Bianca balances her accounts.—Dangers in her path.—A bold step—and its consequences.—Facilis descensus.—A proud father.—Bianca's witchcraft.—The Cardinal is checkmated, for this game.
But whatever other effect the untimely deaths of these two unfortunate women may have produced, they had not that of removing the gloom from the brow of Francesco. Surely, indeed, if he is to be considered human, and in any degree sane, it may be thought, that such events must have contributed no little to increase the irritability of his temper, and the sudden melancholy, ever and anon bursting out into savageness. It is likely enough that Francesco's education at the Court of Spain, the obsequious casuistry of his own theologians, and the total absence from cradle to grave of any one wholesome moral influence, of any one ray of light to dissipate, however fitfully, the thick darkness of an ignorance of right and wrong far deeper, more dangerous, and more perverse than that of a savage;—it is possible enough, that all this may have enabled him to say to his own heart, when kneeling at the feet of his most favourite idol, that his act had not made him guilty within the limitations of God's statute law, and the intricate modifications of it made by subsequent legislation, in such and such acts of such and such a year of this or the other Pope's reign.
Still, assure himself of this as he might, and fortify the assurance by whatsoever most satisfactory "case," drawn up by the shrewdest sacerdotal pettifogger who ever discovered a flaw in heaven's eternal ordinances, it may be fancied that he did not sleep better of nights after that July, 1576, and that Bianca's position and task were not improved by what had happened.
Some thirty years or so ago, a Florentine publisher, happening to have become possessed of the house which once belonged to Bianca, in the Via Maggio, conceived the idea of pretending to have found concealed in a wall therein a MS. containing her autobiography. A prefatory notice stated, that unfortunately the chemical means used for restoring the faded characters to legibility had had the effect of entirely destroying them, so that the finder of these precious papers could not have the satisfaction he had hoped of showing them to persons interested in such matters! The forgery was an impudent and ridiculously ill–executed one. A very superficial knowledge of the language sufficed to convince any reader of the first two pages of the silly catch–penny trash, that the phraseology was of the nineteenth and not the sixteenth century, even had the tone of the narrative been at all assorted to the character of the supposed writer.
But what a treat would such a find be, were it genuine! What a psychological treasure would be a peep into the real feelings of such a mind and heart! Did Bianca consider her career to be a triumphant one, successfully achieving the "excelsior" of her ideal by painful but victorious struggle with opposing fortune? Or did she look on herself as the victim of a chain of unfortunate circumstances, entangled in the meshes of a destiny, which drew her fatally on, and irresistibly wrapped its darkening clouds around her. Few recorded careers illustrate so exactly, regularly, and undeviatingly the lessons of the moralist as that of Bianca. No invented story of progress from bad to worse can better exemplify the law that compels evil to generate ever new evil.
Thus far, supposing her not to have been guilty of her husband's murder, her ill–doings have not been such as to put her beyond the pale of human sympathies. She fled from a home made unhappy by a negligent father and an unkind step–mother.[169] It was ill–done. Deceived by her husband as to his position in the world, finding herself a prisoner in a miserable cottage, where she was obliged to do the work of a servant (because the poverty of her husband's family was such, that when she was brought home to be fed and lodged, the drudge hitherto kept by them could be no longer fed or lodged),[170] she listened to the seduction of a prince, and left a husband, who was perfectly contented with the arrangement. This was worse; yet far from unpardonable.
But now a career of darker crime had to be entered on. Bianca was now the inmate of a court. Virtues and vices there are on a larger scale. "Major rerum nascitur ordo." The interests and passions of despotic princes are dangerous matters to meddle with, mostly leaving stains and scars on the hands and hearts of those concerned in ministering to them. Enough of both, one would think, must have fallen to Bianca's lot.
Let us see, then, if we can succeed in looking into her mind, as it must at this period have contemplated her position, taking stock of the gains and losses thus far realised.
"To exercise the most powerful influence in a splendid court; to receive daily homage, and something more solid than homage, from all who have favours to ask, justice to seek, or injustice to pay for; to dispense promotions, reward friends and crush enemies; all this is worth something. To be the courted patroness of the relatives who so loudly complained of my having disgraced them, to dispense my bounty to the father and brother who denounced me, and to be the means of sustaining and advancing the grandeur of the family whose daughter I am; all this is worth still more. To become, what, if fate do not play me false, I will become, and make the Ten themselves bow before the poor outlawed exile! Ay, that indeed would be more again. It is something, too, by the blaze of my beauty and the glitter of my magnificence, to thrust back that pale, proud Austrian woman into cold obscurity. She, indeed, to think of being a wife to Francesco! She to dream of taking in charge such a nature as his! She to attempt the task of comprehending, sympathising with, soothing, managing, ay, and mastering those surging passions, that wilful mind, and fitful heart! She! It is a part cast, methinks, for an actress of other powers than hers! But what if it should prove too difficult for my own? She, indeed, is at least secure in the frozen dignity of her place. She is the Grand Duchess, and needs to practise no such ruling of the storms to hold her safe position. But for me! To rule them, or to perish in them, is the only alternative. If I cease to rule but for a day, I fall, and am crushed into the dust! That is the condition on which I hold my place in Florence! And the Saints know how many waking nights and anxious days the holding of it thus far has cost me! And the task seems growing from day to day more arduous. The Duke's deepening melancholy and discontent at his childlessness is dangerous—very dangerous. May he not seek elsewhere for that which I have failed to give him! Francesco loves me;—I think he loves me;—that is, he has need of me. But should some more painfully felt need require that I should be sacrificed, trampled into dust, burned at the stake, torn limb from limb; my Francesco's love, methinks, would hardly save me. Had I but a child, could I but be the mother of a son to stand between him and the Cardinal, I should, I think, be safe!"
Somewhat to this tune, we may suppose, Bianca's ruminations must have often run during the early months of that fatal summer of 1576; till at length the urgency of the case, arising from the Duke's increasing gloom and discontent, determined her to adopt the dangerous expedient of counterfeiting the maternity which nature denied her.
From the earliest years of her connection with Francesco, it had been her earnest wish to present him with a son. And when, as time ran on, it began to appear unlikely that she should do so, she left none of the means untried, to which the gross ignorance and superstition of the time attributed the power of removing sterility. With this view, she had constantly about her a number of the vilest vagabonds, impostors, philtre–dealers, necromancers, poison–concoctors, spellmongers, and quack–doctors in Europe. In all probability she practised with love–philtres, to secure her ascendancy over the Duke. It may have been, also, that she had occasion to dabble in the secrets of the professors of the art of poisoning. But the grand object of her medico–witchcraft was to become a mother. And it is exceedingly likely, that some of the means used for this purpose may have actively contributed to defeat the end in view, and have done much to injure her health permanently, as we find hinted in the writings of the historians.[171]
The people, whom these schemes and pursuits had brought her into connection with, were well calculated to serve as agents in the fraud now contemplated. The first necessary step was to find a mother, who could be induced to agree to part with her infant, when it should be born. But as the great object of Bianca's ambition was to present the Duke with a son, it was necessary to provide, as far as possible, against uncertainty on this point. For this purpose three women were found, who expected their confinement, as nearly as could be calculated, at the same time; and who all consented for money to give up their child, in case it should prove to be a male. But it was further very necessary to the safety of all concerned in the business, that these women should be ignorant that a similar bargain had been made with others. Care had therefore to be taken that they should be located in different quarters of the city, and should have no means of corresponding with any one.
All these arrangements must evidently have required the co–operation of no inconsiderable number of agents. But it is probable that one or two of these only were allowed to know on whose behalf they were acting.
At length all these preparations were made, and the 29th of August, 1576, was fixed on among the confederates for the consummation of the plan. Bianca played her part accordingly to perfection. Of course her fictitious labour would have to endure, till the genuine labour of whichever of the three unfortunate mothers should first produce a son, should have come to an end. One only of the three had a male child; and this was immediately conveyed, in a mandoline, say the chronicles of the time, to Bianca's residence.
But it was yet further necessary, before the innocent object of all this roguery could be allowed to appear upon the scene, that Bianca should find the means of clearing her chamber of inconvenient witnesses. And this was not altogether easy. For the Grand Duke, whose rejoicing at the coming event had been excessive, insisted on being himself present at the birth; and it was impossible to get him out of the chamber. The only possibility of success lay in the chance of tiring him out. And Bianca did her best to render the witnessing of her pangs as disagreeable as possible. But Francesco's sensibilities were not to be worked on in this manner. Let Bianca play her part to the life, as she would, Francesco patiently awaited the result. The long hours of the night wore on. Morning was at hand. Bianca's lamentable groaning, kept up with admirable constancy in spite of no little fatigue from her night's performance, became tedious, if not heartrending to the princely watcher. He was very sleepy; the women, with grave shakings of the head, feared that the patient would have to suffer some hours yet; and at last his Highness, as morning was breaking, gave in, and went off to his bed; leaving however some trusted minister in his stead to await the happy moment, and give him the earliest intelligence thereof.
The game was now an easy one. Some message to the Duke, or other such commission was readily found to send away the deputy–watcher; and then in a few minutes all was in order for the reception of Francesco, who hurried from his bed to delight himself with the sight of the son he had so long and so earnestly wished for. All passed with the most perfect success. No shadow of a suspicion seems to have arisen in the Grand Ducal mind. He immediately recognised the child formally as his own; ordered that he should be considered a member of the House of Medici; and received the congratulations of the court and city, as if an heir to the throne had been legitimately born. The child was christened Antonio, because, according to the pious declaration of Bianca, it was to the intercession of St. Anthony that the favour of so great a blessing was due.[172]
But the ridiculous side of this ignoble farce lies in too close proximity to its tragic developments, to suffer that a smile should for more than a passing moment replace the horror and reprobation which are the standing moods of mind for the study of Medicean annals. Bianca's triumph was complete for the moment. But on how many chances might the continuance of it hang? How many of the most worthless beings had it in their power to hurl her, with a word, from the height of her success! Was she then never again to be free from perpetual terrors? Never to lose for an hour the consciousness, that a random word, if not an intentional and purchased betrayal, the repentance of a confederate, or a death–bed confession might at any time suffice to throw down the whole fabric built up with so much care, pain, and cost of guilt; nay, might bring on her the same swift and sudden vengeance which had overtaken the unhappy Isabella and Eleonora! Was there no mode of escaping from so hideous a thraldom?
Then again it was to be remembered that eyes and brains of a quality very difficult to be eluded or deceived would leave no means untried to ascertain the truth respecting this timely maternity after so many years of sterility. The Cardinal was hardly likely to attribute much efficacy to the intercession of St. Anthony. And who in Florence could at any time feel sure that they were not at that very moment under his special surveillance? Then again Don Pietro, equally injured and enraged with his brother Ferdinando at this suddenly produced Medici! his haunts and habits were such as to make it anything but unlikely that he might stumble on the traces of the deception that had been practised.
The Duchess, most nearly and cruelly injured of all! Pshaw! if she were all, there could be small cause for alarm.
Was there no way of escaping once and for ever from these haunting torments; escaping once for all from fears and from plots and conspiracies, and all underhand dealings and living honestly and uprightly thenceforward? The safety, the happiness of such a freedom, the possibility of carrying out such virtuous aspirations must be found.
Is there no way?
There is but one way, Bianca thinks, as she spends the hours of the pretended convalescence in no pleasing meditations on her position;—but one way.
"She must—she must;—she will—she will,
Spill much more blood; and become worse
To make her title good!"
The thought once admitted, delay in the execution of it only risked the possibility of doing the deed in vain. The greatest danger was to be apprehended of course from the three mothers; inasmuch, as the mere fact of the bargain made with them, joined to the exact date of their confinement, would have been sufficient to raise a presumption which it would have been easy to improve into certain proof of the real truth.
Two of these women therefore were put to death by disguised assassins; the third, having obtained some warning of her danger, escaped out of Tuscany.
But the chief manager of the whole plot had been a Bolognese woman, in whom Bianca placed implicit confidence. Still she could not feel safe as long as it was in any human being's power to betray her. This woman was therefore sent back to Bologna; or rather, the doomed creature was made to believe that such was her destination. But as she and her escort were crossing the Apennine, winding in single file along the deep–cut bridle paths that threaded the chesnut[typo for chestnut?] woods, a shot from behind a tree brought her to the ground. The assassins thought that their work was done more thoroughly than was the case. The wound indeed was mortal; but the unfortunate woman lived long enough to reach Bologna, and there, being juridically examined, she confessed at length the whole of the plot by which Bianca had foisted a supposititious child on the Grand Duke, together with all details of the execution of the fraud.
This confession, duly attested by the authorities at Bologna, was forwarded to the Cardinal Ferdinando at Rome, and his feelings on receiving it may easily be imagined. He must have thought that he had at last in his hand the means of crushing the hated Venetian woman, whose arts and spells had so enthralled his brother as to disgrace him throughout Europe, and by whose infamous practices it seemed but too probable that some base–born brat might be placed on the throne of Tuscany to his nefarious exclusion. What then was his indignation and disgust, when on hastening to lay before his brother the irrecusable proof, as he supposed, of his mistress's foul treason and falsehood, he found him obstinately determined neither to hear, see, nor give credence to anything on the subject! The power and credit of Bianca were greater than ever. A magnificent appanage was settled upon the child Antonio, whom the Duke persisted, in spite of all evidence upon the subject, in considering and treating as his son. He was called Don Antonio dei Medici; and Francesco appeared to lavish on the infant all a father's affection.
It must be admitted that there was wherewithal to embitter a milder–minded man than the Cardinal. All the calculating policy which had enabled his cautious nature to dissemble his disgusts for so many years, so far as to avoid an open rupture with his brother, could not prevent him now from speaking in a manner that for a time produced a total estrangement between him and the Grand Duke. Such deplorable blindness and imbecility as that manifested by Francesco, could only have been produced, it was said, by the use of infernal arts, and drugs of maleficent power. The belief in the efficacy of such agencies was general. It is therefore extremely probable, that the Cardinal himself may have supposed Francesco to have been bewitched in the literal sense of the word. That Bianca was credited with extensive powers of the kind by the popular opinion of Florence is certain. And it is equally clear, that she herself, whatever may have been her private opinion of her own proficiency in the art, believed in its existence and potency, was continually dabbling in the secrets of its professors, and would fain have been a witch, if she could have found out how to become one.
But the real witchery that Bianca had on this occasion practised on her lover was not suspected by the Cardinal; though, as it would seem from subsequent events, he must have become aware of it later. It was the common witchery of a strong and unscrupulous mind over a weak one, whose only force was the strength of the bad passions that stirred it. But the spell used to evoke the demon that should give her the victory in this perilous crisis of her fortunes was one of extraordinary daring. And it was strikingly characteristic of the woman, and curiously indicated how thoroughly she had studied the nature of the man she had to practise on, and how securely she reckoned on the aid of the evil spirit she had summoned from the dark depths of his own heart, in the form of his jealous hatred of his brothers, and of the thought that either of them should be his successor.
The bungling work of the bravo sent to make all safe by dispatching the woman on the Apennines on her way to Bologna, which had allowed her to reach that city alive, left small doubt on Bianca's mind, that the whole story of Antonio's birth would soon become known to those from whom it was most necessary that it should be kept secret.
The danger was a tremendous one. No philtres nor drug practice would serve the turn now. But a bold stroke of a more truly black art might do so. Now to raise a devil potent enough to make wrong triumphant over all right and truth! Bianca knew that such a devil was within call, and went bravely about the work.
Reminding Francesco skilfully of all that he had suffered from being childless, subtly painting the triumph and rejoicing of his brothers at this his bitter misfortune, and picturing to him as subtly the downfall of their hopes in consequence of the birth of Antonio, when she had made the idea of relinquishing this vantage ground sufficiently intolerable to his feelings, she audaciously[173] narrated to him the whole truth of her fictitious confinement, and Antonio's real birth. To have had recourse to such an expedient was too evidently the sole means of remedying the evil. To have deceived him in the matter was to save his dignity, his conscience, to take upon herself all the odium, the risk, the burthen, the sin,—if sin there were in securing the peace of mind and happiness of her sovereign and lord. What but devotion to him, his wishes and his interests, could have stimulated her to adopt, at her own peril, the only possible means of abating the insolent triumph of the disloyal brothers, who were rejoicing in his misfortunes!
The incantation worked well. The devil was evoked. Francesco could not endure the idea of returning to the state of jealous misery in which he had lived before Antonio's birth; above all could not endure the thought of admitting to his prudent preaching brother that he had been ignominiously and ridiculously cheated; that his loud triumph had been premature; that the Cardinal's warnings and denunciations of Bianca had all been wise and just; and that now he—the Cardinal—must again step back into the position of the childless brother's heir. No! all this was not to be thought of. Bianca was—not pardoned—but blessed, as his best friend and helpmate. And the Grand Duke was thenceforward an accomplice in the fraud of substituting a false heir.
Ferdinando, with his triumphant proofs in his hand, was met, as has been told, with well–assumed impenetrable incredulity. He found the Grand Duke busy arranging the purchase of a principality in the kingdom of Naples for two hundred thousand ducats, to be settled on his darling child. And the dexterous, diplomatic, able Cardinal, had to return to Rome baffled and checkmated by a woman.
The Duchess Giovanna and her sorrows.—An heir is born.—Bianca in the shade.—The "Orti Oricellari."—Bianca entertains the Court there.—A summer night's amusement in 1577.—The death of Giovanna.
The conduct of the Grand Duke in neglecting his wife, a daughter of the proud house of Austria, while he abandoned himself to the seductions of a comparatively low–born adventuress, had not failed to expose him to urgent and very disagreeable remonstrances from the family of the Duchess. At the death of her brother Maximilian, negotiations were pending between the Imperial Court and that of Tuscany on two subjects. The first had reference to the full execution of the Imperial diplomas and decrees, which had conferred on the Grand Duke precedence over the other princes of Italy. This had never been admitted by them, especially by the house of Este. And Francesco ceased not to clamour for the due recognition of his rank. The other matter concerned the position of the Grand Duchess Giovanna. Rodolph, Maximilian's successor in the Empire, was anxious to remain on good terms with Francesco. And one of his first cares was to send an ambassador to Florence for the purpose of arranging these matters amicably.
The grounds of complaint against the Grand Duke on the part of Giovanna were sufficiently well founded. But she seems to have brought forward one accusation, from which her husband was able to defend himself satisfactorily. She complained that the pecuniary means allowed her were most insufficient; and that the mortifications to which she was thus exposed, were embittered by the lavish expenditure permitted to the vile woman for whose sake her husband neglected her. Now the truth was, that Giovanna was herself inordinately extravagant. It was easy for her to show that she had been driven to pledge her jewels and other valuables by need of money. But the Imperial lady did not seem to be aware that any limits ought to be placed to her power of disbursing. Living, as she did, wholly in a little court of her own Germans, her principal pleasure seems to have consisted in enriching them. And Francesco was able to show the Imperial ambassadors that if Giovanna was in debt, it was because she had spent more than the abundant income allowed her. As usual in all disputes, the Grand Duchess, by being wrong in this one point, made it the more difficult for her friends to insist upon right being done her in regard to those other matters, concerning which her complaints were clearly just.
However, a certain amount of reconciliation was brought about between her and Francesco; and what contributed far more than the exhortations of the Imperial Court, to make it for the moment genuine, was the birth of a son in 1577. This event was to the Grand Duke a subject of infinite rejoicing, and to Bianca a proportionably great humiliation. She found herself obliged to withdraw into perfect retirement, and even to leave Florence for awhile. The immense difference in her position, which was felt by herself and all Florence to result from the birth of this legitimate heir to the Duchy, is a measure of the importance of the fraudulent introduction of Don Antonio, and of the probability felt by all parties that means would have been found to secure for him the succession to the throne.
Philip II. of Spain graciously acceded to the Grand Duke's request that he would be godfather to Giovanna's child; and it was accordingly named after him.
During the first flush of the Grand Duke's triumph and rejoicing at the birth of his son, Bianca remained prudently in perfect retirement; and Giovanna flattered herself that she should at last hold the place in her husband's affections and in his court which were her due. But the hold that Bianca had established on Francesco's mind was too strong for him to be able to free himself from it. The need of her had become habitual to him, as is ever the case in associations between a weak character and a strong one. The illusions of poor Giovanna lasted but a very short time. Even the interest attaching to her boy, important as he was to the fortunes of the house of Medici, could not avail to prevent Bianca's re–appearance on the scene.
She returned to Florence, and soon found means of showing, by the accumulated marks of the Grand Duke's munificence towards her and her son, that the Florentines were mistaken if they had imagined that her reign was over.
One of the most notable, and it may be said, one of the most scandalous, manifestations of this renewed favour, was the gift of a palace and gardens in Florence, which had already acquired an historical celebrity of a widely different kind from that which was now to be added to it as the scene of many of Bianca's more or less disreputable orgies.
The property in question has since that time passed through several hands, and the traveller who has visited Florence will be most likely to remember it by the name of its last proprietor, as the Palazzo Strozzi. He will probably not have forgotten the large gardens which stretch behind it, and which through all changes have kept their original name, being still known as the "Orti Oricellari." These gardens, with the dwelling attached to them, were in the latter years of the fifteenth century the property of Giorgio Rucellai, the celebrated philosopher and historian. The house was then a "casino," belonging to the gardens, instead of being, as it now is, a palace, to which they are an appendage. And the writers of the time, who have frequently spoken of them, call them a "selva;" so that we must picture the place to our imaginations as very different from the trim garden which we now see.
It was to this spot that Lorenzo the Magnificent's Platonic Academy moved its sittings at his death in 1492. It was there that the brothers Palla and Giovanni Rucellai, sons of Giorgio, received Leo X.[174] when he came to Florence in 1515, and performed before him Giovanni's tragedy of "Rosmunda," composed in imitation of the Hecuba of Euripides,—one of the first, if not perhaps the first, tragic representation in Italy. It was there, too, that as times grew worse in Florence, and the minds of good citizens had to occupy themselves with matters more grave than Platonic philosophy and tragedies in imitation of Euripides, Macchiavelli read those discourses on the first Decade of Livy, which were so well calculated to rouse a spirit of patriotism, with which the author himself seems to have sympathised so imperfectly. It was there, also, that these readings bore their fruit in that unsuccessful conspiracy against the Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII., for which Jacopo da Diaceto lost his head; and in consequence of which the Academy was extinguished, and its members dispersed. In these gardens, also, Macchiavelli laid the scene of his dialogue on the Art of War. He describes the thickness and vast height of the trees,[175] several of which were of kinds unknown to Fabrizio Colonna, who is one of the interlocutors in the dialogue. He commemorates the extraordinary freshness of the herbage, the retired tranquillity and sylvan beauty of the spot, enclosed as it was within the buildings of a walled city; and speaks of this style of culture, contrasted with that which we call Italian gardening, as the ancient manner of cultivation.
And now this pleasant place, which was on so many accounts classical ground to the Florentines, was made the harbour of the very different sort of "Academy" which Bianca assembled around her, and the principal scene of their fooleries—to use a charitable term.
The details of one such night's amusement have been preserved by the contemporary novelist, Celio Malespini,[176] who is well known to have drawn all his materials from real history, and whose book may be accepted as a perfectly accurate and trustworthy picture of the manners of the time. Bianca's brother, Vittorio Cappello, was expected to arrive in Florence with other Venetian gentlemen, and the diversion in question was prepared for their especial delectation. The Grand Duke, however, appears to have taken his full share in the performances.
There was at that time, we are told, a necromancer at Florence, who was one of the most powerful performers in his profession. The garden had been placed by Bianca at his disposition, and the sovereign and court were invited by her to disport themselves as follows.
"When the hour was come, the Grand Duke and his companions repaired to the garden and walked in the shade, waiting till the necromancer should have completed his preparations. At last he came forth clad in a most extraordinary manner, but quite in keeping with his character. On his head was a mitre covered with pentagons and all sorts of extravagant figures, so that he appeared a veritable new Zoroaster. With slow and stately steps he advanced to a spot prepared for the purpose, and there drew a circle on the sward with a knife. This circle corresponded in size with a cavity which had previously been prepared beneath the surface of the soil; and around he drew with the knife a quantity of mystic signs, which, however, nobody saw, inasmuch as the place was all covered with herbage. But this was done," says the shrewd Malespini, merely for appearance sake,—'per dare colore all'arrosto.' "This done, he fenced the circle around with a piece of a ship's cable, leaving a narrow entrance, at which was placed a moderate sized bell. On the right hand were two large brasiers filled with burning coals; and on the left a filbert wand, and a vase full of drugs for fumigations. When all this was arranged, he brought the Grand Duke and the rest within the circle, imposing on them silence with solemn gestures; and then requested that one among them would stand forward and assist him in doing what was needed, assuring them, very seriously, that no harm should happen to him."
"At this Signor Sansonetto d'Avernia at once stepped forward and offered himself. The necromancer made him take off his shoes, and caused all the others to lay aside their arms. He then placed Sansonetto between the two brasiers, with the knife in one hand, which had been previously used for the formation of the circle, and in his other the filbert rod, which he directed him to hold stretched forth threateningly, while he stood erect and drawn up to his full height. Now Sansonetto was a very tall man, and extremely corpulent withal, with a very red face, like another Bacchus. So that the Grand Duke, seeing him standing there barefoot, with the knife raised in the air, and the brasiers on either side of him, could not forbear laughing, in which the necromancer had much ado not to join."
"When due gravity had been restored, the Grand Duke was placed in the centre, on a black velvet cushion, and all the others around the circle. All having taken their seats, the necromancer turning to the east, uttered a very loud whistle, and repeated the same towards the north, the south, and the west. It was now an hour and a half after sunset, and quite dark, so that the scene was visible only by the lurid light of the brasiers, which much favoured the effect intended to be produced. The wizard then took the bell, and ringing it loud and long, cried, 'Come hither! come hither! all spirits who owe me obedience!' And turning to the north he called 'Bardicul! Stuflogor! Solsibec! Graffaril! Tarmidar! Zampir! and Borgamur!' And when he had called these ridiculous names, which were the first (says Malespini, who seems rather an esprit fort) that came into his mouth, he turned to Sansonetto, and bade him throw the drugs on the braziers. These drugs were compounded of assafœtida, pitch, sulphur, and other stinking and abominable ingredients, and the wizard's intention was, that a small portion only should be thrown on the coals. But poor Sansonetto, in his zeal, threw such a quantity into the braziers, and raised so dreadful and fœtid a smoke, that all had to hold their noses, and it was almost impossible to endure it. The dreadful stench filled all the garden, and reached the nostrils of the lady Bianca, who, with some of her most intimate friends, was placed so that they could see all the sport without being seen. The necromancer perceiving, therefore, that Sansonetto had overdone the thing, and that the Grand Duke could hardly bear the stench and the smoke, judged it best to hasten to the catastrophe of his performance, instead of prolonging it by various other ceremonies, as he had intended. So he gave a concerted sign by thrice clapping his hands; whereupon the devils (concealed beneath the apparently unmoved surface of the soil) began to make such noises and thunderings, that one might have thought the end of the world was at hand, and the infernal regions opening beneath their feet. Dreadful cries and lamentations, strange howlings, gnashing of teeth, clanking of chains, sighs and groans, were heard; and innumerable flames of fire burst forth from holes made in the earth, so that the grass was burned by them. In truth, to anybody not in the secret, the scene must have been," thinks Malespini, "shocking and terrible in no small degree."
"And, indeed, when the party heard all this horrible tumult, many, I promise you, were frightened enough, and thought no more of the stinking smoke in their alarm. Then the necromancer thought it time to bring about his catastrophe. Stamping with his foot therefore, he gave the sign agreed on for the letting go the chains that supported over the pit beneath the platform with the soil and grass on which they were all sitting. The brasiers and the knife were dexterously removed outside the circle by the necromancer. But the whole of the party were precipitated pell–mell one over the other into the pit; much of the earth and sods which had been ranged on the platform falling on the top of them. If the previous circumstances had frightened them, let anybody judge," says our chronicler, "how much more they were terrified now, finding themselves all precipitated, with the Grand Duke in the midst, into the bowels of the earth. In short there was not one of them, as they afterwards confessed, who did not firmly believe that they had looked their last on the light of the sun."
"No sooner had they fallen thus into the pit, than the devils were upon them, making noises more horrible than before, and looking fearfully hideous in the lurid light of the flames that continually blazed forth. So that in truth the poor fellows were beside themselves with terror, and hardly knew if they were alive or dead."
"When they were thus in an agony of alarm and distress, there suddenly appeared a number of beautiful girls, who in some degree mitigated the stink of the smoke by delicious odours that they brought with them. Taking the Grand Duke and the others by the hand, they led them out of the horrible pit, comforting them," writes Malespini, "with amorous gestures and pleasing manners, and conducted them to the arcades that were in the garden. There they were restored by the exquisite odour which proceeded from a large golden lamp, that cast a soft light over all the arcade. And while they were admiring these beauties, who were," as the author somewhat contradictorily writes, "all naked, with gold brocaded mantles magnificently adorned with precious stones, the music of various instruments was heard, and angelic and divine voices carolled forth the words of certain hymns appropriate to the matter in hand. So that it really appeared to all present, that the whole hierarchy of paradise was there assembled. When the Grand Duke and his companions looked about them and saw a magnificently arranged banquet, with beautiful fruits of every kind, they could not but think themselves in the Elysian fields. Then the nymphs with infinite grace and charm of manner pressed them to rest and repose themselves; and the Grand Duke pretended (observe), to recover himself and collect his senses after so great an astonishment; and said to his companions, the Count Santafiora, the two Strozzi, and Altoviti, 'Let the meaning of all this be what it may, I think, for my part, that all these good things are not to be despised, and still less so these charming and amiable ladies.'"
"As for the others of the party, they had remained in the pit half dead, lying there insensible, till they were carried to beds prepared for the purpose, where they were properly attended by medical men provided for that end."
"As soon as the Grand Duke had spoken as above, a voice was heard to sing an ode," duly recorded by Malespini, but which the reader may be spared, in which the flattery of his highness is piled as only Italian hyperbole can pile it. "Meantime, the beautiful and elegant girls," says the writer, "among whom was one of exceeding loveliness, named Milla Capraia, did not cease to caress those noble knights; till suddenly another strophe was heard beginning 'Depart, oh noble heroes!' &c., and so the diversion came to a conclusion."
Such, considerably abridged, is the account of Bianca's mode of entertaining her guests among the classic shades where Lorenzo's Platonists had speculated, and Macchiavelli had stirred the patriotism of the last free sons of Florence.
It is perhaps worth remarking, that the words to which the readers attention was called,—"the Grand Duke pretended to recover himself"—seem to show, that he was in the secret of the performances all the time; and that the zest of the joke consisted in frightening the silly courtiers out of their wits, while their magnanimous sovereign should enjoy their discomfiture, himself seeming to be superior to all such terrors; and should be worshipped as a hero on the strength thereof by Miss Milla Capraia, who was to seem to put perfect faith in his heroism.
But while Bianca and the Grand Duke and the court were thus amusing themselves, a very different scene was passing in that corner of the huge pile of the Pitti palace, which contained the private apartments of the Duchess. At first the birth of her son had been a matter of immense rejoicing and triumph to the unhappy woman. The consequent retirement of Bianca had been a precious balm to her long mortified pride; and she had flattered herself that at last brighter days were before her, and that the mother of the heir to his crown would at least be held of some account in her husband's court, if not in his heart.
But gradually all these hopes failed her. Not only did the odious rival return, as we have seen, and recover all her previous ascendancy, but the arrival of her brother Vittorio, and the marked favour immediately shown to him by the Grand Duke, who received him as he might have done a visitor of princely rank, seemed to prove, that there was no hope of her being able to struggle against Francesco's infatuated affection for his mistress. The unhappy princess was expecting to be again confined in the spring of 1578, when these sorrows threw her back into the melancholy from which she had been for a brief space roused by the short–lived reconciliation with her husband. And there is little doubt that they contributed[177] to produce the fatal result which put an end to her joyless life on the 11th of May, 1578.[178]
Giovanna was not endowed with the qualities calculated to make her popular with the people of her adopted country. The cold Austrian nature, the absence of all personal charm, the pride of a scion of the house of Austria, so different in its kind from the lighter boastful vaingloriousness of their own princes, the haughty reserve and stiff ceremonial manners of the daughter of the line of Hapsburg, were uncongenial and disagreeable to the Florentines. A breaking heart, moreover, whose sorrows had to be hidden under a veil of courtly etiquette, was not calculated to improve these deficiencies. Notwithstanding all this, however, the too manifest unhappiness of her life, her dignified bearing under her misfortunes, the propriety of her conduct under strong temptation to act otherwise, all conciliated to her the sympathy and respect, if not the love, of all classes of the people.
It was known that on her death–bed she had repeatedly[179] implored the Grand Duke, for his honour and conscience' sake, to separate himself from the woman who had rendered her life so miserable, declaring at the same time that she freely pardoned her for all the ill she had suffered at her hands. And these circumstances, combined with the intense hatred which all Florence nourished for her unworthy rival, "the witch" Bianca, caused her death to be sincerely mourned by the entire city. And almost every writer of the period has a word of sympathy and pity for this one among the many victims of Medicean cruelty and crime.
What is Francesco to do now?—The Cardinal and Bianca try another fall.—Cardinal down again.—Francesco's vengeance.—What does the Church say?—Bianca at Bologna.—The marriage privately performed.—The Cardinal learns the secret.—The daughtership of St. Mark.—Venetian doings versus Venetian sayings.—Embassy to Florence.—Suppose we could have her crowned.—The marriage publicly solemnised.
What were Francesco's feelings on the death of his unloved wife? His conduct towards her had more than once got him into serious trouble with the Imperial Court. Little as he had heeded outraging her feelings, and parading his neglect of her before the world of Florence, still his intercourse with Bianca had been hampered by the necessity of making some little show of decency in the eyes of foreign courts. He had been obliged to have "riguardi," as the Italian phrase goes. Then Giovanna had been an expensive wife; far more so than Francesco liked. And now the cost of the magnificent obsequies, which were to lay her dust under the gorgeous dome of San Lorenzo, would be the closing article in that account.
Francesco was now free. Yet despite all these considerations, it may be very much doubted whether the death of his wife was matter of such unmixed contentment to him as it might at first sight seem to be. Now became due that bill drawn on futurity, that fatal promise to Bianca,—uttered "before an image," too, to make the matter worse,—that, should the time ever come, when they were both free, she should become his wife. It seems likely enough, that a feeling, which he may have mistaken for repentance, came over him in these days, when he thought on the slaughter of Bonaventuri.
It was not that the Grand Duke felt any repugnance in his own heart to perform his promise. His liking for his mistress seems to have been as strong or stronger than ever, and he wished sincerely to be married to her. But he hesitated to face the storm of disapprobation, which would follow the perpetration of such a mesalliance throughout Europe—the dismay of friends, the exultation of enemies, the discontent of his subjects, the ridicule of all. As for his promise, image and all, Francesco was not the man to be much troubled with any such bonds, if it suited his convenience to break them. He would have been bold enough to brave the resentment of any dead Saint in the calendar. But there was a living sinner, of whom he stood in considerably greater awe. How could he refuse to Bianca to keep the promise she had extorted, and the performance of which she would assuredly not now be weaker in exacting.
When the personal wishes of such a man as Francesco, strong only in wilfulness, and the determined will of such a woman as Bianca were on one side, and on the other only the fear of consequences, which could so far be kept at a distance, as never to be allowed to meet him face to face, it was little doubtful what the upshot would be. The contumely of Europe, and the reproaches of his family, might be effectually prevented from reaching his ears. But how avoid the nearer annoyances inseparable equally from living without Bianca, and from living with her, yet not acceding to her just demands.
Still, for some time the disturbance of Francesco's mind seems to have been extreme. Still, he let "I dare not wait upon I would;" and lived the while in a condition of miserable uncertainty and agitation.[180] His first step after the death of Giovanna was to leave Florence, where the universal lamentation for his ill–fated wife disgusted him. Perhaps, also, during this time of doubt and conflicting resolutions he was glad to escape from the presence of Bianca. It seems probable, indeed, from his conduct, that this was really his wish for the moment. For instead of going to any one of the numerous residences belonging to him in different parts of Tuscany, he kept continually moving from place to place, wandering through the least frequented parts of his dominions.
The Cardinal, to whom the death of the Grand Duchess had been a cause of serious grief and disquietude, was much reassured by this apparent desire on the part of Francesco to avoid the seductress at this conjuncture. He went to Porto Ferraio in the island of Elba in the hope of finding the Grand Duke there, and thus getting the opportunity of conferring with him at a distance from the influences with which Bianca in general contrived to surround him. Francesco, however, avoided any such interview with his brother; and the Cardinal had to content himself with sending a secretary, in whom he could confide, to urge those considerations on the Grand Duke, which he would fain have set before him in person. The messenger caught the Duke in Serravezza, a little hill village high up among the Apennines, and then one of the most remote spots in the Duchy, though now well–known as giving its name to the neighbouring marble quarries, which rival those of Carrara in the quality of their produce.
The instructions of Ferdinand's envoy were to move Francesco by every possible consideration to marry again, choosing his wife from among the princesses of those sovereign houses whose friendship might be useful for the sustaining of the family greatness.[181] It is clear, therefore, that whatever may have been the case at a later period, Ferdinand had not yet conceived the desire that his brother's inheritance might fall on him. Up to this time he was evidently labouring sincerely in the cause of Francesco's credit and honour, and all his schemes for the aggrandisement of the family were centred in the Grand Duke, and in the hope of his leaving legitimately born heirs male of sovereign lineage to succeed him.
But his messenger brought him back an account of his interview with the Grand Duke, which seems to have very much changed the course of his policy and conduct for the future. Francesco would not hear of contracting any such new marriage as was proposed to him. He professed indeed his determination not to marry again at all. But the secretary was able to detail to his master, certain little indications gleaned from the phrases or the actions of the Duke, which led the acute Cardinal to the conviction that Francesco had already made up his mind to marry Bianca. And from thenceforth the Cardinal very manifestly changed his conduct. He no longer made any attempt to preserve even that outward appearance of family union, which he had hitherto, despite all difficulties and provocations, succeeding in maintaining. He quarrelled with his brother openly and publicly; and in all the political manœuvrings for the petty objects arising out of the jealousies of the Italian princely houses, which made up the life occupation of the cardinals living in the Roman court, he thenceforth took a line of his own, wholly distinct from, and in some respects opposed to that of his brother, and the general Medicean family interest. He, for instance, began to cultivate a friendship with the court of France, between which and Francis, who had always inclined to that of Spain, there had ever been enmity.
Just about this time especially, he was on ill terms with France, which had been guilty of injuring him in one of the tenderest points in which the feelings of a despotic prince such as Francesco can be touched. She had accorded protection to fugitives from his vengeance. Several of those who had been implicated in the Pucci conspiracy, such as Antonio and Piero Capponi, and Bernardo Girolami, as well as Troilo Orsini, with whose guilt we have had occasion to become acquainted, had escaped thither, and lived unmolested under the protection of France. This was intolerable to Francesco. It was not so much the feeling of pique and jealousy which might exist between two governments on the subject of harbouring each other's outlaws, and which may well be a ground of legitimate remonstrance and discontent between neighbouring nations; for such a grievance can be remedied only by inducing the offending government to give up the refugees to the legal tribunals of their own country. What rankled in Francesco's heart was simply the frustration of his personal vengeance. And the measures which he adopted were accordingly directed wholly to the gratification of that feeling.
One Curzio Picchena was at that time secretary to the Florentine embassy at Paris, and to him was entrusted the execution of the Grand Duke's hitherto baulked revenge. He was directed to hire assassins to murder the above–named fugitives and others, at the price of four thousand ducats per murder. And he was furnished from Florence with poisons, the choice produce of the poison–laboratory established by Cosmo in the Uffizi, as one of the necessary institutions of statecraft, both for drugging the victims in case that should be found the preferable mode of proceeding, and for poisoning the weapons of the hired assassins if that course appeared more practicable![182] So carefully provident was this Medicean proficient in the arcana of kingcraft!
Girolami was accordingly assassinated. But his fate warned the others of their danger; and some fled into the provinces, and some to England. It was then judged, says the Italian historian, that Italian cut–throats would be found more capable in their calling. Of these masters in their art then, some were sent into France, and some to England; and these, unlike the French bunglers, soon gave their sovereign all the satisfaction he craved.
Such were the cares of State, which contributed to burthen the Grand Ducal mind, already sorely oppressed by the necessity of deciding what was to be done in the matter of Bianca and her claims. The agitation of his mind manifested itself in bodily restlessness; and he continued to ramble about his dominions, while Bianca, thus prevented from seeing him, kept up an unceasing battery of letters. At length he hit upon the common refuge of imbecility, and determined to throw upon other shoulders the task of decision, which he found too arduous for his own. So he summoned an able theologian, reputed—undeservedly, as the result clearly indicates—to be a thorough master of his business; and, confiding to him his difficulties, the promise he had made, and his own private desire to fulfil it, demanded to be told what it was his duty to do.
Now it would surely seem clear enough to any one conversant with the duties of court chaplains, what was the course to take after such an exposition of the case as this. And to a plain man, ignorant of canonical statute law, and incapacitated by his low estate from comprehending the difference between princely honour and vulgar individuals' honour, it would surely seem that Francesco's moral and religious duty was to keep his promise and marry his mistress. But not so judged the able theologian. He pointed out, with all the eloquence of perfect climax, that such a marriage would be uncanonical, void, disreputable, and inexpedient. And, forgetting the broad hint given him by the gracious sovereign as to his own wishes in the matter, he pushed his zeal for canon law and blood–royal propriety so far as to convince the Duke against his will, with the ordinary result of such convictions.
But Bianca, as usual, showed herself in this crisis also, perfectly equal to the occasion. As soon as ever she learned that Francesco had taken it into his head to look at the matter in a theological point of view, she took immediate means of insuring a supply of theological support from the most influential and effectual source. Francesco's own confessor was a Franciscan friar, he at least being the right man in the right place. To him Bianca found means of pointing out that the bishopric of Chiusi happened to be just then vacant. And the result of that communication was, that the Duke was very easily led to see all the professional mistakes committed by his previous adviser, and to arrive at the desired conclusion, that the Church and his duty required him to do exactly that which his own wishes prompted.
While theology was thus at work in her favour, Bianca was not idle on her own behalf. She was continually writing to the Grand Duke, and sometimes contrived to have news to tell him, tending to show how entirely their connection was recognised publicly, and respected. Thus we find from a MS.[183] record of the time, that she was at Bologna in the course of this spring with her daughter Pellegrina, and her son–in–law Ulisse Bentivoglio; and that she was received there with public honours, having been escorted into the city by a large company of the principal nobility, both cavaliers and ladies, "out of respect for the Grand Duke of Florence, seeing that the said Bianca was property of his—sua cosa." Surely it would be difficult to conceive a more striking mark of the degradation of a people, of their fitness to be slaves and unfitness to be anything else, than this going forth of the patricians of a great city to do honour to a prince's "cosa!" This, however, was of course not Bianca's reading of the incident, and its significance. Surely a "cosa" so received was worthy to become a wife! In short, writing sometimes in one tone and sometimes in another, she ceased not to pour in a well–sustained fire of letters,[184] till at last, just when her ally the friar was convincing his penitent that it was his duty to marry her, she threw in a final missive, full of pathetic resignation to his will, and intimations of her own intention not to survive her disappointment.
The game so well played was won. Francesco finally agreed to the marriage. But as Bianca was very strongly of opinion that, "if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," and as it was impossible to celebrate the marriage openly within a month or two of the death of the Grand Duchess, it was determined that it should take place privately, and be kept profoundly secret till the following year.
Accordingly, the marriage was duly performed on the 5th of June, 1578, in the Palazzo Vecchio, by the same convenient Franciscan friar who had worked so well to bring it about. The date of this event has been erroneously stated by various writers; but it is ascertained with certainty from a copy of the original certificate signed by "Frater Masseus Antonii de Bardis," which is preserved in a MS. of the Marciana library, cited by Cigogna.[185] The witnesses were a brother Franciscan monk, and Don Pandolfo de' Bardi, a relative of the Duke's confessor. The same document states that the ceremony was performed "in majori palatio," in the Palazzo Vecchio, as it is now called. And if it should chance that the reader has seen the chapel of that venerable pile, it will recur to his recollection as a most fitting spot for the celebration of any rite intended to be concealed from all eyes. It is inaccessible, except through other apartments of the palace; so small, as barely to admit the parties whose presence was necessary to the ceremony; and, though most richly decorated, so dark, that the features of those standing within it can barely be recognised by each other.
In this secret spot the Franciscan friar performed the rite which, in homely English phrase, made an honest woman of Bianca; a feat which—to recur to the words already quoted—"if it were done when 'tis done"—surely deserved the reward of the bishopric of Chiusi, or any other whatsoever.
So secret was the marriage kept, that even the lynx–eyed spies of the Cardinal had no suspicion of it. And he still continued,[186] despite his open quarrel with his brother, to make overtures in various Courts, in the hope of arranging some suitable marriage for him, for months after Bianca had made good her hold on him,—labours of her capable and crafty enemy which must, it may be supposed, have amused that lady not a little to witness.
In the early part of 1579 the Duke fell ill, and was at one time supposed to be in some danger; which furnished a pretext and opportunity to the Cardinal to visit his brother, with a view of getting at the truth respecting his position. For Francesco's steady refusal of the proposals made to him, and some other circumstances, had led him to conceive suspicions on the subject.
He found his brother ill in bed, exclusively attended by Bianca, to his great annoyance and disgust. And seized the first opportunity of reading the sick man a strong lecture on the impropriety, and even risk, of allowing that infamous woman to have the charge of his sick room. Whereupon Francesco felt himself obliged to let the secret out, and acknowledge that "the infamous woman" was Grand Duchess of Tuscany.
Ferdinand dissembled the excess of his sorrow and indignation at this confession, and remained with his brother till he was out of danger. But it is recorded, that when he repeated the fact to his confidential secretary, he could not refrain from tears of mortification; and he returned to Rome with a fresh accumulation of anger against his brother, and of the bitterest hatred for the woman, to whom he attributed the disgrace of his family, and the ruin of his well–plotted and laboriously prosecuted schemes for its aggrandisement.
The Grand Duke meanwhile, having recovered his health, continued to keep his marriage secret till the middle of April, when the year of mourning for his former wife was completed. Then his first care was to communicate the fact to his friend and patron, Philip of Spain, intimating that he awaited only his approval to publish it to all the courts. Philip, thinking probably that it mattered little whom a trading, plebeian–descended Medici married, gave his gracious approbation. But still one more step remained to be taken before making the public announcement to all Europe. Anxious to find some means of gilding a little, if possible, the ignoble object of his choice, he sent an embassy to Venice, informing the senate of his intention, in a highly flattering letter, to the effect that he considered the lady a daughter of the Republic, and that it is his hope in uniting himself to her, to become a son of Venice, and ever to show himself such to the republic.
This embassy entrusted by Francesco to the Count Mario Strozzi of Santafiora, was received with every possible demonstration of respect and satisfaction by the Venetians. Santafiora was escorted into the city with public honours. Forty senators were deputed to wait on him in the name of the Republic. The Cappello palace was assigned to him as a residence, and he was received at the door of it by the Patriarch of Aquileia, the greatest man of the family connection. Bianca's father and brother were made cavalieri, dubbed "illustrissimi," and entitled to precedence over all other members of the order. In the gala doings which accompanied these events the Queen of the Adriatic outdid herself, we are told, in feasts and magnificence.[187] By a unanimous vote of the Senate on the 16th of June, in consideration of "the Grand Duke of Tuscany having chosen for his wife Bianca Cappello, of a most noble family in this city, a lady adorned with all those most excellent and singular qualities, which make her most worthy of any the highest fortune, it is ordered that she be created a true and particular daughter of the Republic."[188] The same decree orders a golden chain of the value of a thousand dollars to be given to Francesco's ambassador. Moreover, all unpleasant memorials of the time before the lady's most excellent and signal qualities had been discovered, were ordered, as we have seen, to be erased from the public registers.
It is difficult to understand all this excessive avidity of toad–eating servility and flunkeyism in such a body as the Venetian senate. But a few months previously they had manifested a very different tone of feeling on the subject of Bianca's connection with the Grand Duke, superior alike to any sentiments to be found among the Florentine nobles, and to these their own subsequent acts. For we read in a MS. chronicle of the time by Francesco Molino, cited by Cigogna,[189] that Bartolommeo Cappello, her father, having purchased the magnificent palace De' Trivigiani with money received from his daughter, was so ill–looked on in Venice in consequence, that he was solely on this account excluded from the senate; "inasmuch as it was thought that the connection of that family with the Prince Francesco arose from a base and disgraceful cause; and that though it might be profitable, and might, perhaps, be deemed honourable for others, it was not so for a Venetian gentleman."
That last touch of republican pride is magnificent; and it is a pity that any reasons of policy, or other motive of any kind, should have induced the senate to exhibit itself so lamentably false to all such generous feeling so shortly afterwards.
Francesco was exceedingly delighted at the abundant success of his embassy to Venice. Bianca now was—no, not was exactly—but might be supposed to seem to be, no longer a private individual, but a princess, as being the daughter of a sovereign state. By metaphor, fiction, parchment, and herald's trumpeting, Bianca was now a princess, of due rank to mate with a sovereign duke; and Francesco accordingly announced to the various courts on the 20th of June his forthcoming marriage with a daughter of the republic of Venice. The ceremony was fixed for the 12th of October, 1579; and immense preparations were made to celebrate it with unusual pomp and splendour.
Meanwhile the Grand Duke sent his natural brother, Don Giovanni, a boy of twelve years old, with a numerous train, to bear his thanks to the Republic for the honours conferred on his bride. He was received by eight–and–twenty Venetian gentlemen at the frontier, and by forty senators outside the city, by whom he was processionally conducted to the Casa Cappello, where Vittorio, Bianca's brother, was charged by the senate to entertain him at the expense of the state, which granted an unlimited credit for that purpose. Under these circumstances it may be safely conjectured that the boy ambassador was received with such holiday keeping, as left on his mind no mean impressions of Venetian hospitality and magnificence.
On the 28th of September arrived in Florence the ambassadors sent by Venice "to put," says Galluzzi,[190] "Bianca in possession of the prerogatives which the daughtership of St. Mark produced to her." It is rather difficult to understand what these prerogatives might have been; but it is probable that if the baggage of the ambassadors had been searched for them, they would have been found to consist in a certain quantity of engrossed parchment and sealing–wax, cased in some more or less splendidly adorned wrappage of velvet or cloth of gold.
The ambassadors, however, Antonio Tiepolo and Giovanni Michiel, were assisted in bringing these "prerogatives" by a train of ninety gentlemen of the noblest houses in Venice. It was apparently thought necessary that the extrinsic pomp of this embassy should be in exact proportion to the intrinsic meanness of the business it was engaged on. For we are told that it outshone in taste and magnificence all former doings of the kind, even in the most palmy days of Venice. And all the ninety noble gentlemen who came to make kotoo to Francesco's cosa, vied with each other in efforts of ostentation for the manifestation of their, own greatness.
Beside these ninety, there came also the bride's father and brother, and the Patriarch of Aquileia, by no means behindhand, the holy man, in availing himself of his scrap of relationship to the "cosa," for the purpose of bringing his grey hairs into the sunshine of a princely countenance. And with these came other eighty, all calling themselves relations of the bride; and all were lodged in the Pitti palace, and treated with all sorts of junkettings and diversions, banquets, balls, tourneys, hunting–parties (with nets), bull–baiting, chariot races, comedies, &c.
The task of thus entertaining his wife's relatives on this occasion is computed to have cost Francesco three hundred thousand ducats,[191] a sum which, allowing for the difference in the value of money, seems almost incredible. It happened to be a year of great scarcity in Tuscany. There was wide–spread and severe distress among the people, who looked on at this lavish and useless expenditure; and the sight did not contribute to conciliate the love of the Florentines to their new liege lady.
Meanwhile, in the interval between the arrival of the ambassadors in Florence, and the day appointed for the ceremony, it occurred to Francesco,[192] that the daughtership of St. Mark might be turned to better account yet. There had been two other daughters of St. Mark, one the wife of a king of Hungary, and the other Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus. Now, why should not Bianca also be crowned, as a daughter of the Republic. It would have a very good effect as part of the ceremony at all events, and might very likely pass with many persons for more than it really was. Crowning is crowning; and whether the crown to be placed on Bianca's head was that of St. Mark's daughter, or that of a Grand Duchess of Tuscany, might very easily be little observed or questioned.
The Venetian Senate on their part consented willingly to permit the ambassadors at Francesco's request to perform this ceremony in their name, but were quite awake to the same probability of error, and were anxious that their crowning of their daughter should be known to be their deed, and the dignity one of their bestowing. So the letter, by which they authorise Tiepolo and Michiel to comply with Francesco's wish enjoins, that in placing the crown on her head, "it shall be proclaimed in a loud voice, that it is in sign of her being a true and particular daughter of our Republic." And a second letter charges them to take care, that those words are so said "as to be distinctly heard by all around, and in such a manner that they be not drowned by any noise of trumpets or otherwise."[193]
But there was also another person in Florence, who pricked up his ears, and had a word to say in the matter, when he heard a talk of crowning going on. This was the Pope's nuncio, who protested that all crowning appertained to his master. And it was necessary to quiet him by pointing out and declaring explicitly, that what was proposed was no crowning of a Grand Duchess, but merely a token of the daughtership of St. Mark. And he also was anxious that this fact should be clearly avowed and understood.
Notwithstanding all this, however, many chroniclers contemporary and other, have written that Bianca was crowned Grand Duchess of Tuscany.[194] Perhaps the Florentine trumpets and shoutings contrived to make the words of the Venetian functionary inaudible despite his efforts to obey the senate and make himself heard.
The ceremony began on the appointed day in the great hall of the Palazzio Vecchio—the same hall in which Capponi had persuaded the Florentines to elect Jesus Christ for their king, and Savonarola had instructed the great council of the nation to abstain from debating, in order the more swiftly to act on his suggestion. In that famous old hall, once the very cradle of Italian freedom, and the heart of the popular life, a throne was built for the prince by right divine;—right truly and absolutely divine of those eternal laws, which make such princes the natural result of the lack of wisdom and worth, and excess of evil and unruly passions which had been exhibited in the councils of that council–chamber. The ungainly irregularity in the form of the enormous hall may have in some measure marred the symmetry of the upholstery magnificences. But Francesco and Bianca should have been well content to pardon any such eyesore. For the fashion all awry of that home of the old Republic, in which no wall makes a right angle with its neighbour, commemorates literally, as well as typically, the implacable internecine party hatreds of the Florentines.[195] And had that stone embodiment of the spirit of the old Italian commonwealths been able to be built straight, Florence would not have had that day to stand abject, vicious, and degraded to bow before a despot and his ... cosa.
When the prince was seated, and all his military, legal and clerical flunkeys in their proper liveries, duly ranged around him, Bianca was led in by the ambassadors of Venice; and floods of speechifying, easy to be imagined, but intolerable to read, were uttered by the various functionaries of either nation. Probably if might be difficult for the strictest analysis to detect one particle of truth in all that was said. To Grimani, the old patriarch of Aquileia, it fell to make an oration "on the utility of this marriage and the value of the daughtership of St. Mark." The two ambassadors did their crowning; but in some way or other failed to do it to the satisfaction of the Senate. For when they, in accordance with Venetian law, asked permission to keep the present of a ring worth fifteen hundred dollars, given to each of them by Francesco, it was refused.[196]
When the business had been got through thus far, Bianca was carried,—chaired, it should seem like a newly elected M.P.,—with the crown on her head to the cathedral; and there were done "sacred sacrifices," "divine services," and other such unbounded lying of an intensified, infinite, and yet more pernicious sort than that previously perpetrated in the lay part of the business.
And so Bianca was made a Duchess—nay Grand Duchess; and stepped triumphantly on her excelsior path, rewarded by success for her long efforts, patient endurance, sleepless astute vigilance, courageous battling with danger and difficulty, and unscrupulous daring.
Honesty the best policy! Policy, for what object? Not for scaling the throne of a Grand Duchess apparently!