Pope Leo X. at Raphael's Bier From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz HanfstaenglPope Leo X. at Raphael's BierFrom the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl
It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in superintending archæological excavations which truly caused his death on his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor I, my Giulio, can ever forget.
Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom death deprived of a happy marriage."
A CELLINI CASKET
INTERLUDE
The trellis that once shut the forest treesFrom the fair flowers, all torn and broken is,Though still the lily's scent is on the breeze,And the rose clasps the broken images.William Morris.
NEGLECTED but not ruinous, its marbles mossy, its once unrivalled garden invaded by sweet wild-flower banditti which run riot among the gentle roses, its fountains dry, their cracks and crannies the homes of basking lizards, its charming loggia trodden only by enthusiasts for whom every spot touched by the genius of Raphael is a shrine of pilgrimage—the Villa Madama, though appealing in its desertion, is not a melancholy solitude.
Detail of Vault in Villa Madama—Stucchi by Giovanni da UdineDetail of Vault in Villa Madama—Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine
The imagination is intoxicated as by some heady wine as one gazes outward upon the dazzling panorama which originally determined the site of the loggia; and when, fatigued by the flashing sunlight, our eyes turn to the interior they are soothed by the subtler beauties of the half-effaced frescoes, the floral arabesques which Giovanni da Udine lavished upon the spandrils, the poutingputtiin Giulio Romano's frieze of cherub faces, carrying out a scheme of decoration which could have been designed by no other than Raphael. We are certain as we recognise in a more delicate line, or exquisite touch recalling the arabesques of the Vatican loggia, that just here the great impresario must have caught palette and brushes from the hand of his pupil with, "Me perdone Giovanino mio, let me frolic a while with these fairy creatures and show them to you as I saw them in my childhood dancing in the swaying vines that garlanded the pergolas of Urbino." And so they revel here, myths of the childhood of the race, monstrous creatures, half beast, half human; centaurs, fauns, tritons, mermaids, sphinxes, lamias, their grotesquerie no longer repulsive, for it is a foil to the utmost elegance and sumptuousness of Renaissance art, their multiplicity never wearying, because they are marshalled by the greatest master in decorative design that the world has known. They lurk in the convolutions of exquisiterinceaux, uncoiling themselves from the scrolls of acanthus foliage, where sport also more delicate hybrid flowers;—women, whose beautiful bodies rise like anthers from the calices of impossible blossoms, whose arms are coiling tendrils and whose limbs melt into the curves of exuberant leafage unknown to the botanist.
But the charm which holds the visitor who penetrates this delicious solitude is due not alone to the sense of sight. A haunting suggestiveness breathes from these surroundings, like the perfume exhaled when one unlocks a long-closed sandal-wood casket, once the depository of dainty feminine trifles. It needs not the name of the villa to tell us that a lady, sitting in this loggia, once duplicated Da Udine's traceries in her embroidery, gathered roses in the garden, and looked longingly toward Rome while awaiting the coming of her princely lover, and many a visitor has been piqued by the ignorance of the custodian of the villa to search history for this mysterious Madama.
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586 From an old engravingMargaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma, 1586From an old engraving
Margaret of Austria, daughter of an Emperor, wife of the reputed son of one Pope and of the grandson of another, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Duchess of Parma, quartered the imperial eagle upon the balls of the Medici and the lilies of the Farnese. That the bar sinister was conspicuous upon her escutcheon mattered little in the age in which she lived, for the Emperor Charles V. acknowledged and advanced the interests of his illegitimate daughter with the same lack of embarrassment shown by the popes in the favouritism of their "nephews."
A doubtful advantage this, but one with far-reaching consequences, for when Margaret was twelve years of age, Charles conquered Rome and the child's connection with Italy and the Villa Madama had its beginning.
The villa had been built by Raphael for Pope Clement VII., while he was yet only Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, as a pleasure casino to which he could retreat from the cares imposed upon him by his cousin, Pope Leo X. Later when as successor to the tiara he found that not the least burden in the heavy legacy bequeathed him was that of the guardianship of the Medici family, it became the resort of his Florentine relatives on their quieter visits to Rome and the home of a mysterious child, Alessandro, of whom the Pope announced himself the guardian.
When Lorenzo II., (grandson of the Magnificent) died, leaving but one legitimate child, Catherine de' Medici, the future Queen of France, Clement imposed Alessandro upon Florence as the natural son of Duke Lorenzo.
There lacked not shrugging of shoulders at this imputed parentage and Florence revolted against receiving a bastard and a mulatto as its sovereign.
But trouble was brewing both for Florence and the Pope. Charles V. had determined to make himself master of Italy; his forces closed around Rome, and Clement, fleeing through the underground passage from the Vatican, shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo, and from it beheld the horrors of the sack of the city.
From its parapets, too, he witnessed the occupation of his cherished villa by Bourbon's savage soldiery.
Benvenuto Cellini relates (with his characteristic self-laudation) his prowess in killing the Constable de Bourbon and in defending the castle of St. Angelo, and although his perspective is slightly forced from his habit of placing his own colossal figure in the foreground, no chronicle gives a more vivid account of these stirring events.
Stucchi by Giovanni da Udine Villa MadamaStucchi by Giovanni da UdineVilla Madama
What a picture he might have painted for us of the meeting of the Pope and the Emperor after the pacification; when Clement crowned his late adversary and Charles, reinstating Duke Alessandro over Florence, betrothed his beautiful daughter Margaret to that base-born reprobate!
Cellini might also have told us much of the after-life of the Duchess, for he knew her well, and mentions her with admiration in his autobiography. He served Alessandro too in Florence, and boasts of the intimacy which he enjoyed in the ducal household.
There was no one living at that period so well qualified as he to relate the inner history of that tragical marriage and of the romance which effaced its memory and lingers still like an elusive perfume in her exquisite villa.
Judge, lenient reader, if Cellini had told that last story, would not its mainfactshave corresponded with those embodied in the following pages, though the tamer phrasing and more conventional attitude of the writer compared with the audacity of his racier chronicle
"Are as moonlight unto sunlight,And as water unto wine."
being certain pages not included in the auto-biography of its maker
I
It will be remembered by those who have read my published memoirs that in the year 1535, while I was in Florence in the service of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, I received orders from his excellency to execute a littlecoffrein gold to hold his own portrait, a medallion which I had previously modelled from life and cast in relievo.
That I dismissed so lightly masterpieces of which I had such reason to be proud was due to the fact that certain personages of exalted station and of choleric temper, quick and able to revenge any imputation upon their honour were concerned in the adventures of the casket, so that I deemed it prudent during their lifetime to withhold a recital which I trust my present reader may find of a diverting nature.
This casket was conceded by all connoisseurs in such matters to be the most admirable work of its kind hitherto produced. It was crowned by a statuette of Hercules, with other most exquisite figurines at the four corners, set upon feet of crouching sphinxes, half women and half panthers, and was further enriched by reliefs of laughing boys holding garlands, by grotesque masks and foliages of the most graceful and ingenious design that could possibly be conceived.
I had been to infinite pains, as was but fitting since the Duke proposed to present it to his betrothed, Margaret Duchess of Parma, daughter of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to whom he was to be married at Naples on the return of her father from his glorious expedition against the Turkish Corsairs. This marriage had been arranged for his "nephew" by Pope Clement VII. on his pacification with the Emperor after the taking of Rome, but its consummation had been hitherto delayed on account of the tender age of the bride. Now, however, she was upon her way to meet her father. Therefore the Duke requested me to serve as his messenger in presenting these gifts, whose excellencies I of any person in the world was most competent to explain and extol.
Instructed that the Duchess Margaret would rest upon her journey at the villa which Raphael had built for the Pope upon the slopes of Monte Mario, and which Clement had bestowed upon her as a part of her dowry, I repaired thither before entering the gates of Rome.
I had been told by the Duke to ask upon my arrival not for the Duchess but for Monna Afra, who had been installed as housekeeper of the villa by the Pope when he was as yet only young Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and his personal affairs were not submitted to the glare which surrounds the tiara.
Whatever these may have been, Monna Afra, though once a Moorish slave, and of dark complexion and uncertain temper, was not without a certain savage beauty, or would have been but for the marks of tattooing between her eyes, and, though well advanced in years, carried herself erect with a dignity worthy of royal descent.
She was dressed in the Moorish fashion, with a profusion of necklaces of linked sequins of uncut precious stones and of large turquoises, some of them I could judge of great value, though clumsily set. These necklaces depended from beneath her gaily striped head-cloth upon her forehead and also covered her bosom. Her dark blue robe was girdled by a golden belt of curious workmanship, and she wore bangles upon her ankles with bracelets of cheap blue glass upon her arms. Her hair, braided in a multitude of fine plaits, was jet black and heavily perfumed. She wore but one ear-ring, a hoop of gold in which twinkled a great diamond.
I had a letter for her from the Duke, and as it has never been my practice to deliver a missive of whose contents I am ignorant, lest I might be deputed to give orders for my own execution, I had taken the precaution to open it (having first made an impression of the seal so that I could reseal it beyond possibility of detection), but all to no avail for this letter was written in Arabic, of which language I have no knowledge. I was in twenty minds to destroy it, professing that I had lost iten route, but having calculated that honesty was the more gainful part to play, I put my trust in my patron saint and boldly presented it. By so doing I came into possession of an important secret, for on reading the letter Monna Afra exclaimed: "My son informs me that you are an unprincipled rogue whose life he holds in his hands, on account of certain murders which you have committed, and that therefore I need not fear to trust you with our private affairs."
The opening words of this ungracious speech caused my spirit to leap within me, for Duke Alessandro far from confiding to me or to any one else the secret that he was the child of a mulattress, and in all probability the bastard of the Pope, had persistently maintained that he was the legitimatised son and rightful heir of the last Duke of Florence, and his mother a princess whose name would in time be divulged, and this notwithstanding that his dark complexion proclaimed him of Oriental race.
I dissimulated my exultation, swore loyalty to my patron's honoured mother, and showed her the portrait of her son, with which she was greatly pleased.
"You shall give this to the Duchess, later," she declared, taking the casket from me, "but first I desire you to copy the medallion for me, and to say nothing of this commission."
The wish to possess the likeness of her son seemed so natural to a mother and so flattering to me that I readily consented to oblige her, being the more content to do so that I found myself extremely well lodged and nourished in one of the dependencies of the villa, with the suite of noble attendants appointed to wait upon the Duchess.
Among these I have cause to remember with the utmost vividness a beautiful page, the grandson of Cardinal Farnese, who waited upon Margaret as her train-bearer. This boy's name was Ottavio, and I was drawn to him from the first for his character matched the exceeding loveliness of his lineaments.
Monna Afra from some strange whim had desired me to copy the Duke's portrait upon glass, and thinking possibly that I might break the slip, had given me two of precisely the same size. On one of these I was impelled to paint for myself the miniature of this adorable child in the court costume of white satin doublet and white silk hose which he was to wear at the wedding of the Duchess. To this circumstance was due a mischance, which while it seemed to work me ill at the time was in the end productive of good.
Though but a child in years the soul of the page, Ottavio Farnese, was well-nigh ravished from his body with love for the Duchess, who but six years older than himself was still but a slip of a girl. Often as I saw these two children pelting each other with roses and playing many childish games I wished that by some enchantment I might keep them thus forever, for my heart revolted at the thought that this exquisite creature was soon to be sacrificed to a brutal profligate twice her own age.
"Certes," I said one day to Ottavio, "it is a great pity that you are not some ten years older, then would I devote myself to your service and it should go hard ere the daughter of Charles V. should wed with that swine of an Alessandro de' Medici."
"Is he indeed a hog?" cried the boy, "then will I slay him, for I would gladly give my life for her."
Seeing that so precocious and so pure an affection was beyond the conception of our comrades (though not of the ancients since they figured the love of the boy Cupid for Psyche), I protected Ottavio from their ribaldry, declaring that I would punish with my sword any who made a jest of a devotion which might have drawn tears from the angels.
While the Duchess Margaret was in her way equally charming, she was not of such a heavenly gravity as her little comrade. On the contrary, at this time her spirits overflowed in a bewitching and mischievous wilfulness, which made her the more irresistible. She was conscious that she was soon to be wedded, and this knowledge gave her a sense of importance together with mysterious heart throbbings and perturbations, a wild curiosity to know what manner of man her future husband might be—the coquettishness natural to woman which at times made her rebel at being thus fettered, all the more that it was without her consent, and at others built up an ideal in her imagination which she was ready to fall down and worship.
Seeing her thus curious, Monna Afra had promised Margaret that a necromancer should show her the presentment of her future husband; and upon a certain morning this designing woman sent for me, saying that the slave who ordinarily assisted this magician had suddenly died, and that she desired me to aid him in his magic rites.
She neglected not at the same time to remind me again that I was completely in her power and that if I did not perform all that was demanded of me she would denounce me to the authorities as a murderer. Thus admonished, and believing also that the necromancer was able to work me a mischief, I put my trust in St. Michael, confounder of Satan, and faithfully performed all that I was bidden to do.
Hurrying me into a musician's gallery, which overlooked the chamber in which the incantations were about to take place, the sorcerer showed me a strange instrument, compounded of lenses set in a black box in which burned a small lamp. "Fear not, Benvenuto," he whispered, seeing that I hesitated, "but manipulate this machine as I will now show you, placing from time to time these slips of painted glass in front of the lamp, and when I shall call upon the name of the arch fiend Beelzebub, be careful to introduce the copy of the portrait of the Duke which you have just made for Monna Afra." He then made some cabalistic signs upon my forehead and bidding me be of stout heart descended to the main floor of the room, which was but dimly lighted by the flames of a brazier.
I could see, however, that around the light were grouped the Duchess Margaret, Monna Afra and Ottavio, who suspecting some design against his mistress, had insisted on accompanying her. Around these three the necromancer now traced upon the floor a magic circle; entering it and directing Margaret to keep her eyes fixed on the wall opposite to the little gallery where I stood, he invoked with a loud voice the demons Soracil, Sathiel, and Ammon dwellers in the moon, bidding them appear with all their legions.
As I had previously witnessed a similar conjuration by which another necromancer had filled the tiers of the Colosseum with innumerable legions of devils, the horrible fear which I had experienced on that occasion returned in so lively a manner that my hands trembled so that I could scarcely perform the rites assigned to me. I had hardly introduced the first slip of glass when Ottavio cried out that the house was on fire and endeavoured to drag the Duchess from the circle, but the necromancer held him firmly and commanded him on his life not to stir as the demons were gathering in force.
Having placed the next slip of glass in its place I myself perceived them, horrid creatures of gigantic stature clutching at their victims. Thus the ceremony proceeded, the enchanter uttering strange sentences in the Hebrew language, while Monna Afra shrieked and howled in blood-curdling tones.
Ottavio also was well-nigh bereft of his senses with fear, and flinging his arms about the Duchess cried to the fiends to take him to hell, but to spare his beloved lady.
At this point, Margaret, who was strangely unafraid, repeated after the necromancer these words: "I conjure thee, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, to reveal to me the likeness of my lord and husband, and renouncing all others I promise to be true to him throughout all eternity."
This was my cue, but fumbling in the casket for the portrait of Duke Alessandro I inadvertently introduced into the throat of the infernal machine not that bit of glass but the one on which I had painted the likeness of Ottavio.
Seeing the beautiful face of the lad gleaming like that of an angel between the rifts of the smoke of hell, there was not one of us who for the instant doubted that the apparition was miraculous.
Monna Afra ceased her diabolical bellowing, the necromancer was speechless with surprise, only Ottavio found his voice, and crying, "It is I, it is I!" fainted from stress of emotion.
Comprehending immediately that I would be held responsible for the miscarriage of the prodigy I hastily made my escape from the villa, nor did I, until long thereafter, meet with any of the parties concerned in this adventure. The augury in which I had assisted seemed false for the marriage of Margaret to Duke Alessandro took place, as had been planned, on the arrival of the Emperor at Naples. Though Charles was greeted with acclamations as the champion of the Church against the infidel, he having put to flight Hayraddin, admiral of the Sultan, and taken the city of Tunis, thus liberating thousands of Christian captives,—yet in the midst of the festivities there lacked not those who saw a certain inconsistency in the wedding of his sweet daughter to a man notorious for his wickedness and of the very race which he professed to hold in such abhorrence.
Duke Alessandro after his marriage refrained not one whit from his evil ways, but rather exceeded his former profligacy, so that all Florence was scandalised thereby and pitied his gentle Duchess. I mind me now, however, that to my astonishment there was one who took another view of the matter, for Lorenzino de' Medici affirmed that Margaret was possessed of that dauntless courage which one sees sometimes in the tamers of lions and other savage beasts; that Alessandro was a mean-spirited creature cowed by his child wife; and that one had but to note the haughty poise of her head and the hang-dog sullenness which he maintained in her presence to guess the truth. Though I abhorred the Duke, yet as he had made me master of the mint it was necessary that I should have commerce with him, and on the first occasion upon which I presented myself being made to wait in an ante-chamber, I overheard a remarkable conversation which caused me to credit the opinion of Lorenzino. The door was ajar between the room in which I sat and the next in which the Duke and Duchess had just risen from breakfast.
What he had said to her I know not, but his face was one malignity as he leaned toward her across the small table. She faced his snake's eyes, her own dark with an intensity which should have warned him, and half beneath her breath, as though she told him of some danger with which she had nothing to do, as one might have said, "Provoke not that dog, or you will inevitably be bitten,"—she very quietly uttered these words:
"Lay so much as your finger upon me and I will kill you."
"And what is to hinder my killing you first, my little tigress?" he hissed.
I had gripped my sword in answer to that question, but there was no need, for she blazed forth at him, the very daughter of her father.
"The Emperor!" she cried triumphantly, and there she had him; for though Charles had sold her like a slave and lifted no finger to avenge the indignity which she suffered, yet Alessandro well knew that he would be answerable for her life. As she left the room the Duke turned upon his heel, and catching sight of me cried out angrily that I was well come, for he was on the point of arresting me for feloniously making away with the casket and portrait which he had bidden me take to his consort.
I told him truly that I had left the casket in the possession of his mother. With that he flew into a rage, demanding who had dared to say that this vile hag was in anyway related to him.
I made answer that Monna Afra had herself told me that this was the fact, whereupon he swore that he would kill her for spreading such a rumour, and offered me a large sum to undertake her execution for him. When I respectfully declined this office he replied: "As you please, but if you hold not your tongue concerning this matter I will find effectual means to silence you."
Then reflecting doubtless that I was not a man to be governed by threats but more likely to be moved to generous deeds by appreciation of my talents, he admitted that his wife had indeed had the casket in her possession after I left Villa Madama, and had not missed it until her chests were unpacked at Naples, and that his true reason for choosing me to regain and restore it to her was that I was the best fitted of all his courtiers for so difficult an undertaking.
I replied that the opportunity to serve the Duchess would be the greatest favour and honour which he could confer upon me,—and with that he showed me the key of the casket which until now had never quitted Margaret's chatelaine, desiring me to duplicate it for him, with this difference that the handle was to be ornamented by a crown of thorns.
When I objected that the metal points would inevitably pierce the hand of the Duchess when she attempted to unlock the casket, he replied that he did not design the key for his wife, and bade me obey orders without foolish comment.
As I am an expert in forging metals I soon made a little key with which the Duke was delighted. Taking it into his cabinet he returned presently with a little box on which were inscribed certain Arabic characters.
"This box," said he, "contains the key which you have just fabricated with an order to Monna Afra to deliver the casket into your hands."
"Since I am to bring away the casket," I replied, "for what purpose do you send this key? Is it, perchance, that Monna Afra may retain for herself any of the contents of thecoffre?"
"I have already reproached you"—the Duke answered with a most malignant expression—"for giving vent to vain imaginings. If you cannot refrain from thinking, at least keep silence, and implicitly carry out my instructions.
"After delivering this package wait a little, while Monna Afra goes to fetch the casket; should she tarry follow her and, no matter what you may see or surmise, make no outcry but hasten from the villa failing not to bring the casket with you. The Duchess tells me that while at the villa she kept it in a hiding-place constructed by the Pope for his jewels, which opens by pressing a certain ball upon one of the Medicean shields with which the villa is so profusely ornamented. But, on reflection, I see no reason for giving you access to our family treasure-chest. Monna Afra will not have placed the casket there, since she herself showed the Duchess the secret receptacle, and it would be the first place in which she would search for it; and if, indeed, it is hidden there it is perfectly safe."
Thus commissioned I betook myself again to Rome; but being welcomed by old acquaintances, and finding an accumulation of important orders awaiting my attention, I naturally thought that the Duke's business might wait upon my own, and indeed might have clean forgotten it but for the following circumstance.
I had gone fowling one day with a friend in the marshes near the villa of Magliana, in the neighbourhood of Ostia. Toward nightfall (as I have elsewhere related), happening from a little hill to look in the direction of Florence, I saw an extraordinary phenomenon, namely, a heavenly body in the shape of a Turkish scimitar, its blade directed toward the city. Whereat I exclaimed loudly, "We shall certainly hear that some great event has occurred at Florence."
Even as I spoke a stranger wrapped in a long cloak who at a little distance from us was attentively observing this appearance, asked me what I supposed the portent might signify.
"Nothing less," I replied confidently, giving vent to the first thought which came into my mind, "than the assassination of Duke Alessandro." With that he uttered an exclamation in Arabic, and hurried in the direction of the Tiber. We had ridden but a short distance when some peasants rushed toward us with frantic gestures, crying out that a ship rigged after the manner of the Turkish corsairs was moored in the river.
This gave us such a fright that we clapped spurs to our horses and rode with the utmost speed to Rome. But our fears having somewhat abated, we made no report of the alarm upon our arrival, realising that we had cut no great figure in the adventure.
The next day, my thoughts being still upon the Duke, I resolved to execute his orders and so rode out to the Villa Madama. As I approached what was my surprise to see descending its terraces the same man who had accosted me near Magliana.
Monna Afra stood in the loggia watching him, her hand, lifted to her eyes to protect them from the rays of the setting sun. I told her that I had come from the Duke and on what errand, and presented the packet which he had given me.
She read it attentively, and without making any objection or inquiry, instantly brought the casket. But as she was about to unlock it something awoke her suspicions, and examining the key more attentively she thrust it before my eyes exclaiming, "Dog of a Christian, you have attempted to poison me!"
It needed but a glance to show her fears well founded, for the handle of the key once of shining copper was corroded to a virulent green, so that it resembled a bit of antique bronze, and I comprehended that her villain of a son had dipped the sharp-pointed crown of thorns in some deadly acid, hoping that in exercising some force in turning the lock she would lacerate her hand, and that he would thus compass her death.
As I remained speechless she took my condition as an evidence of guilt, and seizing a torch which hung in a metaltorchère, rushed upon the terrace waving it to and fro like a fury. Though I lacked not the wit to perceive that this was a signal of some sort, yet remembering the Duke's orders by all means to secure the casket, I did not immediately address myself to flight, but strove to wrest it from her by force. She, however, opposed me in this design with all her strength, and throwing it aside fell upon me with a most ungentle embrace, throttling me and burying her nails in my neck.
While we struggled thus I was aware of trampling feet and saw the loggia suddenly filled by a horde of barbarous pirates, refugee Moorish cut-throats, who had conceived the daring design of making a descent upon the outskirts of Rome to plunder its rich villas, and first that of Chigi, in revenge for the chastisement received at the hands of the Emperor.
For the moment my only thought was one of thankfulness for my release from this hell-cat, but as I stood with my arms pinioned Monna Afra brought forward a large sack and, as I understood from her expressive gestures, demanded that I should be sewn up therein and cast into the Tiber.
Though he had thrown aside the cloak in which he had previously disguised, I recognised the man whom I had already twice seen in the gaudily accoutred officer whom Afra now addressed as Hayraddin.
He spoke to her very earnestly, and I could see that what he said caused her the greatest consternation, for she tore her hair, howled and scratched her own face as vehemently as she had formerly maltreated mine.
Shaking her by the arm he continued to admonish her, until picking up the casket she retired into the interior of the villa. Then turning to me he addressed me in good Italian in these words:
"Most noble Signor: You cannot fail to have understood that my sister desired me to kill you, and that I could readily have done so; but I have explained to her that you are a great astrologer, for from the appearance of the heavens you announced to me yesterday the assassination of her son which news has not yet reached Rome—and has but this moment been told to me by a party of my men who intercepted the messenger at the Ponte Molle.
"In deference to your supernatural knowledge I spare your life, and shall leave you here bound and gagged, where in good time you will doubtless be discovered. This news of the death of my nephew has effected more than all my arguments and entreaties, for my sister has no further desire to remain in this accursed land, but will return with me to Africa."
Scarcely had he concluded when Monna Afra entered, heavily veiled and carrying an immense bundle. This one of the pirates took from her, and supported by two others she followed her brother and I saw her no more.
It was two full days, during which I neither ate nor drank, before I was released from my miserable plight, but even so I counted myself fortunate to have escaped with my life.
II"Ye mariners of SpainBend stoutly to your oarsAnd bring my love again,For he lies among the Moors."Old Spanish Song.
Foreseeing after the death of Duke Alessandro that Florence would long remain in a disordered condition, I deemed it a proper season to accept the overtures of his majesty, Francis I., King of the French, to enter into his service in France.
This patronage I owed solely to my own fame and not, as has been asserted, to the favour of his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, for that princess had no love for her supposed half-brother Alessandro, or for his Florentine familiars.
Though I could never have been accessory to such vile work as to stab an unarmed and unsuspecting man, yet often as I thought of Alessandro's satyr leer, and the loathing bravely coupled with defiance which I had seen leap in answer to it in the face of his child Duchess, I thanked God that Lorenzino had no such squeamish conscience.
And yet,—as in the virgin purity of the orange-blossom, the voluptuous perfume yearningly foretells the luscious, perfect fruit, and the blush of the peach-bloom shows the flower coyly but triumphantly conscious that it will one day ripen into mouth-watering deliciousness,—so even then there were hints and prophecies in Margaret's budding womanliness that the time was approaching when she would not only awaken love but would herself know the joy of loving.
The time and the man were nearer than I thought.
It was a matter of but six years subsequent to our first meeting that, chancing to be again in Rome, I next encountered Ottavio Farnese.
He was no longer the pretty page who had served the Duchess at the Villa Madama, but had grown into a tall, handsome youth, with the first down of manhood upon his lip. Though much lighter in weight than myself and his rapier as slender as a child's toy, he had been well taught in fencing, as I learned when meeting him by chance in front of St. Peter's church, he, to my utter surprise, fell upon me crying out that I was a scurvy knave unfit to live.
As I am not the man to swallow insults of this sort we slashed at one another without further ceremony until the Papal guards, rushing from the Vatican, separated us. Recognising Ottavio as the grandson of the Pope (for Cardinal Farnese had on the death of Clement VI. succeeded to the tiara), they demanded why we fought. I replied that I had not the least idea, but Ottavio declared that it was to force me to confess what I had done with the casket which I had been commissioned to bring to the Duchess Margaret at Florence.
Laughing a little at his own zeal, but with all due deference I told him how the casket had been carried away by the Moors, on the evening when I repaired to Villa Madama to fetch it, and I had the happiness to convince him of the truth of my statement.
Dismissing the guards he strolled with me in the most amicable manner, informing me of many events which had happened during my absence in France.
The first in importance to himself was the fact that he was more madly than ever in love with the Duchess, and that she having experienced the brutality of one husband had no mind to venture another, and had announced her firm intention to remain a widow for the rest of her life.
In spite of this he had told her of his love, but she had treated him as a child and made sport of his passion.
"I shall die of her disdain," he said to me, "for my love is beyond my power to conquer."
Taking him by the hand and perceiving that he was in a fever, and that unless some hope was extended to him he must lose either his life or his reason, I counselled him to keep a stout heart. "For," said I, "though you are young it is a fault which will lessen as years go by, and the Emperor surely will not look upon his daughter's repugnance to marriage with approval. Rumour hath it that he is on his way to punish, for a second time, the Moorish pirates who are back in their old nest at Tunis. When he visits Rome you should persuade the Pope to intercede with him in your behalf."
"As if I had not already thought of that!" Ottavio replied. "I have freely opened my heart to my grandfather, and he has negotiated with the Emperor, who is as favourable to an alliance with a Farnese Pope as he was to a similar compact with the Medici. Charles could force his daughter to accept me, as he compelled her to marry Alessandro; but I will not win her in that way, and she despises me, doubtless, for what she considers my pusillanimity.
"When I pleaded with her but yesterday bidding her set me any task to accomplish as a proof of my love—she laughed scornfully, saying that she had no lack of pages to fetch and carry unless it were to demand of Benvenuto Cellini the casket which he had forgotten to return to her.
"Then, though I knew that you, Benvenuto, were accounted a desperate man, I swore to her that I would not enter her presence again until I had fulfilled her behest. Yea, and I will fulfil it, for I will sail with the Emperor on this expedition to Tunis and will find the hag Afra and wrest it from her."
"Your determination," I replied, "is a good one, and, as the adventure appeals to me, I will go with you. I have already met Hayraddin, commander of the Corsairs and brother of Monna Afra, who should know the whereabouts of the casket, and I may be able to aid you in obtaining it."
As the affair turned out, though Ottavio did indeed sail for Africa with the Emperor, I was not allowed to accompany him, for his father, feigning to believe that the casket, together with certain valuable jewels stolen from Pope Clement, was in my possession, or at least hidden in some spot nearer to Rome than Tunis, caused me to be imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, until such time as I should make restitution.
He did this, moreover, without informing his son of my arrest, so that Ottavio departed believing that I had wilfully failed of my promise to go with him. But I was not alone in misfortune, for the Emperor far from achieving victories similar to those which crowned his previous expedition, met with terrible storms which scattered the ships of his fleet and wrecked many of them upon the coast of Africa, where the savage barbarians, descending upon the drowning mariners, massacred them in cold blood.
Word was brought back to Rome that this was the fate both of the Emperor and of Ottavio Farnese, and though this proved but an unfounded rumour, the heart of the gentle Margaret was filled with remorse as well as grief, for having driven so chivalrous a youth and one who loved her so devotedly to his death.
She mourned him most sincerely, wearing widow's weeds in his honour as though she had in reality been his bride. Such is the strange contrariety of a woman's heart that he who living had been the object of her scorn, was now loved with the most vehement passion.
When at last it was known that the Emperor and Ottavio had indeed been rescued and were returning to Italy, but that the latter was dangerously ill, her transports of alternate joy and foreboding were most piteous to behold.
I was a witness to them, for at this time by twisting my sheets into a rope I had most marvellously escaped from the battlements of St. Angelo.
As I deemed it prudent to remain for a time in hiding and knew that the Villa Madama was unoccupied, I had repaired thither under cover of the night, and without undressing had slept soundly upon the floor, the house being denuded of furniture.
But in the morning I was awakened by a great clatter of trampling horses and sumpter mules, and springing to my feet and finding myself confronted by the Duchess I gave myself up for lost. This was, however, the most fortunate circumstance which could have happened to me, for on hearing my story she promised me her protection and her intercession with the Pope. She told me also that she had come with all this train of servants and household stuff to put the villa in order for the reception of her betrothed husband, Ottavio Farnese, as a more salubrious residence than her palace at Rome, and more conducive to his rapid recovery.
And hither, shortly after, he was borne in a litter and I beheld their rapturous meeting, and certes the spectacle of so great joy went far toward repaying me for all the misfortunes which I had suffered.
The young Duke, though very weak, extended his hand to me with a smile, saying that I was ever Benvenuto (welcome), and reminding me how in that very spot I had assisted at incantations which had foretold that he would one day be the husband of the Duchess, which prognostication was now so miraculously fulfilled. "I have," he added, "but one regret—that I come to her forsworn, for I promised ere claiming her as my wife to recover the casket."
"That promise, my Lord," I made haste to reply, "you shall keep, for I have been more fortunate in my quest than your excellency."
I then showed him the secret hiding-place constructed by Pope Clement in the wall; for, while prowling in the villa, I had remembered what Duke Alessandro had said of it, and had not failed to press each one of the Medici balls, so frequently employed in the decoration of the villa, until I lighted upon the ingenious spring which disclosed the recess, and within it a package marked with the name of the Duchess.
The wrapper had mouldered away with dampness and discovered the casket with the poisoned key still in the lock, having been so left by that wicked Afra with the express design of revenging herself upon the innocent Margaret for the death of her abominable son, and perhaps also upon Margaret's father for the misfortunes which he had occasioned her race.
The Duchess being called, evinced the greatest joy and would have fallen into the trap and have unlocked the casket at once, had I not first discovered the key and sent for a pair of pincers with which I turned it. While waiting the arrival of the pincers she asked her consort if he had any idea why she set such store upon the casket.
"Doubtless," he replied with a frown, "because it contains the portrait of your husband, who, with all his faults, was at least a brave man."
"You have rightly guessed," she answered, "the bravest of the brave and the only man whom I have ever loved."
I marvelled to hear her thus speak, until the lid being opened, we discovered, not my medal of Alessandro de' Medici, for that Margaret had long ago given to his mother as an inconsiderate trifle; but the likeness of the pretty page, Ottavio, which I had painted at their first acquaintance; and which, in despite all contrariety of womanly coquetry, had remained as ineffaceably imprinted upon her heart.
FLOWER O' THE PEACH
Now for a tale illustrativeThat shall delight my passion for romance,Embodying hints authentic of some theme. . . . . . .Or incident that to my knowledge cameWhen sojourning abroad, the background true;Like to some faded tapestry retouchedWith the seductive broidery-work of fancy.Anon—altered.
I
LET the trovere ease her conscience at the outset—the tale about to be recorded isovertrue.
Even as there was more truth than called for in the testimony of that ingenious witness who, being adjured by the judge to speak the truth, replied: "Of a surety, your honor, that will I, the truth, the whole truth, and—a little more."
But the little more which I shall give you is peradventure the truest part of my tale; for, though you will find it not in the chronicles of such historiographers as give their quills solely to statecraft and wars, yet it lies like a pressed flower between the musty leaves of thenovelliniof Franco Sacchetti and of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, who relate with great particularity the artifice by which the head of the house of the Aldobrandini won his bride.
Let who will carp that in combining matter from various sources I have followed the example of those unscrupulous antiquaries who, discovering an antique statue, straightway replace its missing parts by others lying near at hand, or, more criminal still, complete it according to the whims of their own fancy.
To that accusation needs must that I plead at the outsetmea culpa, advancing only that the original torso as well as the legs and arms which I have made free to assemble are still preserved, properly ticketed, in the museum of history, while for him who cavils with the authenticity of this "restoration" the buried palaces of the ancient world patiently await exhumation to yield to each body its own particular members, and to each excavator his own treasure trove.