Leo Africanus (45 page)

I was probably wrong to let myself be accompanied on my first visit by the irrepressible Hans. I immediately made my way straight ahead, towards the Via dei Banchi Vecchi before turning left into the famous Via del Pellegrino, to admire the shop windows of the goldsmiths and the displays of the silk merchants. I would have stayed there for hours, but my German was becoming impatient. Eventually he pulled me by the sleeve, like a hungry child. I forced myself, even apologizing for my frivolity. Were there not so many churches, palaces and monuments to admire in our neighbourhood? Or perhaps he wanted to take me to the Piazza Navona, quite close by, where, it was said, there was a ceaseless spectacle, of tumblers at least, at all times?

Hans was not thinking about any of this. He led me through narrow alleyways, where it was impossible to pass without stepping over heaps of rubbish. Then, in the darkest and most foul-smelling place, he stopped dead. We were surrounded by filthy, skeletal idlers. From a window, a woman called us to join her in exchange for a few
quattrini
. I felt terrible, but Hans did not move. As I glared at him he thought it as well to explain:

‘I want you to keep this vision of wretchedness constantly in front of you when you see how the princes of the Church live, all those cardinals who own three palaces each, where they compete in sumptuousness and debauchery, where they organize feast after feast, with twelve kinds of fish, eight salads, five sorts of sweets. And the Pope himself? Have you seen him having the elephant which the King of Portugal gave him paraded up and down with great pride? Have you seen him throw gold pieces at his jesters? Have you seen him hunting on his estate at Magliana, in long leather boots, riding behind a bear or a wild boar, surrounded by his sixty-eight dogs? Have you seen his falcons and goshawks, brought for gold from Candia and Armenia?'

I understood his sentiment but his behaviour annoyed me:

‘Show me rather the monuments of ancient Rome, those of which Cicero and Livy have spoken!'

My young friend seemed triumphant. Without saying a word, he started to walk once more, with such a firm step that I barely managed to keep up with him. When he decided to come to a halt, half an hour later, we had left the last inhabited streets far behind us. We were in the middle of a vast empty space.

‘Here was the Roman Forum, the heart of the old city, surrounded by bustling quarters; today it is called the Campo Vaccino! And, in front of us, do you see Monte Palatino, and over there, to the east, behind the Coliseum, Monte Esquilino? They have been empty for years! Rome is no more than a large market town camping out on the site of a majestic city. Do you know what its population is today? Eight thousand souls, nine thousand at most.'

That was far fewer than Fez, Tunis, or Tlemcen.

Going back towards the castle, I noticed that the sun was still high in the sky, so I thought it as well to suggest to my guide to take a walk in the direction of St Peter's, going through the fine quarter of Borgo. We had hardly arrived in front of the basilica when Hans launched once more into a crazy diatribe:

‘Do you know how the Pope wants to finish building this church? By taking the Germans' money.'

Several passers-by were already congregating around us.

‘I have visited enough monuments for today,' I begged him. ‘We shall come back another time.'

And, without waiting for him for a single moment, I ran to take
refuge in the calm of my former prison, vowing never to go walking around Rome with a Lutheran guide.

On my next visit I chanced to have Guicciardini as companion, who had just returned from a long visit to Modena. I imparted to him my deep disappointment, particularly after my visit to the Campo Vaccino. He did not seem particularly affected by it.

‘Eternal city, Rome, but with lapses,' he declared with wise resignation.

Before continuing:

‘Holy city, but full of impieties; idle city, but one which gives the world a masterpiece every day.'

It was a joy for the spirit to walk alongside Guicciardini, to take in his impressions, his comments, his confidences. However, there were certain inconveniences: thus, to get from the Castel San Angelo to the new palace of Cardinal Farnese, less than a mile away, took us nearly two hours, so great was the fame of my companion. Some people greeted him as they passed by, while others dismounted in order to engage him in long private conversations. Having extricated himself, the Florentine would return to my side with a word of apology: ‘That is a fellow countryman who has recently set up in Rome', or ‘That is an extremely influential bursar', ‘That is the postmaster of the King of France', and even, on two occasions, ‘That is the bastard of Cardinal So and So.'

I had shown no surprise. Hans had already explained to me that in the capital of the Popes, though teeming with men of religion, nuns and pilgrims from all countries, the mistresses of the princes of the Church had palaces and servants, that their offspring were destined for the highest posts, that priests of lower rank had their concubines or courtesans, whom they flaunted without shame in the streets.

‘Lust is less of a scandal than sumptuous living,' said Guicciardini, as if he had followed the development of my thoughts step by step.

He continued:

‘The lifestyle of the prelates of Rome costs vasts sums, while nothing is produced in this city of clerics! Everything is bought in Florence, Venice, Milan and elsewhere. In order to finance the excesses of this city, the Popes have started to sell ecclesiastical titles: ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand ducats for a cardinal. Everything is for sale here, even the post of steward! As that was still not enough, they started to sell indulgences to the
wretched Germans! If you pay, your sins are forgiven! In short, the Holy Father is seeking to sell off Paradise. It was in this way that the quarrel with Luther began.'

‘So this monk was right.'

‘In one sense, yes. Except that I cannot help thinking that the money collected in such a questionable fashion goes towards the completion of the Basilica of St Peter, and that part of it is devoted not to banquets but to the noblest creations of the human spirit. Hundreds of writers and artists are producing masterpieces in Rome before which the Ancients would turn pale with envy. A world is in the process of being reborn, with a new vision, a new ambition, a new beauty. It is being reborn here, now, in corrupt, venal and impious Rome, with money wrested from the Germans. Is that not a very useful sort of waste?'

I no longer knew what to think. Good and Bad, truth and untruth, beauty and rottenness were so muddled up in my mind! But perhaps that was it, the Rome of Leo X, the Rome of Leo the African. I repeated Guicciardini's formulations out loud, in order to engrave them upon my memory:

‘Idle city . . . holy city . . . eternal city . . .'

He interrupted me in a voice grown suddenly despondent:

‘Accursed city as well.'

While I gazed at him, awaiting some explanation, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

‘I have just copied out some lines written by Luther to our Pope.'

He read in a low voice:

‘You, Leo, the most ill-fated of all, you are seated upon the most dangerous of thrones. Rome was formerly a gate of Heaven; it is now the gaping abyss of Hell.'

927 A.H.
13 December 1520 – 30 November 1521

What a Saturday of happiness in my life was 6 April of that year! However, the Pope was angry. He thundered so loudly that I stayed motionless for a long moment in the antechamber, protected from his shouts by the heavy carved double doors. But the Swiss who accompanied me had his orders. He opened the door of the study without knocking, almost pushed me into the room and closed the door firmly behind me.

When he saw me, the Pope stopped shouting. But his eyebrows remained knitted together and his lower lip was still trembling. He indicated that I should come nearer with a signal from his smooth fingers, which were drumming feverishly on the table. I leaned over his hand, and then over the hand of the person who was standing on his right.

‘Leo, do you know our cousin Cardinal Julius?'

‘How could I have lived in Rome without knowing him?'

This was not the best reply in the circumstances. Julius de Medici was certainly the most flamboyant of all the princes of the Church, and the Pope's trusted associate. But the latter had been reproaching him for some time for his escapades, his love of ostentation, his rowdy love affairs, which had made him the favourite target of the Lutherans. On the other hand, Guicciardini had spoken well of him: ‘Julius has all the qualities of the perfect gentleman, a patron of the arts, tolerant, good company. Why the devil should anyone want to make a man of religion out of him?'

In a red cape and skull cap, a fringe of black hair across the
breadth of his forehead, the Pope's cousin seemed engrossed in a painful meditation.

‘The cardinal must speak to you, my son. Sit yourselves together on those chairs over there. I myself have some mail to read.'

I do not believe that I am mistaken in stating that the Pope did not miss a single word of our conversation that day, since he did not turn a single page of the text which he had in his hands.

Julius seemed embarrassed, seeking some sign of complicity in my eyes. He cleared his throat discreetly.

‘A young person has just entered my service. Virtuous and beautiful. And intelligent. The Holy Father desires that I should present her to you, and that you should take her to wife. Her name is Maddalena.'

Having delivered himself of these words with a visible effort, he turned to other matters, asked me about my past, my travels, my life in Rome. I discovered he had the same appetite for knowledge as his cousin, the same rapture at hearing the names of Timbuktu, Fez and Cairo, the same respect for the things of the mind. He made me swear that one day I should commit an account of my travels to paper, promising to be my most eager reader.

The great pleasure which this conversation gave me did not however greatly reduce my profound suspicion towards the proposal which had been made to me. To state matters frankly, I had no desire at all to find myself the belated husband of some adolescent girl whose advanced state of pregnancy would set all the tongues of Rome wagging. However, it was difficult for me to say ‘No' in a single word to the Pope and his cousin. Hence I formulated my reply in sufficiently roundabout terms to enable my feelings to show through:

‘I put myself in the hands of His Holiness and His Eminence, who know better than I what is good for my body and my soul.'

The sound of the Pope's laughter made me jump. Putting down his mail, he turned round to face us squarely.

‘Leo will see the girl this very day, after the requiem mass.'

In fact that day was the commemoration, in the Sistine Chapel, of the first anniversary of the death of Raphael of Urbino, whom Leo X
used to cherish more than all his other protégés. He often called him to mind with an unfeigned emotion, which made me regret having known him so little.

Because of my long period of seclusion, I had only met Raphael twice; the first time briefly in a corridor of the Vatican, the second time at my baptism. After the ceremony he had come up, like so many others, to offer his congratulations to the Pope, who had put him beside me. A question was burning on his lips:

‘Is it true that there are neither painters nor sculptors in your country?'

‘Some people do paint or sculpt, but all figurative representation is condemned. It is considered as a challenge to the Creator.'

‘It does our art too much honour to think that it can emulate the Creation.'

He made an astonished and somewhat condescending frown. I felt I had to reply:

‘Isn't it true that after having made the statue of Moses Michelangelo ordered it to walk or speak?'

Raphael smiled maliciously.

‘So they say.'

‘That is what the people of my country seek to avoid. That a man should have the ambition to substitute himself for the Creator.'

‘And the prince who decides on life and death, does he not substitute himself for the Creator in a far more blasphemous fashion than the painter? And the master who possesses slaves, who buys and sells them?'

The painter's voice rose. I tried to calm him:

‘One day I should like to visit your studio.'

‘If I were to decide to paint your portrait, would that be blasphemy?'

‘Not at all. It would be as if the most eloquent of our poets were to write a eulogy about me.'

I had not found a better comparison. He was content with it.

‘Very well. Come to my house when you wish.'

I had resolved to do so, but death had overtaken me. Of Raphael I remembered only a few words, a frown, a promise. It was my duty to think of him on that day of commemoration. But very quickly, already before the end of the ceremony, it was towards Maddalena that my thoughts turned.