other and occasionally with Cosimo. He was allowed the occasional visitor, such a Father Ambrogio and others. In addition, he was allowed to have his meals brought from the Palazzo Bardi to safeguard against poisoning. The Albizzi people took the greatest of care to ensure that Cosimo could send out no letters or messages in order to run his banking business – they sought, you see, to bankrupt him. A guard was assigned to listen in on all conversations and to check the food for messages. But one man cannot do everything, or be everywhere, and this guard, one Federico Malavolti, proved to be most accommodating once we had ensured, through a distant relative of his, that his financial future was most secure.
By using his circle of friends to deliver the meals, while Federico looked (and listened) the other way, Cosimo was able to run his bank and, more important, send out messages to all his supporters instructing them how to ensure that he would not suffer death but exile, from which, one day, he would work his return. I myself delivered a message to that wretched Gonfaloniere Guadagni (anus of a weasel) that in return for some money he should swing his support to the Medici side. This he refused to do since, he said, Rinaldo would have him quickly disposed of. Instead, however, he took the money and suddenly developed a mysterious illness that prevented him from attending any further meetings of the Council and he delegated his vote to Mariotto Baldovinetto. I also visited Mariotto and he proved quite supportive to Cosimo’s cause. The fact is that everyone except Rinaldo, no matter how much they hated the Medici, knew that if Cosimo was executed there would be a popular uprising.
All this pressure proved most effective and some of Rinaldo’s important supporters, like Palla Strozzi, began to slip away from him. In the meantime, Cosimo’s family had assembled a small private army at Cafagiollo under the command of his brother Lorenzo. The condottiere Niccolo da Tolentino was hired through Neri Copponi to bring a band of mercenaries from Pisa to stand by outside the city. All of this forced Rinaldo to finally back down and abandon his pursuit of the death penalty. On September 28 the Council banished Cosimo to Padua for ten years. Everyone who voted for banishment (instead of death) was later given lavish government sinecures by Cosimo.
All of this time we were strongly for Cosimo, because he was our friend and patron ,because he believed in the work that we were doing unearthing the great ones of the past, because he used his money in great and wise ways instead of hoarding it to himself and his family, and because he was overthrowing the tyranny of the Albizzi and the nobili and restoring the Republic. At least that was how we looked at it at the time.
When Cosimo stood before the Council to receive his sentence (he told us later) he was so meek that they were all surprised. “I declare I am content to go, and stay wherever you command. Should you send me to live among the Arabs, or any other people, I would go most willingly.” But he begged of them only one thing, that he be allowed to leave the city by night with an armed guard. “Have a care that those who stand outside in the Piazza with arms in their hands anxiously desiring my blood, should not have their way with me. My pain would be small, but you would earn perpetual infamy.” He told us this later during the night’s departure. We, his friends, all made up his armed guard, for truly there was no-one who wanted to see him dead except the Albizzi and a few of their supporters. He told us that he watched the Council register disgust at his fear of death or injury. “But I feared neither,” he said, “I wished only to leave at night so that even my exile would be looked on by the people as another dirty Albizzi deed, that they were afraid to do during the day, in front of the people of Florence.” As for the Council’s contempt, he smiled, “I will deal with them when I return.”
Nea rthe frontier with Ferrara we had stopped, for here he wished to go on with only some of his military men and a cousin. “Ferrara is in my pouch. I’m quite safe here.” Nicci pulled some wine from his saddlebag and passed it around. Cosimo began to speak about his plans for Florence; not like a man going into exile but like a man selected for power. He would reform the government so that it would be a true democracy. He would end the destructive wars and feuding with Milan. He would make alliances all over the north so that Florence would be as strong as the kingdom of Naples. He would rebuild the churches of our city, support the arts and continue to pay for the finding and translating of the ancient books. We were enthralled and vowed to support him in any way we could for we saw him as the future guardian spirit of our city.
Every where he went he was welcomed; at Ferrara the Marquis himself was his host; at Padua he was treated as an honorable guest, and after a few months there he went on to Venice where he stayed at a monastery – and built them a library. He sat back and watched the show to come. At first things were very difficult for his supporters. The Albizzi saw plots everywhere and banished all who criticized their imperious rule. But Cosimo had caused all the bankers of any size to tighten the flow of loans to Florence like a row of puckered anus’ and Albizzi’s war against Milan became a disaster with no money, no support and nothing but defeat in the field. The next election of the Signoria, despite all of Rinaldo’s efforts, was heavily laden with Cosimo’s friends and Rinaldo could not prevent it for meeting as long as it made no attempt to recall Cosimo. Bu there was no need. The fruit would fall when it was ripe.
Rinaldo could see what was coming and assembled his troops. He had a five-hundred-man bodyguard installed in San Pier Scheraggio and bribed all the guards at the doors of the Palazzo Vecchio. The Signoria called in its own troops in response and brought provisions into the Palazzo in case of a siege. The Pope moved to intervene and persuaded Rinaldo of the futility of what he was attempting. Two days later the Vacca tolled and a Balia of 350 was elected. The sentence of banishment passed on Cosimo was immediately revoked and he was called back to Florence. He came that very evening – for he knew in advance what would happen – and the next day there were crowds everywhere in the street, welcoming him with cheers and tears. Rinaldo and all the Albizzi relatives and supporters were banished – over seventy well-known citizens including Palla Strozzi! Cosimo laughed and said he could replace them easily: “seven or eight yards of scarlet cloth was all it took.” My personal enemy, Franceso Filelfo, fled to Sienna and the Visconti. His river of venomous written shit continued to flow from there. The warfare of toilet slops. And Cosimo settled down to rule Florence.
How he did it was a revelation to us all, for he seemed to do nothing at all. He rarely ran for office, rarely proposed new measures, never put himself forward and rode a mule instead of a horse. Although he juggled his books to hide half of his income, he still paid the highest taxes in Florence. He once told Vespasiano the bookseller that he never made a single political suggestion whe nhe could get someone else to make it for him. He set Luca Pitti up as the most powerful man in Florence (a role that Luca was certainly happy to play) and hid behind him. Cosimo’s system was more reliable than that of the Albizzi. He retained the policy of scrutinizing the borse but replaced the drawing of lots by appointments from the borse by a hand-picked group called the accoppiatori who held power for five years and then were re-appointed. They were all strict Mediceans so that Cosimo controlled everything from behind the scenes and could only be overthrown by a direct popular rising of the people who were the strongest supporters of the Medici. He ruled from the shadows; he was chosen gonfalonier only three times for a period of two months each – six months in over forty years. So, you see, it did not matter who was elected, since no-one who was his enemy ever got to run for office. It was brilliant system – both open and hidden – and it allowed him to turn our beloved Florence into his own private garden. It was so successful that he could even allow true republicans to speak out against with impunity since he could then use this to show how they were wrong in accusing him of having too much power. Should anyone get too successful in building a faction, Cosimo simply arranged through his party to have that man’s tax burden increased until he fled or went bankrupt. Then Cosimo allowed his own supporters to buy up the bankrupt’s property for a pittance, and vastly increase their wealth for doing his dirty work.
He lavished money on all sorts of fine projects: church repairs at Orsanmichele, Santa Croce, Santissima Annunziata, San Bartolommeo. La Badia at San Domenicodi Fiesole, San Girolamo dei Monti, the monastery of San Marco – even Santo Spirito in Jerusalem! His pious funding was legendary and the biggest beneficiary was his local church of San Lorenzo. But, you see, he was buying people, power and influence with his almost unlimited wealth. Benedetto Schiastesi, the prior of San Lorenzo was on his payroll. Even the holy Antoninus, the prior of San Marco worked for him, although he probably didn’t think that he did. He was also first in commissioning artists: Donatello, Massaccio, Michelozzo, Fra Lippo Lippi (the lustful friar), Botticcelli and Fra Angelica. He adopted Marsilio Ficino, son of his doctor, so that he might have his own private Platonist. And he paid for and collected books, long after I had finished searching for them, through dozens of agents. Accidenti! We all worked for him!
He was my strongest supporter and I, his. His methods troubled me but he made Florence strong – and he always said: “When my way is secure, I will no longer need these ways.” But it seemed that he never felt secure, even after twenty-five years of being “king in everything but name.” Aeneas Piccolomini said that, he that became Pope last month. Cosimo even got to play host to the General Council of the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in 1439. Of course, he had to pay for it all, but his personal guests were his old friend Pope Eugenius IV, The Byzantine Emperor John Paleologus and the Patriarch of the Eastern Church.
After intermittent (and useless) warfare, discussions between Venice and Milan led in 1454 to the peace of Lodi. When practically all the remaining states added their names it began to look as if Lodi might guarantee an Italian confederation. It didn’t work because of continuing and eternal self-interest in all the other states. Florence was the most passionate state in favor of Lodi because Cosimo knew that a commercial state like Florence was not well adapted to warfare and peace was needed for commerce to thrive. However, it was just at this moment that a group of Medici supporters decided that since external peace was guaranteed, they could afford to relax some domestic control by doing away with the accoppiatori (who were greatly resented by the whole population and often referred to as the Ten Tyrants). Plotters from Cosimo’s own circle: Luca Pitti, Agnolo Acciauoliand, Diotisalvi Neroni attempted to bring this about even though it was clearly a betrayal of the master of the bodega.
At first Cosimo seemed to acquiesce and allowed the accoppiatori to be abolished, and a return to the lottery system. The people were wildly happy. But the Signoria selected by lot began to demand changes, particularly a new tax law and it was ordered for 1458. Curiously, the worst hit by the new law were the Medici plotters themselves. So, they went to Cosimo to have him rescue them from their own reforms – he made them wait at his pleasure for several months. Then he announced the summoning of a new reform Parliament for August 11, 1458. Cosimo’s troops lined the piazza, allowing in only his true supporters. The signory then appointed a commission to “reform” the laws, and the commission (hand-picked by Cosimo) announced there-establishment of the accoppiatori. Cosimo made sure that the gonfalonier who was to preside over this change was his chief rival within his own party, Luca Pitti, to show the master’s power. One other thing that Cosimo did at this time was diabolically clever. In the interest of true democracy (so he said) he introduced the “open vote” in all the Councils. Now, instead of the safety of the secret ballot, Cosimo would know who his enemies were. The rest of his opponents were banished for life.
Our beloved Dante used to refer to Florence as the sheepfold of St. John the Baptist. Perhaps he was being ironic on one of his many levels. Most certainly the people love their Saint: but they also seem to love being sheared at every opportunity. And Dante himself could never forget that they can turn into wolves at any moment and cruelly rend the flesh of their fellows. Guicciardini believes that liberty is the highest good, the republic the highest form of liberty and that both these things flow through the blood of Florentines. In defense of this republic, we have fought and beaten the Pope, the Emperor and foreign Princes in turn. But while we have gazed martially out over our walls at the enemy, we have lost the battle within. My patron and host Cosimo has permitted us to hand our liberty over to him, fox that he is.
This was the end for me. The fiction of Cosimo as merely first citizen was laid bare for me and everyone else to see. The financial and political aid he had given so many was merely a way of purchasing the City and its people. He had even made me Gonfaloniere of Florence merely to use me in his plans. Those he could not buy he bankrupted through his control of taxation. My eyes were opened, but I was an old man, at the end of my career. What little I could do, I did. I feigned illness – the gout, the most Florentine of diseases – so that I could do no more work for him. I had made my will in 1443 leaving all my books on St. Augustine and in Greek to his library in San Marco. To change it, a very public act as you know, would have greatly endangered my family, so I quietly sold them all. When I die, he will get nothing! You may say that in this way I cheated San Marco, not him. But he had bought San Marco, he controlled that library absolutely. You need only ask your brother Pier Paolo, who is a friar there. No, nothing from me – especially not the books.
This is also, I can tell you now, why I sent you to school in Ferrara when you were 13. I wanted you out of this city while I took my steps to back away from the Medici, so that no harm could fall on you. This was particularly necessary since you had begun to spend so much time with Cosimo’s grandchildren, especially Lorenzo. The corruption of that family must not rub off on you, the corruption of my beloved Florence as well. I worry. I worry, you see, that Cosimo plans to install his son Piero in his place when he dies and then Lorenzo would follow until that family became the princely owners of this city in perpetuity. I worry about the young men that are beginning to associate with those very grandchildren that you used to play with: boys like Luigi Pulci and Braccio Martelli. They wear their hair long and their tunics so high that their bench rubbers wrapped in fine hosiery are clearly exposed. This is not the sort of thing that should happen among the future elite of our city. But I have been rolling this stone for too long and there is very little that I can do about it now.
I have lived a long and mostly happy life and achieved much that I sought for. I have found that power and wealth – in the church and in the state – have, on the whole, a terrible effect on the human character. In this I find that I am in agreement with Ammianus. Please, my beloved son, do as I wish and translate the unknown Ammianus codex. Publish it anonymously if you wish – that will be for you to decide – but please bring it to the world. Remember, la carta canta: the paper sings.
Your loving Father
Poggio
From the Villa in Valdurno, October 25, 1459
