The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi (69 page)

FROM DANILO’S ARCHIVE

TO MARCHESE FRANCESCO GONZAGA IN THE DOGE’S PRISON AT VENEZIA

Most Revered and Respected Husband:

Have patience, I beg you. Know that I and our brother Cardinal Ippolito think continuously of your liberation. We will not fail you. Someday I hope to make you understand why I cannot in conscience give Federico over to the Doge as hostage for you. Even if your Excellency were to despise me and deprive me of your love and grace, I would rather endure such contumely, I would rather lose our state, than deprive us of our children. I am hoping that in time your own prudence and kindness will make you understand that I have acted more lovingly toward you than you have to yourself.

Pardon me if this letter is badly written and worse composed but I do not know if I am dead or alive.

Isabella, who desires the best for your Excellency.

Mantova, May 14, 1510.

TO THE DOGE OF VENEZIA

. . . as to the demand for our dearest, firstborn son, Federico, besides being a cruel and almost inhuman thing for anyone who knows the meaning of a mother’s love, there are many reasons which render it impossible to hand over to strangers a child of his tender and delicate age. And you must know what comfort and solace we find in the presence of this dear son, the hope and joy of all our subjects.

However reluctant I am, I must frankly inform you, once and for all, that we will suffer any loss rather than part from our son, and this you may take to be our deliberate and unchanging position.

Most respectfully,

Isabella, Marchesana of Mantova

May 12, 1510.

TO POPE JULIUS II

THE VATICAN, ROMA

. . . and although we are quite sure that his person would be well cared for and protected in the Vatican palace, to deprive ourselves and Mantova of our son and heir would be to deprive us of life itself and of all we count good and precious. If you take Federico away you might as well take away our life and state at once.

FRAGMENT OF A REPORT

FROM THE MANTOVAN AMBASSADOR TO THE VATICAN

TO MARCHESANA ISABELLA D’ESTE DA GONZAGA AT MANTOVA

JUNE 1, 1510.

. . . I have never seen the Pontiff in a worse rage. He shook like a vessel in a great storm, twisting his wrists together as if to tear his hands off and quite truthfully foaming at the corners of his mouth. “That whore of a Marchesana refuses my offer!” (These were his words, madama, not mine, I assure you.) “I will never forgive this defiance. And when her husband comes out he will punish her, I promise you. Poor Marchese Francesco is the prisoner not only of the Venetian signoria but of a rebel wife. She is a whore . . .”

44

A
s Madama feared, our efforts to keep her son were finally overcome by the unholy alliance against her. Not one to waste her rage, she instantly turned to delaying Federico’s departure by every ruse she knew. There was so much to be done; so many letters to be written; so many arrangements to be made. Grazia the scribe soon became indispensable.

In the pressing urgency of these multitudinous tasks my heroines slipped from the notice of their sponsor. But every so often the purpose of my visit did rise to the surface of her attention and my heroines were most fondly recalled, only to be confided to the ministrations of Messer Equicola.

“Confer with him, Grazia,” Madama urged me. “Hear his opinions on the selection of your women. Regard him as your tutor. Take his advice in matters of taste as I do.” But ten minutes with this arbiter was enough to convince me that what passed for his taste consisted mostly of an unerring instinct to ferret out any word or phrase or, indeed, any anecdote or even any of the heroines of my choice who might incur Madama’s displeasure.

On the inclusion of Diamante he expressed doubt, “. . . for with all respect, Madonna Grazia, what place has a no-account Jewish matron between the same pages as our own illustrious princess?”

And discussing a recent addition of mine, a certain Christine di Pisan, “. . . as you yourself admit, madonna, she lived in Paris, and you know our honorable patroness’s opinion of French letters.”

It was only a matter of time, I felt, before he would suggest replacing Caterina Sforza with Madama’s little dog Aura, “. . . for she is a female, after all, and a great pleasure and delight to the
illustrissima
.” These traveling humanists write by the yard for whoever offers them a hearth and a living. Like chameleons, they change the color of their views to suit the landscape. Were there a single motto on the escutcheon of all humanists, it would surely be “Never offend.”

Obviously between Maestro Equicola and myself a meeting of minds was impossible. Not being a stupid man, he quickly realized it and became as assiduous to avoid meeting with me as I was with him. In truth neither of us wished to offend Madama. And in the hysteria that mounted as the day for young Federico’s departure for Roma came closer, we found reason enough to avoid each other.

My Sabbath absences also contributed to the cause. From the beginning of my visit I insisted that one day of the week belonged to my family. Each Friday after dinner I cleaned my quills, scrubbed the ink stains off my hands, donned my
tabi
-cloth gown, and, accompanied by one of Madama’s hulking palace guards, walked through the town to the house on the Via Sagnola to spend the Sabbath with my brother and his harem, of which I quickly became a delighted member.

I might never have known how fragile this structure was had not Madonna Isabella offered me some fishes fresh from the waters of Lake Garda one warm summer day. Anxious to preserve their freshness, I set out to deliver them to my brother’s household without troubling to announce my visit.

I came upon Penina in the garden with all four children gathered around her. Where, I asked, was Ricca?

To my surprise, I got no straight answer but a series of obfuscations and evasions that only exacerbated my curiosity.

“Oh, Grazia, it would have been better for everyone had you not come here today,” she finally admitted.

“You mean I have intruded in some way? Am I not welcome?”

“Welcome in your own house? Of course you are. That is a silly question, Grazia, and you know it.”

“What then? Why would it have been better had I not come?”

“Because now you will have to know,” she answered. “And because we had decided not to trouble you. But now . . .”

“Now what? Where is Ricca?” She turned her face away. “Tell me,” I urged her. “I have a right to know.”

“Very well.” She sighed. “But believe me, Grazia, nothing can be done. Gershom and I have tried every way to persuade her out of this madness but we cannot. And if we cannot you surely cannot.”

“What madness?”

“Ricca no longer lives here. She does not live in this house any more than you do. She only comes on Fridays, as you do. And she stays over the Sabbath, as you do. And on Sundays, just after you have left she leaves. And we do not see her again until the next Friday.”

“Where does she live, then?”

“With a merchant. A rich German. From Dusseldorf. He has taken over a big house in the Via San Giacomo. She lives there. With him.”

“She lives with this man openly?”

“Well, we haven’t exactly sent forth a
grido
to that effect,” she answered tartly.

“But people know?”

“People understand. They see her as a deserted woman, neither wife nor widow.”

“Still, when the children go out to school they will be the butt of jokes and scorn,” I surmised.

“We reminded her of that,” she answered.

“What excuse does she offer?” I asked.

“That if she had to live one more day in this nunnery, she would slit her own throat.”

“Not a bad solution,” I remarked.

“Grazia! Bite your tongue!”

But I could not apologize. For I believed then as I do now that death is preferable to dishonor. If that makes me a turnip of a woman without sweetness or juice, so be it.

We left it there, Penina and I agreeing to disagree for the sake of family amity. And the next Friday, I managed to greet Ricca cordially although I would sooner have spat in the harlot’s face than clasped her hand. But I did extend my hand to her and so we trudged along in sweet hypocrisy. But even that tainted sweetness was not destined to last. For, not more than two weeks later, a letter was forwarded to me from Venezia which fractured the little household into so many jagged pieces that not even that expert diplomatist Gershom could put it back together.

I recognized the hand at once from the flourish that embellished the
G
in my name. Only one person besides myself made such
G
’s — my brother Jehiel.

His letter, sent from Salonika, was short and to the point. He was homesick for Italy and wished to return. He missed his family. Would I intercede on his behalf with Madonna Isabella? The letter read as if he had been away on a pilgrimage or a pleasure trip; no mention of his offenses, of the pain he had caused others, or of the cousin whose life had paid for his folly. Still, he was my brother and I loved him. So, I laid plans to trap Madama at a time most felicitous for my presentation of his case.

The opportunity came a few evenings later when she invited me into her
grotta
to sing and make music with her and some of her ladies. “For even a virago like me must temper her embattled life with some beauty, Grazia,” she explained. It was there after the music was done that I managed a moment alone to beg her to intercede with her brother Duke Alfonso on Jehiel’s behalf.

“And what makes you think that what I have to say will move my honorable brother the Duke?” she asked, not sourly but as a practical question. “You remember that I did intervene once on your cousin’s behalf with no result.”

“But time has passed since then,
illustrissima
,” I urged. “Perhaps your honorable brother has softened. By now his Duchess has given him two healthy boys. Does that not make a difference?”

“In logic perhaps,” she replied. “But men such as my honorable brother are not ruled by logic. You do not understand princes. Let me remind you that my honorable father was named for the god Hercules. Such men think themselves at least half gods. They do what they will and brook no interference, not from counselor nor from wife nor from sister.”

“But a good word. A plea for
caritas
. . .”

“
Caritas!
” She shook her head from side to side in exasperation. “Have you learned nothing of the world from observing my failure to save my son from the clutches of that beast of a Pope? Come. Sit here. Close. I will tell you a tale. It is a tale that must not be repeated, you understand.”

I nodded my obedience to her command. And I have not repeated her story from that day until now.

“Some five years ago,” she began, “just after my honorable brother Alfonso had succeeded to the dukedom of Ferrara, a terrible quarrel broke out between two of my younger brothers, Don Giulio and Cardinal Ippolito. The cardinal had fallen under the spell of a little Borgia witch named Angela who attends upon my sister-in-law the lady Lucrezia. Not content with refusing the cardinal, this Angela took pains to inform him that she preferred my brother Don Giulio and, out of sheer bitchery, added that his whole person was not worth Don Giulio’s eyes. I need not tell you what came out of this wicked tease. You must have heard of it at the Aldine Press.”

I confessed that I had not and begged her to finish the story.

“My brother Cardinal Ippolito was wild with jealousy and hurt pride,” she continued. “The next day, as Don Giulio was riding home from the hunt, he was attacked by a bunch of ruffians whose clear aim was to put out his eyes. And they very nearly succeeded. He did lose the sight of one eye and most of the sight of the other, poor fellow.”

“His own brother hired men to put his eyes out?”

“It was the Borgia bitch who goaded him on to it and of course my brother the cardinal has inherited the Este temper and the Este pride,” she replied, as if somehow this excused him.

“Quite correctly, my wounded brother Don Giulio appealed for justice to my brother Alfonso, head of the family and of our state,” she continued. “But the Duke did not act and that is where folly took over. Don Giulio entered into a conspiracy with my unfortunate half brother Ferrante against Alfonso.”

“No wonder,” I commented, “with such provocation . . .”

“Perhaps no wonder, but treason nevertheless,” she retorted in a censorious tone. “Treason of the worst sort,” she went on, “because my younger brothers were inept at the game of conspiracy and their plot was discovered. Ferrante was caught. Don Giulio escaped and took refuge with me here in Mantova.”